Something about this trip to Las Vegas made me feel that I was getting out of touch with the lifestyle of today.  While the pandemic made travel difficult, we have been on three cruises during the past year or so, with a couple of international trips.  So what made this more recent experience particularly humbling? To begin, on the flight from Honolulu to San Francisco, everyone in business class seemed to be prepared with bluetooth earphones to listen to their TV screen.  Never occurred to me to bring something like that.  It took a couple of hours to gently inquire about the audio options.  The steward said, oh, here is an earphone, and this is where you connect.  Plus, they did not retrieve this ear plug device, so I had one for the next flight to Las Vegas, and back home. There were 100 channels linked to DIRECTV, close to being the equivalent of what is available at home.  There were also at least a hundred films available. When I got to the Circa Resort, after check-in, getting t

I've already said a lot about the Fremont Street Experience, but walking up and down that covered street scene was about the only thing we did yesterday. Here is where you can get a sense and whiff of the culture of Las Vegas. A pedestrian mall in the olde downtown known for years as Glitter Gulch, for it had the first neon signs. The ceiling is 90 feet high and runs for 1375 feet. There are three stages, and the acts are usually free. There is the SlotZilla zip line if that is your interest. Some history. Fremont Street had Las Vegas' first hotel ( Hotel Nevada in 1906 that is today called the Golden Gate ). First telephone in 1907, paved street ( 1925 ), gaming license to the Northern Club, traffic light, elevator ( Apache Hotel ) in 1932 and high rise.  Can you believe this was the Fremont Hotel in 1956?   The Horseshoe was the first casino to install carpeting, and the Golden Nugget was the first structure designed to be a casino. However, by 1992 80% of the casino market w

When I first left Honolulu for California in 1958, our state population was 650,000.   Metro Las Vegas only had 75,000 people.  Today, Hawaii has 1.43 million people and Greater Las Vegas is twice our size, soon to hit 3 million people.   While Hawaii will soon top out at 10 million visitors/year, Las Vegas has historically received 40 million annual tourists. The city of Las Vegas has a population of 660,00, while Henderson, 16 miles away ( and part of greater Las Vegas ), has 330,000, making it the second largest city in the state.  Reno, not part of Greater Las Vegas, has 269,000 people and is #3. Some history: People began living in this general area from over 10,000 years ago, with Paiutes coming around 700 AD. Mexican scout  Rafel Rivera  in 1829 was the first non-native American visitor, and soon thereafter, this site was named Las Vegas, Spanish for meadows. The Battle of the Alamo for Texas independence from Mexico occurred in 1836, leading to our war  with our neighbor to our