By CEO Constance A. Dunn
Vegas is hot pink. If cities had theme colors like filters, Vegas would be hot pink. Everything through the lens bleeds a pink the color of an Anna Nicole Smith nightmare, overly vibrant and sickening like a cry for help, but so strange that my gut reaction is to not help and instead wait to see how things play out. Even when I tried to take a picture of something blue, a calming color, the pink would find its way into the shot like the photobomb dad who ruined your prom pics. I am reminded of a trip through southern California and the Madonna Inn. A surreal lodging option. It's architecture likely based on the illustrations from a Hans Christian Anderson book, an early edition. No one told the architect that those German fairy tales were cautionary.
My latest business trip to Las Vegas was the first time I stayed near the Strip. I brought mother along as both grounding influence (anyone who has ever tried hallucinogenics knows that you need at least one grounded individual for security) and to have a fun girl week in between meetings, because... why not? We spent the week how many people spend the week on The Strip - with our mouths agape trying to find a way to cross Las Vegas Boulevard that didn't make us walk through another casino. It was distracting. My mother comments more than once that "people must get in accidents staring at the signs all the time." It is true. The signs are awe inspiring and it is easy to imagine a tourist slamming a rented car into the back of an airport shuttle trying to take it all in. But you can't take it all in, not in one gulp.
After five days on The Strip I came to the conclusion that three days is the max amount of time anyone should spend there. After day three everything blurs together, the ringing in your ears starts to sound like 'chi-ching', and your wallet is empty. The only exception to this three day rule would be to those that go to stay in one place. A destination resort that gives you every reason to stay on property and very little motivation to face the madness. Preferably one with a spa and a pool that doesn't prescribe to the standard poolside pop music soundtrack that seem ubiquitous on The Strip.
I like Vegas. That may be a surprising statement considering the above three paragraphs, but it is true. I like the Vegas on the outskirts. I like the sand colored houses and the grit of the people that live observing the visitors from afar. I like the abandoned antique shops and the Valley of Fire. It's a weird place where two different worlds go about their business in uncomfortably close proximity. That's weird. Weird is good. Weird creates tension. Tension drives work. Work drives ideas. And so on.