Geoff Carter 5 January 2010 Stories and Appreciations 1,353 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

Hallelujah, I’m current again. Over the holiday break I spent nearly two weeks in my former hometown of Las Vegas, and as a result I once again feel confident enough to tell you what you should be doing when you’re not playing the slots, watching one of Cirque du Soliel’s three-dozen Vegas productions, or quoting liberally from “The Hangover.” More to the point, I feel confident enough to tell you — the non-gambler, who has never been to Vegas and has no real desire to visit — why you should follow your friends down to the Entertainment Capitol one of these days.

There’s a world of non-gaming diversions to be discovered in and around Las Vegas, and you can buy your way into most of them without digging too deeply into your “winnings.” Here are seven of my favorites — all of them kid-friendly with one lone exception.

1. Check out the water features at City Center. This newly-opened cluster of luxury hotels and if-you-hafta-ask-you-can’t-afford condominiums has some of the most extraordinary water features I’ve ever seen, all of them created by Los Angeles firm WET Design. Where WET’s previous Vegas projects — the Mirage Volcano and the Bellagio’s Fountains, among others — are meant to be viewed from a distance, their City Center creations are more intimate and far more interesting than their large-scale work. Here you’ll find whirlpools contained in tall, clear cylinders; gigantic ice pillars that melt and refreeze before your eyes; and a fountain that creates the aquatic equivalent of a fireworks show (pictured below).

I could photograph City Center’s water features all day and night. They’re endlessly fascinating to watch.

2. Get a cup of Luv-It Frozen Custard. I have two regrets here. One is that Luv-It was closed for the holidays during my trip home, and the other is that I can’t find any pictures of their sundaes in my files. I suspect the reason for the second omission is indirectly related to the first: Luv-It’s custard, an amazingly sweet, rich and creamy concoction available in a variety of flavors and with an equally-varied selection of toppings, is so freaking good that I’m usually too busy wolfing it down to snap its picture. Seeing the “closed for the holidays” sign in Luv-It’s window during this last trip to Vegas just about broke my heart. One of my favorite desserts on this planet, denied? Oh, well. I’ll just order two Western Specials on the next trip.

3. Visit the Atomic Testing Museum. Another regret: I can’t show you any of the Atomic Testing Museum’s really interesting interior displays because photography is strictly forbidden in some 95% of the building. (I’m guessing that much of the artifacts in the Museum’s displays have only recently been declassified.) Here you’ll find the entire history of atomic testing in Nevada, from the above-ground detonations of the 1950s to the final underground tests of the early 1990s, represented by every last little thing at the Nevada Test Site that isn’t still glowing. Fascinating stuff.

4. Play $20 in quarters at the Pinball Hall of Fame. Look, I suck at pinball. I have absolutely no aptitude for it; I can “drain” five times before even the least-talented of my friends finish playing their first ball. But I love Tim Arnold’s peerless collection of pinball machines and other amusement devices for the same reason I love Las Vegas: because its lights, sounds and motion are fascinating to behold, and because there’s nothing else like it on this planet. Think of the biggest arcade you’ve ever seen, then quadruple the size and fill it with amusement machines you never dreamed existed. Losing an hour is all too easy here, even for a crappy player like me.

5. Get a tropical taste at Frankie’s Tiki Room. Sorry, kids: This off-Strip tropical paradise is only for those 21-and-over. This is a tiki bar as your granddaddy knew such an animal, with scowling hand-carved tiki gods, racy portraits of hula dancers, and custom-made tiki mugs filled with sweet libations — each one with the kick of a rocket-powered grenade launcher. Trader Vic’s may have devolved to a TGI Friday’s-like operation worthy of themed shopping malls, but Frankie’s Tiki Room keeps it real. Rumor has it that Thor Heyerdahl has his own table here, patiently awaiting his return from the Islands Beyond.

6. Escape to the Las Vegas Springs Preserve. Part natural history museum, part botanical garden and altogether beautiful, the Springs Preserve is exactly the kind of urban getaway you wouldn’t expect to find in a city as gleefully artificial as my beloved hometown. There are no slots here, no fake monuments — just desert flowers, birds and other critters, going about their Mojave business.

7. Tour the Neon Museum (re-opening this summer). See those letters? They’re probably a foot taller than you are. The Neon Museum is full nearly to overflowing with such fallen leviathans; this is where every retired Vegas neon sign ends up, and believe me, Vegas has retired a lot of hotels and casinos over the years. The Museum is temporarily closed while much-needed improvements are made (currently, all of these treasures are stacked haphazardly about a fenced-in “boneyard”), but when it reopens, you have to go. The Stardust and The Frontier may be dead, but they left behind some good-lookin’ corpses.

- Geoff Carter