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*I’ve decided to do a series of T-pisodes that capture my travels throughout my life. In three paragraphs. I’ll post them every once in a while. Some places I’ve been to a few times, others only once. And some I will probably never go back to because of what went down there.
**This was written before the recent horrific event in Las Vegas.
I was trying to come up with places to visit this year after a trip to Australia with my niece fell through. I was going to take my mother to Scotland and Ireland but some complications with her health stopped that. It was almost summer and my father…yes that father…was telling my mother that he and I should go to Las Vegas. I was hesitant for a while but as I got closer to my 40th birthday and the growing issues with my mother’s health, I decided to throw caution into the wind and booked a week in Vegas with my father. I’ll share more details on all of this in a future T-pisode. Now on to Vegas…
My earlier trips to Vegas when I was in my 20s are perfectly captured in this now classic T-pisode here. I wrote that in 2010. This was 2017 and 12 years had passed since my last trip to Sin City. I had changed a lot. And Vegas sure as hell changed a lot. And some of it was not for the better. My biggest beef really was how family friendly it had become! I mean holy shit there were families everywhere. EVERYWHERE. At the hotels…at the pools…at the bars…on the strip at all hours…on the casino floors…oh my God it was ridiculous! Why would you take your family to Las Vegas?! It’s not Disney World!!! That woman at the corner is not a cartoon character kid, she’s a fucking stripper! And one thing that sure did not change in Vegas was the heat. Summers in that desert are still extremely brutal. It was so bad during the day that my father stayed inside the hotels until nighttime like some sort of grumpy, Italian, elderly vampire. One of the cool things about going to Vegas at almost 40 with your father is being able to slow things down and enjoy the high-end restaurants and shows LV has to offer. I never really did that when I was younger. Because I was a damn maniac. But back then I had to save up for every little expense and I had to split everything with like 3 to 5 other dudes to pull those trips off. This time around we stayed in a suite in the Bellagio and ate $300 steak dinners on me like it was nothing. Nothing. And I appreciated that. My father also appreciated that. Between taking in fireworks above Caesars Palace on July 4th to seeing David Copperfield, O by Cirque du Soleil and smoking Cuban cigars washed down with 35 year-old Port wine, it was a true grown man’s trip in Las Vegas. Sure we did some gambling and visited some “gentlemanly” establishments as well but mostly we bonded. It took us almost 40 years, but we finally found a common peace. And I’ll write all about that soon enough. Las Vegas brought us both inner peace. Never would’ve thunk it. Never.
Las Vegas has changed. I have changed. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to Vegas. Not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I got an ending to a lot of things out there in that desert that week in July and I want to keep it that way. My earlier trips there in my 20s were epic. EPIC. From wild, dirty boys trips to crazy bachelor parties to partying with celebrities to the birthplace of my alter ego “Nasty T” to good times with a bevy of beautiful women to a grown man’s bookend closure with my father. And I now feel like Vegas and I wrote our perfect story. Las Vegas is one hell of a place. But I love Boston the best.
Until next time. Always take it there.
T
T-blawg 