I recently spent some time sitting in Vegas at a BJJ tournament and did have a chance to step around and take some photos of the area around my hotel and up the strip as I was walking around.
The last time that I was wandering around in Las Vegas was back in 2005, so it’s been a while to say the least. And while walking around there were a lot of things that were familiar, but a lot of things that were drastically changed in the last 20 years. The last time I was down it was all neon and flashing lights, and now there’s still a lot of that but there’s also a lot more of those things that are basically programmable screens covering the entire sides of buildings.
The other thing that I had a chance to do more of was walking around during the day. The last time I was down was for work so I only had a couple of hours each night where I could walk around and see what was going on. This time around I wasn’t that limited in where I was able to go and what I was able to do so I was able to get to a few things that. I missed the first time around.
I will say that it wasn’t as busy down there as I remembered it being. Not to say that there were not a lot of people there, but it ever got to a point where I felt like I couldn’t navigate around like the last time that I was down there.
One thing that I’ve been meaning to do when down in the US was to check out a couple of different restaurants. The first Is a place called Eggslut. Yea, I know, and I will admit that most of the reason for giving that a look was just because of the name. They do however make a very good egg sandwich. It’s pricier than I would generally want to pay for something that I would eat daily, but I’m not sure if that’s because it’s fancy or because the one that I was at is in Vegas and everything seems to cost more there.
Another place that I wanted to try was Raising Cane’s. I know, it’s chicken strips, but I have had a daughter asking about the dipping sauce and since one was walking distance to my hotel I figured that I would give it a shake and see what it was about. The chicken was good, fries were good, and the sauce was ok. Kind of reminded me of a thinner Thousand Islands salad dressing when I was eating it and looking at all the duplicate recipes for it online I don’t think that I’m that far off the mark.
The thing that I didn’t enjoy was the amount of second hand smoke floating around.
Up in my neck of the woods pretty much every indoor public building has been non-smoking for decades so I’m really not used to being in an enclosed space where there’s been someone smoking. And I really don’t care for it in the least. Now in fairness I’m not a gambler so I generally stayed away from the casino floor and it’s entirely possible to avoid outside, but there’s still kind of a smell in a lot of the indoor spaces that doesn’t go away entirely and even just passing though some areas of the hotel were unpleasant at times.
Las Vegas – 2026
So, will I be back there?
Not entirely sure. If I have some reason to be there other than the strip, sure. There’s interesting things in the area but gambling and drinking aren’t really my thing so I would have to find something else to keep me entertained.