The paint on the button for the 18th floor in the elevator has worn off. All the elevators, actually. All five of them. The 18th floor is my floor, and I’m wondering if there’s any significance to that.
I’m staying in the Grand Sierra Hotel and Resort, which should more accurately be called the Grand Sierra Casino and Resort, as there is nothing but gambling as far as the eye can see. Penny slots rule the floor, while towards the center craps tables, roulette tables and blackjack tables rule the day. Off to one side is the poker room, where masseuses are on call. I can’t even begin to think about being that involved in something, and I while I can understand the business dynamics that necessitate a casino providing masseuses to their most intense players, not to mention the intensity of the players themselves, I don’t get why the masseuses think this is anywhere close to a good deal. Their tips must be in the triple digits.
The Grand Sierra is massive. They have tried to give their visitors every reason why they shouldn’t leave the premises, and to that end the place is equipped with an arcade, several restaurants, a full-size event-level theater and a nightclub that only has a token wall to block it from the casino area. Really, it all keeps coming back to the casino area.
Partially, this is because the Grand Sierra employs several casino-like tactics to its entire area of business. Windows are rarer than an Oscar-winning porn film, and thanks to the ubiquitous slot machines, flashing lights and brightly-colored neon. Just the existence of the thing should be considered garish beyond words, except for the fact that it works. For as long as you’re in the Grand Sierra, your attention is constantly drawn to any one of a thousand attractions, and after about a day or so, you start craving open sky. I have a strong suspicion that these massive casino/resorts might inadvertently cause the next senior jogging craze.
On the positive side, the hotel rooms are spectacular. There’s nothing quite like having a king-size bed all to yourself, with a nice couch on one side and a ten-foot by ten-foot mirror on the other. The bathroom looks like something out of a GQ magazine, and it made me feel more affluent simply by standing in there, which is a first for myself and bathroom experiences. Maybe it was the unnecessarily long faucet, or it might have been the marble shower with the glass door. It might have been the flatscreen TV mounted to the side of the bathroom mirror, but since I never did figure out how to work it probably not.
What makes this trip equally odd is that during the weekend I drove to Detroit for a martial arts tournament. One day travelling by car, one day in Detroit, and one day travelling back. One night in Cresco, then up bright and early to get to Reno. It can be a little disorienting at times, especially if you’re travelling alone.
When you travel west, you have to adjust a couple hours due to the time zones. This is fine, and I ordinarily have no trouble dealing with it, except for the small matter that the office in Iowa wanted me to do a project for them. This has led to a series of mental calculations each day that not only helps me to figure out when the Iowa office is relative to me, but also keeps me fully aware that I am NEVER going to adjust to the time difference while I’m here. On one hand, I’m waking up much earlier than usual. On the other hand, ten o’ clock feels like midnight, and every minute after ten makes me feel more and more tired.
I’ll be back in Iowa next week. I’ve already got some good topics, and I look forward to putting them down in print, as it were.
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