To get to Lima, the cheap flight is: Seattle -> Las Vegas -> Mexico City ->
Lima. This could have been accomplished in 24 hours, but instead we decided to
take it a bit easier and spend a bit over 20 in hours in Las Vegas. (Sitting
here feeling tired in Mexico City, I’m not sure how effective that really was.)
In any case, it afforded is a pretty leisurely start of our trip. Wallis cooked
us a nice breakfast and Otto drove us to the airport for a noon flight. Thank
you! I spent the flight reading and hacking on my PICO-8
project. I’ll write more about that
later, but it was great to have a simple, quickly-satisfying programming
project.
In Las Vegas we visited the mob museum, which had
high production values, but somehow failed to really tell me much. The main
thing I came away with is that prohibition did wonders for the growth of the
mafia, and then eventually the FBI dealt with the problem. (The presentation
wasn’t quite that simplistic, but it wasn’t very nuanced either.)
Then we walked down nearby Fremont Street, which is part of the old downtown.
It’s a fun little stretch, with lots of flashing lights, street performers, and
an amazing rounded ceiling that contains a very impressive LED display. While
watching that a young woman approached us and we (well, mostly me) kind of gave
her the cold shoulder because we were convinced she was going to try and sell
us something. But she didn’t do that at all, and after talking a few minutes
she went her own way. It could’ve been a much better meeting and the next time
somebody approaches I’ll be more positive until they clearly start selling
something.
We dropped off our bags at an Airbnb, ate mediocre Indian food, and then went
to the strip to check out the lights, people, stores, etc. It was a fun stroll.
The best part was probably the fountain show at the Bellagio. We also wandered
into the Wynn casino which had some pretty cool art on display as well. We
ended up staying out later than we though, even though we didn’t really do
anything. We came home to a comfy bed.
