Las Vegas Strip Closing Down Again

Do not blow on those dice! Please, I silently plead. Do. Not. Blow. On. Those …

He blew on the dice.

You would think there would exist a little bit of post-pandemic etiquette running through our veins at this indicate, a pint of vacation trepidation that would hold us back from full blastoff. Afterwards all, in varying degrees, we've all been through then much, from losing loved ones to quarantining to wearing masks while walking our dogs to saving the softest junk mail just in instance the world really did run out of toilet paper. Fifty-fifty at a craps table in Caesars Palace Las Vegas, you would await a picayune consideration as it relates to our health and safety, and No. 1 on that "also presently" list would be: Do not blow on the dice!

Are you lot set up for this? I don't mean taking a two-hour drive over canton lines to finally hug granny again on her forepart porch. I hateful packing your bags and getting on a aeroplane; I mean crowds and buffets and pools; I mean all the least-covid-safe activities of our pre-pandemic lives. Are yous mentally and physically prepared? Because just when you idea sitting in the center seat in motorbus couldn't get any worse, nosotros have to add together beingness squeezed by post-traumatic pandemic stress.

Jumping back in wholeheartedly to our onetime habits isn't similar ripping off a Band-aid. There are then many layers to our suffering that information technology's similar unwrapping a mummy downwards to the bone in a whip-2d. Especially if you brand your kickoff destination Las Vegas, the amusement and gambling capital of the world. But that's what I've done. The ultimate litmus exam to see if I'thousand ready to rejoin America in all its celebrity and wonder.

"No, no, no!" I overhear a bulky young guy scolding his friends at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. "Don't tell me what we tin't do. We are in the metropolis that never sleeps. In that location are no rules."

"No rules" takes on a unlike meaning for all of us after nosotros've been beholden to e'er-changing guidelines from the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention and local municipalities. We're all starting fresh, about to make up personal rules when it comes to venturing out in this world once again. Burdened by our individual scars, are we all hypochondriacs at present, with germ alerts going off in our heads at every plow? Or can we only cake out the past year and move on?

I decided to come to Vegas over Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff big holiday weekend since restrictions officially loosened in Nevada. This town is on the cusp of getting back to 100 percent capacity, but right now the streets feel like they're at 110 percent and climbing every 2nd. Post-pandemic behavior seems to be at a fever pitch.

Having avoided crowds for and so long, exercise I even have it in me to survive such a trip at this bespeak? Afterwards going through the basic motions of planning, packing and taking my shoes off with a bunch of strangers in a security line, I suddenly don't feel so bold. And in the early hours of beingness on the Strip, I feel equally if I'm still tiptoeing around while anybody else is pole-vaulting into their long-lost liberty.

A oversupply gathers at Las Vegas's Fremont Street surface area to picket a midnight concert celebrating the lifting of pandemic restrictions June i.

Earlier I have another step downwards the boulevard, know two things about me. 1: I'm non sure if I had the virus. My wife tested positive later an outbreak at her workplace, so I had to notify my boss — at the grocery shop where I work in Nashville — who solemnly said, "Oh boy. Okay, we'll run into you after 14 days of quarantine." Which in Everyman, no-symptoms terms translated to "Two weeks off with pay!" I never got tested. All I felt was tired, just I immediately realized that if I didn't accept the virus, I'd be my wife's just contact to the exterior world for two weeks and she'd be erranding me to death. So I had to get a quick study and choice upwards on my wife's symptoms. How are you lot feeling, babe? "Killer headache." Oh yeah, I have a headache, too. "Then tired." Me besides. Wearied. I'one thousand going to lie down. At to the lowest degree we're going through this together.

Two: Before heading to Vegas, I got fully vaccinated. And this trip is now giving me a lesson in what the ultimate release and joy of freedom sounds like: "Hello. Hey, yeah, I'g taking a south--- somewhere near Planet Hollywood. Aye, awesome, right!?" The enthusiasm of the guy on his cellphone in the restroom stall is palpable, his voice giddy with excitement. He is speaking for everyone who blasted into this town in the past 24 hours for this holiday weekend.

The infamous Vegas Strip is a chaotic mess — a Mardi Gras-fashion street political party in full force, drinks held high, tourists posing with one-half-naked men and women with whips, vacationers strutting with cases of beer tucked under their arms as the human being-fabricated volcano in forepart of the Delusion hotel erupts. At the airport, masks were mandatory, but on the boulevard and throughout downtown, they're a rare sight.

A disguised human being with a megaphone announces to passersby that they volition pay for their sinful behavior. "At that place's non going to be a drib of h2o where you're going. Yous're all going straight to hell!"

Hell? We've been in hell for more than than a year — suffocating nether restrictions, family and friends dying. Nosotros but got dorsum from hell. The gates of Sin Urban center are now the neon gates to heaven, and this night they will non stop flashing.

When I ask one man whether he's yet concerned nigh the virus, he says: "Don't care if I have it. Don't care if I give it."

Earlier, I watched as a adult female cutting through a hotel lobby got a disinfectant wipe stuck to the bottom of her aureate sandal and, in ane graceful swoop, flicked it off similar some relic from a foretime era. But trying to actually engage someone in conversation about the pandemic is useless. The people I approach to talk about information technology desire to talk about anything, everything else.

"How long did your Uber take?"

"I'grand already out of coin and I don't care."

"Is that fountain going to dance or what?"

Y'all can exist trapped past the line wrapping effectually the Fat Tuesday frozen drink market as it seems to weave and meander and plow back in every direction. (I didn't even know Fat Tuesday was still in business concern. Vegas is the kind of identify where businesses that fall flat elsewhere can thrive and White Castle is an actual castle.)

Drinks are so expensive on the Strip that the smartest of travelers accept jammed into CVS to purchase six-packs for the aforementioned cost as one beer at a bar. In fact, the raised steps in front end of the drugstore accept become sort of a poor man's patio bar. 3 shirtless guys are drinking giant cans of Modelo, and the 1 who virtually definitely shouldn't exist going shirtless is not afraid to address the pandemic in the simplest of terms when I enquire him whether he's yet concerned about the virus: "Don't intendance if I have it. Don't intendance if I give it."

Oh, that's groovy. One matter I think we have all realized as the debates accept raged over the pandemic — mask or no mask, to exist vaccinated or not — is that we value our opinions more than both our lives and the lives of others.

Through the windows of political party buses, bodies decked in formal wear are visible holding cocktails and twirling on a mobile trip the light fantastic floor. The Cirque du Soleil shows are all nevertheless airtight, but down the Strip at the Linq Hotel + Feel partyers are literally zip-lining through the skyline.

There is something so sloppy about this street revelry that it mirrors how awfully the pandemic was handled from the very beginning by America and most of the world. Of all the signs I see here, none say anything most where you can get to exist vaccinated, even though about half of Americans are notwithstanding unvaccinated. There are, nonetheless, several places where you can get a shot of B12, and there are pop-upward oxygen bars at every turn, which only makes me recollect of ventilators.

It's hard for me to shake off flashbacks of the pandemic, so I have to double down: I head to casinos off the Strip, which are wall-to-wall. It's hard to believe that a year agone today the police force could have raided our homes for having, say, a gathering of more than eleven.9 people in our dining rooms. I fight my mode through 1 crowd that'south packed so tightly it'southward similar a rugby scrum, only the players are wearing high heels and loafers and unsafe jewelry.

In one case I am free, I catch yet another sight: A tall gentleman wearing a bright orange bathing adapt is coming right toward me; on one arm he has two behemothic colorful swim tubes, and attached to the end of the mitt sticking out of the tubes is an actress-large pizza. He slows, takes a sip of the large tropical drink in the reverse paw, looks over his shoulder to run into if his (4!) young children are still trailing behind him. Yes, that human being is on vacation. America is officially back to being America.

A tourist encounters a living statue in Las Vegas.

Courtney Mitchell, left, and Leonard Richardson, right, lift a tourist for a photo op.

It's nigh 2 a.thousand. on my outset night of forced freedom, although I already sense no thing how long you stay in Vegas, it is all one long nighttime. I am slumped down in the foyer of a parking garage, sitting on the ground, next to a garbage can. I tend to stretch out and sit down on the basis wherever I am, like I'm hanging out on the stairs in a college dorm. It'south just my MO. Anyway, a adult female spots me as she's passing by and says, "Hey, are you all right?"

"Just Ubered out," I say. "First it said 27 minutes, then 9 minutes, then it was back to 31 and …"

But she's gone earlier I go to 19. Meanwhile, a large group of handsomely dressed young adults are loitering in the vestibule trying to program their side by side motility. "What about that place Angie and Erin are going? They bought tickets early on."

"This whole town is sold out," 1 of the women says, looking over at me as if they might besides all slump down confronting the wall. But a 2nd later she says, "Oh well," and they stroll out into the night.

Information technology is nevertheless so dense in the streets that I had to retreat. I'yard not looking for six feet of separation, or fifty-fifty three feet. Just three inches would be nice.

This is not like me, and I'm disappointed in myself. I tend to clothing my days on Earth like a pair of baggy pants, with a bon vivant mental attitude and a penchant for playfulness. Maybe it's the "have it" and "give it" guy back at CVS that I can't easily milkshake — that sense of recklessness. And at that place's even so the vox in my head questioning whether information technology's incorrect to even be hither.

A father comes in carrying a young girl who is half asleep and clutching a big trophy as if it is a teddy bear. I have been seeing these trophies all solar day. Evidently a trip the light fantastic toe competition is being held in town, and the winners accept been crowned. These are not the tiny plastic things Fortune 500 companies give their employees of the calendar month. These are the real deal, and they are abundant. A flock of dancers will pass by with ice foam cones in one mitt and trophies in the other. Many are nonchalantly tucked nether arms like a beach towel, every bit the girls become near their business concern.

I wish I could hand out trophies to those who take endured so much. Later what anybody has been through, and so many people deserve a bays instead of only the invisible badges of honor and courage nosotros take pinned on them. For the rest of their lives, I want them all to be walking around with a smoothie in one hand and a big gleaming trophy in the other. But in the aforementioned manner, perhaps those who did non cede — who laughed in the face of a serious threat to so many lives — should be forced to wear inexpensive, poorly made hats with stupid sayings on them.

Okay, somebody assistance me upwardly.

Tourists glide down the 1000 Canal in a gondola at the Venetian Resort.

Dawn London and Geronimo Mandingo trip the light fantastic to a live band on the rooftop of Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino.

Newlyweds Tyler Murray and Erin McNamara of Washington cease for photos at 1 of Las Vegas's famous welcome signs.

Peak: Tourists glide downward the Grand Canal in a gondola at the Venetian Resort. BOTTOM LEFT: Dawn London and Geronimo Mandingo dance to a alive band on the rooftop of Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino. BOTTOM Correct: Newlyweds Tyler Murray and Erin McNamara of Washington stop for photos at 1 of Las Vegas's famous welcome signs.

Well, look at me at present. Solar day two, and I have the step and swagger of a Bridgerton blood brother, totally entitled to this wondrous day. As the trip has worn on, I take go increasingly inspired by my audacious brethren celebrating in the streets of the near glamorously garish metropolis in the world. Last night I was guilty of watching them as an observer, not really jumping in to the triumph and glory of breaking free. But earlier this morning, as I lay nonetheless on meridian of the perfectly made king-size bed I had still to disturb, I recalled what many good, rational people told me when the CDC dropped the mandatory mask rule: That's information technology. No matter how concerned we still are, we've done what nosotros could. With good faith, we take to move on with our lives. I also recalled the words of the belatedly, great Anthony Bourdain summing up his philosophy of travel: "Get up off the couch. Motion."

I'1000 non sure if my trepidation is directly related to fear of the pandemic or just a side effect of having been in quarantine also long. I know some of the states are experiencing a scrap of agoraphobia and claustrophobia every bit we step once more into the keen wide open. Either way, I've been holding back here — a child hiding backside Daddy'southward pants the first time he sees a gorilla banging on the glass at the Bronx Zoo. I do non want to be that person. So I am taking the plunge.

I peeked at the Mirage hotel pool yesterday, and information technology was packed. I allow out a petty sigh of disgust and went off and ate an entire pizza alone in my room. Permit's face it: In that location is goose egg more unsanitary than a public pool, peculiarly if it's loaded with pandemic refugees. But here I am, a 24-hour interval afterwards, and it'southward sink or swim, babe! I wanted to travel; well, hither I am. Do I desire to become dorsum to spending my days in the attic waiting for Instacart to bring me a gallon of oat milk and a box of Cap'n Crisis? I don't call back so.

At the airport, when we were all flooding the escalators upstream and downstream, you couldn't slide a flier for an all-night rooftop political party between me and the surrounding people. I noticed that equally one traveler was about to step on the escalator, she stopped abruptly and pulled her husband aside.

"Do you lot want to just wait?" she said.

"What?" the married man asked with a cockeyed look, but fifty-fifty though her expression was locked behind a mask, I could see that he sensed her fright. "Yes, yeah, sure, we tin can await," he said.

As I stepped into the menstruation, smushed between bodies, I kept an eye over my shoulder at the couple. I left them standing at that place forever.

But how long can you await? In truth, I'm fueled past a bit of a faux bravado, so, to fight off any doubts, I keep my pace quickly moving across the kaleidoscopic casino carpeting till I reach the doors of an haven. The big, beautiful tropical pool awaits, filled with all my cute, glistening fellow travelers. Without hesitation, I zig, I zag — and I accept a soulful leap off the side of the pool.

No! Oh my God, my ears and nose, direct-up holes to my encephalon, are in this h2o with all these humans who accept similar holes and and then some. I popular upwards desperately, fifty-fifty though I was just about four inches underwater. I'm like a sub rise to the surface with its periscope scanning the horizon in search of land, but all I run across is huddles of flesh. I feel similar I'm seeing anybody who never showed up for their 2d shot, plus the CVS guy screaming, "Don't care if I have information technology! Don't care if I give it!" and his phantom associates. I'k imagining everybody around me circling like pandemic piranhas. The just words of wisdom I have for myself are: Exit of the pool. Move!

Scanning the landmarks, I see I'm much farther out than I had calculated. And, for some odd reason, I completely forget about the deed of swimming — which would undoubtedly get me out quicker — and instead I starting time running, but in a crowded pool it's all in slo-mo. I'm making waves and weaving in and out of tourists scattered in banana bunches every few feet. Country is visible, but blocking my leave is a wall of knees erected by a group of people sitting on the edge of the pool. I would rather climb over a razor-precipitous spinous-wire fence than a wall of knees, and then I just go on side-shuffling until I find an opening and abdomen up onto the concrete like a seal, panting and barking.

I should accept never left the airport.

A busy evening on the Strip.

Monks on the observation deck of the Strat Hotel.

I am barely dry from the pool fiasco when I confront the thought of a unlike feel: diving into a mail service-pandemic Las Vegas cafe.

But first, some thoughts on spritz. Take yous always seen your own spritz — the aerosols, the respiratory droplets that scientists say spread the coronavirus? I used to think my oral cavity was sort of like a cliff and germs just dropped over my lips and onto my shirt. Several months ago, however, I witnessed spritz firsthand. It was a beautiful morning, and I was driving through winding state roads, singing along with Maggie Rogers's "Low-cal On." And and then, at that place information technology was, reflecting off the sunlight in all its tragic celebrity — each germ taking flight like bats out of a cave at dusk. I mean, this was a three-alert spritz. I even hit the windshield.

One time y'all have seen spritz, waltzing on air, there is no going back. God gave united states of america the gift to accept our own flatulence, but you cannot forgive the spritz of others, peculiarly mob spritz.

Still, I wanted to give this boondocks, heralded for its buffets, the benefit of the doubtfulness, considering it'southward too known for its innovations in customer service and hospitality. On this holiday weekend, about of the grand buffets have oddly not reopened all the same. "I retrieve the return of the buffet is too frightening now," Taffy, an Uber commuter, told me. But the grandest, near decadent — the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace — has reappeared in all its glory. I head over equally sort of a voyeur to scope it out.

My reconnaissance begins before I fifty-fifty get to the fringes of the cafe. I am envisioning everyone's spritz in full force: every express mirth, every chestnut, every bouncy greeting settling on the pickled beets and beyond. I hear the audio of an early-morning time golf game course sprinkler organisation emitting spritz from anybody hovering over miles of nutrient. Shhh-tik-tik-tik murphy salad, shhh-tik-tik-tik mushroom pasta. "Oooh, sushi!" Shhh-tik-tik-tik …

I practise take to give Caesars credit. It is clearly trying to meet all the safety requirements, including manus-sanitizer dispensers throughout, changing utensils every hour, having attendants oversee every station — and my favorite, pointed out to me in an e-mail by the Caesars public relations director: No eating in line! Plus, the setup is fabulously decadent and, in a city based on temptation, a perfect brandish of gluttony. I don't fifty-fifty come across potato salad. The big describe is the seafood, and everyone is tonging crab legs that are glistening and gleaming like they've been in makeup all morning time. Presentation is everything in this town, and this is no dubiety a v-star buffet.

Merely information technology'southward even so a buffet. And I would rather have Red Bull-fueled fire ants heading up my ankles than some high roller shhh-tik-tik-tiking over my turmeric grilled baby octopus with chili jam. Mail service-pandemic, the biggest gamble you tin make in Vegas may very well be chowing at an all-you-can-swallow cafe. You thrill seekers, daredevils and gluttons out in that location, take at information technology. I accept other needs in this town that truly has something for everyone, even me. The cafe is non a setback; it'south a lesson. We all have our thresholds. No matter how bold we may exist when we go dorsum out into the world, we each have to do it in our own way.

When I saw Carrot Top was hosting a come across-and-greet, I seized on it like the last glazed doughnut in the break room.

I am getting into my ain personal period, merely sometimes you need to ease off, observe a place of tranquility. Just go down and sit in the lobby or out on the deck with a cup of coffee. There is no such place in this boondocks. Fifty-fifty on a cruise ship you can wander off and find an out-of-the-way deck chair somewhere.

And so information technology dawns on me that the last time I was in Las Vegas, on a aeroplane layover, I took a walk and came across a gondola with an operatic singing gondolier drifting along a waterway, simply off the Strip. Simply like that, I observe myself as the just solo rider at the gondola parting station. The ticket taker says, "Huh." Hey, romance doesn't accept to be with someone else; romance does non carelessness the solitary. Gondoliers know that. They were all born with romance in their souls, and my guide welcomes me with an open center.

There is a softness in being guided forth in a gondola that's unlike anything else I know. Las Vegas is swirling all around me, from the Strip to Fremont Street, just as we float into the middle of the waterway, it feels like beingness 10 miles from the boxing lines of war. It'southward out there, all the chaos, all the angst of where we've been and where we're headed, simply I'k in a moment of splendid isolation. Travel can be surprising that style. This feel reminds me of a line from poet and songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews that goes, "Found peace in the redwoods / Lost it 20 miles after."

My gondolier breaks it to me that she is non permitted to sing however — she'south still post-obit the Venetian Resort's mask guidance that will come to an end in 48 hours. The governor picked the day after the vacation weekend to go to 100 percent capacity for businesses, so that will be the day the mask comes off. Which stinks because my gondolier graduated as a theater major, and this is primarily a singing chore. She had to laissez passer the vocalism audition to move on to gondola grooming, which was mainly "jumping out of the boat and proving that you could climb dorsum in."

The thought of her and me flapping around in the h2o trying to climb back into a drifting gondola sort of takes me out of my zone of relaxation. Information technology is also a reminder of all the jobs that have been in limbo here during the pandemic, from the Uber drivers to all the servers and performers, the stage crews and cleaning staffs. It does experience skilful to encounter everyone working again and to be able to tip them for both their enthusiasm and sense of piece of work ethic.

Every bit we stream toward a tunnel, I ask my gondolier if maybe she could just whisper a song. She quietly says yes and so breaks the hollow silence of the tunnel with the virtually fragile yet powerful version of "Bella Notte."

Look at the skies

They take stars in their eyes

On this lovely bella notte …

You'll notice enchantment hither

The nighttime volition weave its magic spell …

Oh, this is the nighttime

And the heavens are right

On this lovely bella notte.

The instant nosotros are out of the tunnel, she goes silent again. "But two days from now," she says, "I'll be singing that at the elevation of my lungs."

The author meets Carrot Tiptop, "a comic hero," as he sees it, since Carrot Top had been performing on the front lines for months. (Jeffrey Molitz)

Twenty-one fans are in line waiting to meet the comedian Carrot Top before his show, and the woman in front of me watches as Carrot Peak puts his arm around a couple for a photograph op.

"Oooh, I don't desire him touching me," she says.

"Are yous kidding?" I say. "I'k here for the biggest hug of my life."

"Not me," she replies. "I don't want to be touched."

I can't tell if her reluctance is due to post-pandemic stress or if it's but the thought of Carrot Acme himself that is freaking her out.

I think I catch a glimpse of Carrot Elevation spritz while he's joking with a fan, only by this indicate I'k okay. The spritz comes through Vegas-style, kind of luminescent and choreographed.

Usually, I like to keep my vacation goals grounded, only leaving abode is not ordinary this summertime, and I intend to mark this moment in time with something significant. I want my first public post-pandemic hug to be from the i and only Carrot Pinnacle. I've always loved him because he has his hilarious prop routine, creating and serving upwards outrageous props that play off current events and our everyday habits, all at a frenzied pace.

Only the primary reason I made this crosstown pilgrimage is because he'south nonetheless here, doing his matter. Fifty-fifty when guidelines loosened a flake a few months ago, entertainment was basically nonexistent in this boondocks: no alive music, no illusionists, no Shania, all the Cirque du Soleil performers sent home to hang from their ceiling fans until the big callback. Scott "Carrot Tiptop" Thompson, however, has been on the front lines for months now, fulfilling his residency at the Luxor Hotel & Casino. A comic hero, in the truest sense. When I saw he was hosting a meet-and-greet for $53 a head, I seized on it similar the concluding glazed doughnut in the break room.

Carrot Top'due south typical show has the energy and special furnishings of a big rock production, just in the middle of the pandemic things were very dissimilar. "We were doing a alive show, merely information technology felt like rehearsal," Carrot Elevation had told me earlier past phone, when I told him almost the hug I was expecting from him. "Everyone out there in masks and spaced so far, I mean, really far apart. It was creepy. I swear, I had more props than people." Now the masks are off, and allowing total chapters is only days abroad.

The adult female in front of me nervously steps upwardly to meet Carrot Height, but the instant he puts his arm effectually her, her feet vanishes and she melts into giggles. That'due south sweet, but I am not here for lazy artillery draped around bony shoulders. I am here for …

"The hug!" Carrot Top says as he takes me in his arms. And this is no average comport hug. This is a comport-trap hug. Plus, his biceps are huge! Information technology's as if our lives — his and mine — depend on this hug. I can't quite detect the words for what I feel in this moment, merely …

"It's epic," Carrot Superlative says when he sees the photograph of our embrace.

This is why we leave our comfort zones and venture out. It'southward a postcard moment on a thousand adventure, if postcards still exist.

Dear Jeanie, I'm on an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas riding on gondolas and I just got my showtime POST-PANDEMIC HUG from CARROT Top! Bet y'all wish you hadn't dumped me in 11th class! Hah!!!!

Contortionist Kelvin Gordon performs for pedestrians in the Fremont Street entertainment district in downtown Las Vegas.

A tourist zip lines only under the lighted roof of Fremont Street.

The exterior of the New York-New York Hotel & Casino on the Vegas Strip. Chapters restrictions put in place considering of the pandemic ended June 1.

TOP: Contortionist Kelvin Gordon performs for pedestrians in the Fremont Street entertainment district in downtown Las Vegas. Bottom LEFT: A tourist zilch lines just under the lighted roof of Fremont Street. BOTTOM RIGHT: The exterior of the New York-New York Hotel & Casino on the Vegas Strip. Capacity restrictions put in place considering of the pandemic ended June 1.

It's merely by daybreak, and I'1000 standing at the entrance of a tunnel designed by Elon Musk'south Boring Co. that volition open up to the public shortly. Beneath the expansive Las Vegas Convention Center a fleet of Teslas are charged up and ready to bulldoze us to the hereafter.

Conventions have been the terminal thing to return to most cities, so for LVCC, the light at the terminate of the tunnel is the upcoming Globe of Concrete convention, the center's kickoff major booking in ages.

I guess for the rest of united states, the time to come is non that certain. On the way over I passed the New York-New York Hotel & Casino, with its skyline replica of NYC. That used to be a kicking, but now, at least for me, information technology conjures thoughts of whether that metropolis volition ever be the same later on the pandemic, after so many 40th-floor residents fled for one-story ranch houses in Idaho.

The Delusion entrance hall is a little more relaxed this morning time, and "Walking on Moonlight" is playing over the PA system. Shortcutting through the casino floor are two buddies coming in from opposite directions, synced upward in stride straight in my path.

Where is everyone else? the gangly 1 asks.

"Justin is sleeping. No one's seen Alex since the puddle yesterday afternoon," his friend replies.

I want to imagine that Justin is the guy who was holding court at the airport and giving his boys the "No, no, no!" motivational talk. The thought makes me grinning.

No matter how bold you are, freedom will wear y'all out, won't it? Especially in a town like Las Vegas. The American spirit is combustible — unstoppable — in a glorious fashion. And sometimes information technology'due south also reckless, even abhorrent, simply afterwards more than a year of quarantine, existence able to witness that spirit erupt in existent fourth dimension, in a behemothic release, was the real show in Vegas. Even if y'all are on the squeamish and tentative side, like me, information technology'southward not hard to run into the beauty in information technology.

In varying degrees, we each take our ain gambles, and something tells me we're going to demand that pinch of Vegas in us to get through what's ahead. Maybe we all take to accident on the dice for practiced luck.

T.1000. Smooth is a writer in Nashville. His most recent novel is "Dear Sarah, Lately I've Been Tripping People."

Design past Christian Font. Photograph editing past Dudley M. Brooks.

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/06/29/i-went-las-vegas-test-whether-i-was-really-ready-life-other-side-pandemic/

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