Viva!

Thursday 24 May 2018

     I hope that’s a mirage that greets my eyes when the curtain open this morning on the 21st floor of the Mirage, but I blink my eyes and he’s still there. He’s on KNPR, too. Sayonara, Singapore summit. Can’t get away from the guy, even in the desert.

     Reaching this illusory place is a test of endurance and patience, mostly patience:

     1. Getting out of Buffalo, which involves a last-minute mowing of the lawn.

     2. The bumpy, non-stop, four-hour, 15-minute flight to McCarran International Airport on Southwest. It introduces us to grandmotherly Janet Wilson, a Bishop McMahon High School graduate transplanted to suburban Henderson, Nev., who sits between Monica and me and talks a lot – mostly to Monica – as she downs a couple Dos Equis during the flight. Mona thought she’d had a little more liquid reinforcement before she got on the plane. BTW, Southwest has gotten annoyingly cute. For instance, their cookies are “Plane cookies – Just plain cookies.”

     3. The “just a few minutes” when the plane arrived a quarter hour early at McCarran turns into about 20 as it sits on the terminal threshold until another plane exited our gate.

     4. The 8 p.m. traffic gets thicker and thicker as the neon landmarks pass on the Strip (a shudder at the Mandalay Bay) in our rented Nissan Rogue. We’re at the Mirage, because that’s where the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show is playing and we’re seeing it Thursday night.

    I turn a block too early for the Mirage and wind up on the Interstate, exiting at downtown Vegas. Crawling back up the Strip to the Mirage, I put the flashers on and sit in the Shuttles Only parking space near the main entrance while Monica goes in to wrangle the room. She texts updates every five minutes or so on her progress toward the registration desk. (I see why this morning. It’s like the lineup for a ride at Disneyland.)

    The trek from the parking ramp through the lobby and casino to the guest elevators is even longer than the trek from the airport gate to the baggage claim and the rental-car shuttles. Elapsed time from pulling up in front until we finally reach our room – about an hour and a half.

     Though it’s only slightly after 10 p.m. Nevada time – prime time – it’s late for us. Three-hour time difference. Too late for a real meal. So we hit the convenience store downstairs instead and pay a restaurant price for a sandwich, a bottle of lime-flavored Perrier water and a bottle of mocha iced coffee. $20.75.