If there is one thing spending a little time in Vegas has taught me is that excess is standard fare. Whether you are at the Hershey’s store at the corner of NYNY, The Shops at Crystals at the Aria or merely in the lobby cantina of your hotel, you can have whatever you want as long as you are willing to pay the price.
I’d like to start this story by sharing our experiences as the aforementioned sites. The first night, after dinner and our show, we were wandering around and came upon the Hershey store… Oh my God! Not only do they have a Statue of Liberty made from Twizzlers, but they have this massive wall of vending machines full of Peanut Butter Cups, Kisses and Assorted Hershey Bars!
I was in pre-diabetic heaven, I could feel my A1C rising with every heartbeat! Perusing the store I found Hershey Kisses the size of my head, A tube of Rolo’s the size of a landscape timber and an assortment of other gargantuan offerings. With willpower waning, Kris and I left the store after snapping about a million pictures on our phones.
Further down Las Vegas BLVD, after passing The Park and T-Mobile Plaza, we rounded a corner and proceeded up to The Shops at Crystals next to The Aria. These designer shops are a different kind of excess… Imagine dropping $15,000 on an evening gown or half that on a pair of shoes! This place was insane in every sense of the word. I have never felt so far out of my element as I did wandering around in there.
In addition to having some pretty incredible swag, they had an incredible foyer with an art installation entitled “Glacia.” Apparently these cones of frost grow up out of the water and then slowly melt back in place over the course of the day. Apparently people place pennies and other coins on the cones of frost throughout the day and then they drop into the water as it melts… pretty cool (pun intended, lame I know).
If that isn’t enough excess for you, I’d finally like to share a selection from the food court at the MGM abutting our high-rise suite at the Signature. We all know Vegas does things “over the top,” so why would a food court be any different. Well, this food court was huge and had the standard fare with two exceptions, portion size and cost. Nothing is cheap in Vegas, but you certainly get what you pay for. Kris and I dined in this food court three or four times on our long weekend and probably packed on a few pounds in the process. Below is a sampling of the offerings we enjoyed from the Bonanno’s NY Pizzeria.
The last excessive thing I want to bring up, as it relates to cost at least, is the cost of a bottle of wine in the kiosk at our hotel. Kris and I aren’t wine snobs (beer snobs , yes) and typically don’t spend much more than $12-16 on a bottle of wine. Being our last night in town, we decided to scoop up a bottle of wine. After perusing the selection, we decided on an old familiar “14 Hands: Cabernet.”
Typically in central Texas you are looking at about $10-12 for that bottle, here in Vegas… $24. Now I know that doesn’t break the bank, but twice as expensive… that is Vegas in a nutshell… excessive in almost every conceivable way.
vestigial-tales.com 