Day 15 – MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas
There aren’t many hotels that can claim to be the world’s biggest. In fact, this one can’t either, but it was when it opened and today is #2 with 6852 rooms. It is simply staggering. The Crocodile Hotel in Ashfield (rest assured I’ve never visited that dive) could fit in its lobby. One of its lobbies.
Those of you who have been reading these updates will know I‘ve been favouring hotels with a literary vibe, or some historical link to the arts, or some historical link to something. Anything. But in Vegas that’s really hard. All the famous hotels you saw in the old movies, or your parents visited in the 60’s (hello Mum), are gone. The Sands. The Sahara, the Aladdin (where Elvis was married), the Desert Inn (where Howard Hughes closeted himself away for the last 15 years of his life) – all torn down and replaced with mega-resorts.
I was last in Vegas 19 years ago and we’ve both changed a lot. If you think that this is a place where the author with an iPad would be out of place, you’d be right, but there’s a strange serenity that comes from the relentless hum and buzz of more than 2000 gaming machines.
Fear and loathing? Not yet. Strong seduction more like it. I have a feeling there’s a lot more writing to be done in Vegas.
Today’s word count: 1503
Total word count: 38,554
