I am an aspirational packer. I'm not sure when I started viewing travel as the ultimate self-improvement opportunity, but I do. My running shoes have seen the world, mostly from the inside of a suitcase. Some of the world's literary treasures on my bookshelves have also gone on tour. The Brothers Karamazov might winter in Bali next year on the frequent-flyer miles they've accumulated while waiting for me to read about them. They're still waiting, racking up those miles. Every time they go back to the bookshelf, they brag about the places they've seen to Anna Karenina, who stands next to them. She's only brought along on longer trips. You know, for me to read when I'm done with the Brothers.
I would never presume to sit down and read Dostoyevsky's classics in my living room (When? During Monday Night Football or Friends?), but in the fantastical world of travel, I fancy myself a true Renaissance man. So somewhere in the depressingly imposing mound of luggage in my Sunset Station room, I wouldn't be surprised to find a guitar, a Latin primer, a physics textbook, or a knitting kit. You never know what that nutty packer back in New York will throw in.
If Bellagio is a stunning departure from the older Strip hotels that cater to tourists, the Sunset Station Hotel & Casino, in the thriving suburb of Henderson, is an equally revolutionary move away from the classic seedy "grind joints" that once serviced local gamblers. Like the mall across the street, Sunset Station is a pleasant public space striving to become suburbia's answer to the lost town square. And it is a cheery, well-designed, welcoming environment, with its brewery, surprisingly good restaurants, rows upon rows of video poker machines, multiscreen cinema, and Funquest, a place to check your kids. There's even a Borders bookstore next door.
Most of the people milling about in the middle of a school day, or standing in the Disneyesque lines at the buffet, appeared to be retirees. The woman waiting in line in front of me at the coffee shop said she and some "girl" friends have a "Hump Day Club" that meets at Sunset every week. They eat, play the slots, catch a movie, and then go crazy in the bingo hall. She's 78, a refugee from Chicago's winters.
More insidiously, these casinos also serve as full-fledged financial-services firms. Sunset and its sister Station Casinos properties have perfected the art of paycheck-cashing ploys, in which everyone (but especially the house) is a winner. These should make a juicy target for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission when it comes into town for hearings next month. Cash your paycheck at Sunset and you get a "Paycheck Bonanza" scratch-off ticket. And if you don't win that $25,000, you at least get a meal or a margarita. The point being, relax, stay awhile. Got some cash?
On the edge of the casino there was even a booth where you could apply for a Visa card, on which, instead of accruing frequent flyer miles, you accrue points redeemable for cash at your favorite Station Casino. One bleary-eyed guy wanted a card right then and there but had no form of ID. He was swearing at the poor lady behind this booth, he found this requirement for credit so unreasonable.
From Sunset, I went to the command center in Las Vegas' frantic battle to cope with its Third World-like growth rate--roughly 5,000 new arrivals a month--the office of Clark County School District Superintendent Dr. Brian Cram. Cram oversees the nation's 8th largest school district, which grows at a rate of 12,000 to 17,000 kids a year. He puts up a new school every 28 days, on average, and just hired 1,700 new teachers for this school year. Next month voters will vote on a $3.5 billion bond issue to build 88 more schools.