10 places I've visited while in Vegas that the average tourist hasn't

Perhaps I'll enhance this with photos and/or links some day, but for now, here's a simple list of 10 things I've seen/visited during my 22 years of traveling to Vegas that I suspect the average Vegas tourist has not. To be fair, most folks aren't that interested in many of these places.

In no particular order:

1. Rhyolite ghost town, which is more than two hours north of downtown.

2. The defunct Flipperspiel Wunderland pinball joint, back when it was in the same general vicinity as the Pinball Hall of Fame. (It evolved, moved and doesn't really exist these days, but it was an interesting alternative to the famous pinball haven of Vegas.)

3. Mt. Charleston Lodge, a high-altitude restaurant that plenty of people visit, but it's unlikely most Vegas tourists ever venture up the big hill.

4. Valley of Fire, a state park that I find more interesting than Red Rock Canyon, which is closer and therefore draws more Vegas tourists.

5. Freakling Bros. Trilogy of Terror and Las Vegas Haunts (Two local haunted attractions that have been around for years during the Halloween season.)

6. The Magical Forest, a fundraising holiday light display held during the Christmas season.

7. Wheel of Misfortune (Nobody does a better job of detailing this site better than the fine folks at Vital Vegas: https://vitalvegas.com/wheel-of-misfortune-las-vegas-discovery/)

8. Bonnie and Clyde's death car at Whiskey Pete's Casino in Primm. Plenty of California visitors who drive to Vegas have stopped at these Nevada border casinos, I'm sure. Those of us who fly to Vegas probably don't ever end up in Primm. 

9. Searchlight, Nevada: A few years ago we drove to Laughlin late in the afternoon simply because we needed an excuse to drive the rented BMW convertible more than five miles from our hotel. On the way back we stopped at one of the tiny casinos in Searchlight, which I had stopped at years prior. The casino had Rolling Rock on tap for 50 cents. I splurged and bought a bottle of Bud Light for $1.

10. Colorado River: Last summer I went kayaking below the Hoover Dam. There are plenty of companies offering river excursions, and plenty of people doing them, but those of us who have are likely in the small minority of Vegas tourists who do. I don't sense a lot of people are aware that river kayaking is a thing.

Bonus entries: Grand Canyon Skywalk and Cashman Field (in 2018, the final season the Las Vegas 51s minor league baseball team played its home games there)

A Tape Face franchise?

I couldn't help but share thoughts on a fresh new blog post by the fine folks at Vital Vegas. (It's one guy!)

I posted most of my comments below on Scott's blog, but I'll replicate them here, with one addendum and a few clarifications. Most important, if you want the commentary below about Vegas headliner Tape Face to make any sense, read Scott's fresh, new and exciting blog post first. It's right here: Vital Vegas hyperlink

Here's my three cents, two I shared on his blog, and one I added:

When Bon Jovi comes to Vegas and plays a concert, you’re not getting the band that recorded “Slippery When Wet.” Richie Sambora ain’t in the band.

People come and go in bands. That’s the nature of bands. But typically it’s well known. Nobody is fooled into thinking they’re seeing Sambora on guitar in 2019.

KISS is a more interesting band. They switched out guys in the 80s and 90s, then reunited the original band in the latter half of the 90s, and are back to mixing and matching. Of course, for the last 15+ years they’ve had different musicians playing the roles of the Space Man and the Cat, two of the four costumed musicians from the 70s. It’s all very public.

And it offended some longtime, hard core KISS fans. The original KISS members doubled as characters, but a lot of fans didn’t like that they hired replacements rather than bring in new characters in the early 2000s, as they did in the early 80s before KISS was “unmasked.”

It seems shady to sell the persona of Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the 2000s, but KISS has enough fans that they’ve kept making money. Some people claimed they no longer wanted to support the entity, but plenty of people don’t seem to care, so KISS continues printing money, and Tape Face is taking a page from Gene Simmons’ playbook.

For what little I know, I agree: Tape Face has been known as, and associated with, one person. I don’t know the history, but I’m guessing there were others who helped “Sam,” the actor/comedian behind the tape, develop his act. But it was his act, I’m guessing, not the act of an ensemble who took turns doing the shtick. To suddenly franchise it out seems insulting to the fans.

While it shouldn’t be trusted, there’s no suggestion I saw to indicate that Tape Face is a brand, according to Sam’s Wikipedia page. I’m going to guess the paint is still drying on the branding. Awfully convenient, all of a sudden, that his longtime character is a brand, don’tcha think?

It’d be one thing if Tape was retiring, and his son was following in his footsteps, and he handed off the character to his son. But to simply train another performer seems fraudulent, unless you’re selling it as Tape Face, Too, and making it clear who you’re getting on stage.

I would be pissed if I paid to see Carrot Top and showed up to find out that another guy with curly red hair is telling the jokes that night, and pretending to be Carrot Top.

The Tape Face corporation may be noting Sam has a protege via social media, but it sounds like the corporation is trying to monetize the shtick with its own franchise employees and not be forthcoming about it. That’s dirty business, no matter how you justify it.

Reminds me of the odd story of how there were two comedians selling the comedy of Gallagher, the odd comedian who got big laughs for smashing produce with a sledgehammer. This paragraph tells a bit about the bizarre dueling Gallaghers: Gallagher Two hyperlink

Virtual Las Vegas: What a strange world it is

Here's a little exercise I like to challenge people with occasionally: When did you first learn about the Internet?

I knew of the Internet back in the 1980s, although I don't think anyone referred to it as the Internet. But I knew that through the power of a computer, telephone and acoustic coupler, you could connect to the world in a way I never dreamed of. And I certainly never dreamed of buying comic books (I collected them) through a computer, and having them delivered to my door, without ever leaving the house. Needless to say, there's a lot of things I never imagined using a computer to do. And here I am, doing a variety of things every week that I never would have believed were possible 25 years ago.

A photo of an acoustic coupler. I don't remember where I lifted it, but I found it via Google. This was how we did the Internet in the 1980s, before anyone knew what the Internet was.

I don't know when I learned of the Internet that we know and love today. I do know that I had dabbled with it prior to May 1997, when I left a desolate, Canadian-like community for my triumphant return to the big city. I had used email and accessed websites through a community college computer system, but those opportunities were few and far between. Cellphones were a luxury at that time, I would never have imagined I'd not only come to rely upon one, but that it would essentially become a computer.

But to this day I don't remember when I first understood the concept of the modern Internet. I would assume it was at some point during 1996.

Moral of the story: This powerful tool I use daily, many times per day, was non-existent in my world 25 years ago.

My first trip to Las Vegas occurred in January 1997. At that point it never occurred to me that I might want to seek information about Sin City via the Internet, which I had limited access to. Who knows what I might have found in late 1996. Not a hell of a lot, I'd bet.

I've been reflecting upon how my world, and my relationship with Vegas, has changed as a result of the Internet. A recent change in my online world signaled the time to finally put a few of those thoughts into words.

I have used Vegas message forums for a long time. The message forum was my first introduction to the world of Vegas chatting, and I believe it's still the best. But message forums are not as popular as they once were. I have been a member of a few Vegas forums over the years, and continue to use one to this day.

Part of the reason forums have lost their luster -- perhaps the main reason -- is Facebook. Today we have Facebook groups that bring people together when they have a shared interest. There are plenty of Vegas groups, big and small, available through Facebook. I belong to a handful, but I don't actively use most of them.

I find Facebook groups are less effective ways to share information, but I get why they're popular. Facebook is, if you believe online statistics, the third most popular website on the planet, behind Google and YouTube. A website that exists primarily for the purpose of personal communication, and is open to the masses, is the perfect place for Vegas enthusiasts to connect and chat. You have a question about Vegas that you need an answer to? You join a Vegas group and you have hundreds or thousands of people available to answer. And you're already on Facebook anyway, posting pictures of your cute kids. Could it be any easier?

The drawback to Facebook groups is that you don't have categories of discussions. Go to a Vegas forum and you might find sections dedicated to the strip, downtown, off-strip casinos, gambling strategy, transportation and bargains. You can search for topics by keyword on Facebook, but Facebook's groups are not highly organized. That's why a Vegas message forum is still an important resource for me after more than 15 years.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it has opened up so many opportunities for those of use who use a computer. I had no idea in 1997 that I'd go to Vegas more than 40 times during the next 25 years of my life. And I certainly didn't dream that I'd be one of many voices in the online world sharing thoughts about a popular vacation destination. Yet here I am.

And I'm not even a blip on the radar. There are folks who do far more interesting, far more compelling work than I do. If you're reading this, then chances are you are familiar with Vital Vegas and Vegas Unfiltered.

Vital Vegas provides inside scoop like nobody can. I've been reading it for years, and rarely does a day go by without me checking it for new content. Vegas Unfiltered provides interesting content that's hard to find anywhere else these days. Both of the blogs are one-man operations, and the authors are well connected, but their websites don't exist to generate income, as best I can tell. I've been fortunate enough to meet the authors of both of these blogs during my visits to Vegas. I never imagined meeting total strangers when I first visited Vegas in 1997. And thanks to the Internet I've been reading the writing of two people I'd have otherwise never met. How cool is that?

The users of Facebook groups and message forums like to organize social gatherings, and that makes total sense. When you communicate with a group of people for an extended period of time, it seems like a natural thing to want to meet the faces behind the screen name. I don't make it a priority to meet up with groups of strangers, but I've done it occasionally.

On Halloween morning, 2011, I met up with a small group of message forum users at the El Cortez. I don't remember much about that group, other than our de facto leader that day was a gentleman named Dewey. Dewey is one of those guys who contributes a lot, is well liked and finds his way to Vegas now and again. Or at least he did until recently.

I have appreciated everything Dewey has offered to the online world, either through the message forum or through his own blog writing, and I've managed to keep in touch with him. We may only trade messages a couple of times per year, but that has been going on for more than seven years. And we did manage to meet up again a few years after that first meeting, when another Halloween trip overlapped. Dewey is that cool guy in high school that everybody wanted to be friends with, and I am lucky enough to be able to brag that Dewey is a friend of mine.

For my Halloween 2016 trip I was staying at The Plaza. That hotel just happened to be the home base of a couple of people from the Facebook group Everything Las Vegas. I was actively using the group at the time, and despite my aversion to mixing and mingling with a group of relative strangers, I stopped into their early evening social gathering for 30 minutes. I was able to meet a few of the group's leaders and regular members, people I recognized by name and face. It was a nice perk of being a part of that group. I hope I get to enjoy another such gathering some day, even if nobody remembers me more than two years later.

There are great resources online, and great people behind them, usually. After an hour of reminiscing, I'll close for now and plan to continue my online reflections in a second chapter about Virtual Las Vegas. Despite the fact it takes me weeks to put thoughts together, I'll bend over backwards to keep it from being six weeks before I finish what I've started.

How much help does the north end of the strip need?

I don't make enough time for creative writing. I love writing, I really do. But it's not the most efficient way of communicating thoughts and ideas, and I'm not the most colorful, animated writer out there.

If I lived in Vegas I'd definitely be producing video content in conjunction with, or in place of, this blog.

I don't religiously watch any of the Vegas "vlogger" channels on YouTube. The one I watch the most often is often not Vegas-specific, but I consider Wonderhussy a Vegas vlogger. Her exploration videos of the Nevada desert are a lot of fun.

I periodically watch "Jacob's Life in Vegas" for local commentary. He has been at it for a long time, discusses a variety of Vegas topics -- not all of which are of interest to me -- and mixes in the sights and sounds of Sin City now and again.

His recent video about the north end of the strip isn't particularly revealing, but he has a couple of interesting observations about its future, and I can't disagree with him.

As any Vegas regular knows, the north end of the strip isn't nearly as spectacular as it use to be. We've lost properties big and small, historic and not-so-historic. We had a decent investment made into a boutique hotel just off the north end of the strip, which crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. And we've had a major investment in revitalization fall flat on its face. Never mind the fact we lost a tired landmark of the north strip less than four years ago, demolished for a promise that has yet to be realized.

Jacob talks about the sad state of affairs that is the north end of the strip, and speculates about what the future holds. There's promise.

We have a decade-old unfinished building that is allegedly going to finally open in my lifetime, and the stalled project on the former site of the grand Stardust is finally taking shape. We know that the  Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which bought the Riviera property and leveled it, is suggesting the time has finally come to do something with the property. In the meantime the former Sahara, which bombed with its rebrand as a upper echelon property, is getting another major cash infusion by a known player in the casino industry, and the tired, alienated Stratosphere is rebranding itself with a shorter name and a cash infusion, as well.

I'm not sure how much those cash infusions will help the lonely former Sahara and Stratosphere, but the places are rather depressing if you drop by at the times I do, which is not Friday and Saturday nights or during the Super Bowl. People rent the rooms and stay at the property, but given their location and their lack of economic incentive to visit, you've got to really want to see a show or eat at a restaurant at either property in order to pay a visit.

Everybody agrees that new development on the north end will benefit all parties involved. Jacob notes that the addition of new rooms is good for the consumer, as it creates competition. That's true, but in the past decade or so we've lost the Riviera, Stardust and New Frontier, not to mention the one-time off-strip holding of Debbie Reynolds and the Westward Ho, a smaller, low-cost option on the strip that I stayed at during a solo trip in 2004, with no complaints, given I was a poor bastard. There are always new rooms opening on the strip, and we have seen plenty of high-end rooms at Aria and Cosmopolitan replace the lower-end rooms we lost to the north.

What will new development do for the north end of the strip? I'm highly skeptical it will do a lot any time soon.

If you build a new casino, people will visit it. People love shiny and new. New rooms and a new casino property are sure to draw plenty of visitors. But that alone won't sustain a property. Lucky Dragon proved that.

But the Resorts World project at the site of the former Stardust, is much bigger, surely it will be enough, in and of itself, to keep people coming back, yes? Maybe. Location isn't an insurmountable obstacle, but it doesn't help, and Resorts World is just far enough away that it won't benefit from the foot traffic that Bellagio gets from both north and south. It would take quite an array of attractions to replicate Bellagio traffic at Resorts World.

Jacob suggests that Resorts World, as well as the incomplete Drew, the tower north of the former Riviera, will have to offer deals to get people to spend their time and disposable income. He's right, but that's unlikely. You don't build hotels in today's dollars in order to offer discount rates. Yes, casinos will always offer comped rooms to their regular gamblers who have a habit of dropping cash on the property, but you don't open a hotel in 2020 and offer room pricing that competes with Comfort Inn. There will always be incentives available to fill the rooms thanks to the fiercely competitive nature of Vegas resorts, but you won't see Orleans pricing at new projects on the north end of the strip. And it's not as if the Bellagio and Wynn are turning away their high-buck clientele on a regular basis, otherwise we'd have seen more construction in the past several years.

The biggest boost to any property developing on the north end of the strip will be the expansion of the convention center. Originally that expansion was supposed to be right up to the sidewalk of the strip, but now there's rumblings a portion of the former Riviera property is available for purchase and development. On the surface, that seems like a brilliant strategy for redeveloping the property.

Once the convention center expands, all the properties on the north end will benefit, without question. Will that be enough to turn the former Sahara into the same bustling property as it was in the 1970s? Perhaps. Until that day, when all of the properties are operating and feeding off of each other, it's going to be more famine than feast by the time you head north of the Wynn.

Jacob also notes that the new properties on the north end won't be able to get away with the same gouging that other strip properties do. Namely: Charge for parking. I tend to agree. Asking people to pay for parking on the strip is like asking people to pay for parking at a suburban mall. It's ridiculous. It has hurt the strip overall, although how much depends upon whom you ask.

I think new properties can get away with charging for parking, if they can drive enough high-end customers to the property. But given that's unlikely, the new properties had better do everything they can to entice customers, and not charging for parking will be an important one. I could see a scenario where free parking and an expanded convention center would cause problems, but we'll ignore that for now.

It seems simple...probably too simple. The best way to fill a casino and keep it filled is to offer old-school Vegas value. The problem is that new construction cannot pay down its debt and sustain its operation by offering deep discounting. Anything that opens on the north end of the strip in the coming years is going to walk a fine line between the two, and can't afford a major misstep in either direction.

Life downtown was much different circa April 2016

I vaguely remember that night in April 2016, and it wasn't much different than tonight.

It's January 2019. I'm sitting in the same spot I was nearly three years ago. I can't promise, but in late April of 2016 there likely wasn't much snow on the ground outside my Minnesota home. And here I am in the dead of winter nearly three years later, and there are scant traces of snow. It has been a weird winter here in the cold north.

It was a weeknight in 2016 when I was sitting at the computer, later than I should have been, and reading breaking news from the Vital Vegas blog about the sale of downtown properties to the brothers Stevens. I wrote an instant response to that late evening blog post, much to the surprise of the blog's author. (I'll take praise anywhere I can get it.) And, as I'm wont to do, I provided a copy editing recommendation. (That's something only us writers understand.)

It has been nearly three years since news broke that we were losing a couple of tiny grind joints, a dying-on-the-vine casino and a dingy strip club. (That's what everyone tells me. I am proud to say I never saw the interior for myself.) Nearly three years later I'm typing on the same laptop computer about the future of downtown, and sitting in the same seat.

I can pretend to have Vegas insight, but I'm just speculating, along with everyone else. Yet there's one thing I'm confident of, the brothers Stevens are going to hit a home run if they follow through with the plans they've announced earlier this evening.

I'm still unclear why the name makes sense, but the former site of the Las Vegas Club, and other adjacent businesses, will be a new casino resort known as Circa. New rooms, new amenities and lots of uncheap booze will soon occupy the vacant lot at the west end of downtown Vegas. It's probably not for me, but I like it nonetheless.

The basic concept of the new project surprises no one.

You don't build a new property to cater to low rollers, and you don't build a new property downtown that replicates everything already offered in the business district. Therefore you end up with the plans unveiled earlier this evening, a new resort named Circa.

Nothing about this announcement surprises me. As I noted, you don't build a new resort and hope to attract low rollers with simple, cheap rooms and sparse amenities. Given downtown casinos don't have the luxury of grandiose features that their strip counterparts do, building anew allows the brothers Stevens to design a sports book that is unmatched downtown. (It will be the largest anywhere, allegedly.)  I've never sensed that sports books are the most lucrative element of the casino, but they generate a lot of traffic, and one of the keys to success is getting people in the door. Circa will accomplish that.

The elaborate sports book doesn't appeal to me, as I'm not one to spend hours in an area dedicated to wagering on sports. I make an occasional sports bet when I'm in Vegas, but it's a tiny part of my Vegas vacation.

Other major amenities planned for Circa include an elaborate pool and a spa. I suspect both of these will be smashing successes as well.

Neither element is a surprise. It has been known that the elaborate, multi-tiered pool area Circa promises has been on the Stevens radar all along. And why not? I've never understood the appeal of a "day club," but plenty of strip casinos market the hell out of the concept, and the people who favor such an atmosphere are willing to pay plenty for the privilege.

The strip casinos wouldn't bother with turning their pools into day clubs if they didn't generate meaningful cash. Although I've never experienced the preciousness of a day club, I know people drop a lot of cash for the privilege of enjoying a manufactured party in a pool. The concept wouldn't have appealed to me 20 years ago, and surprisingly doesn't appeal to me now. But I sense plenty of people who like the downtown vibe are interested in turning their afternoon in the sun into a raucous, lustful party. And the brothers Stevens are wisely banking on it. When people are willing to pay approximately $180 per case of beer at a fancy pool on the strip, I'd try to get a piece of that action, too.

There's no question the pool scene downtown is lackluster. This brings an element of the strip to downtown Vegas. I don't expect thousands to follow, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a healthy crowd dropping fat stacks of greenbacks on expensive handcrafted cocktails served by the pool. You can't put a price on that!

Like pools, spas are a foreign concept downtown. I get it, most of us who stay downtown aren't looking for the fanciest amenities, and there would be far more options buried within the bowels of the Plaza or the upstairs floors of  El Cortez if the demand was there. (Instead we get Happy Feet on level 2 of ElCo.) But you can't attract a high-end crowd to find its way to your high-end resort if there's nothing for them to dump all that discretionary cash that lines their pockets. A top-notch spa will garner plenty of fans, even if the Golden Nugget is already catering to that clientele.

My biggest disappointment is that I didn't hear anything about a fancy or exclusive showroom. I know we have a few showrooms in Vegas, and they're not exactly hotbeds of entertainment. Nobody seems to have the space to dedicate to a major production the way the strip properties to, and the downtown crowd doesn't seem to be particularly hungry for anything more than a free movie stage. So I can't say I'm not surprised that a major showroom is not part of the announcement. There are places for such shows, and Circa clearly isn't one of them.

So how successful will Circa be? It's no secret Vegas has been taking it on the chin in recent years. Increased resort fees, parking fees on the strip, high-buck bottled domestic beers at fancy casinos less favorable gambling conditions are not helping the city's image. And Circa is not the only project in development at the moment.

But for all the disappointment Vegas delivers with each passing year, nothing is replacing it. People may choose to gamble closer to home more often. And they may choose to visit other cities. But few places are cheap to visit, and for all the ways online commerce has changed the world we live in, virtual vacations are not a thing. People need to go somewhere to enjoy life, whatever the cost. Vegas still delivers incredible value. And for those who can afford more than value when they travel, (perhaps that will be me some day,) Vegas still holds a lot of appeal, despite its sins.

Circa won't be a license to print money, but plenty of people have plenty of cash to spend, as Vegas proves year after year. And there's enough of those folks willing to spend it downtown, I'm certain. Every hotel has high-end accommodations, but only the Golden Nugget markets that vibe from top to bottom. I don't think the addition of Circa is going to oversaturate that market. And the brothers Stevens are wisely positioned to pounce on that.

Nothing is foolproof, or impervious to the woes of our economy, but Circa is the downtown opportunity that nobody has jumped on, until now.