For reasons which no longer seem important, during the “wander and wonder “a.k.a. “lost and found” years during the later 2010s, I spent a fair bit of time in Las Vegas.
Not the overstimulating throw-money-away / ‘wildlife on the strip’ Vegas but rather holed-up in a safe outskirts of the city condo, walking distance from a Smith’s grocery store – with my brother Andrew keeping an eye on me.
Sometimes, we would go to “old downtown” (which, for the pedantic, is actually in the city of Las Vegas whereas the “strip” is in unincorporated Paradise, part of the county which may – by statute – never become a municipality), where sometimes if you squiiiint, can still feel like Rat Pack days or that Sean Connery James Bond movie or at least $.99 shrimp cocktails and highballs when you’re playing slots with a fake ID like me in 1990.
But mostly I dug the meandering strip of rundown motels thinking about “who is staying in there?” and what kind of last chance life survives until it doesn’t.
A couple times we visited container park (maybe it’s called something similar) which has shops and cafés built into shipping containers in various configurations – heck sometimes sitting on an Astroturf lawn listening to live music and looking at a railway caboose (which, of course I took cheesy photos with because I’m predictable) after eating tamales at a nearby restaurant where the waitress either completely ignored us or came by every three minutes to check on how we are doing.
Also, staying at the original hotel “El Cortez” just so I could go down to the lobby bar amongst machines fed nickels by octogenarians with oxygen tanks, wearing my pink pajamas and silky robe (rayon) to order a Manhattan as though that was something I liked.
Anyhow, to the topic at hand:
Usually I would put a disclaimer that ‘this is not intended to be a documentary of the museum it’s just for personal reminiscence and inspiration’, and usually I would put a link to a map but heaven help you, you can find this easy – right by the Mafia Museum and probably the Punk Rock museum and the place where you get a free burger if you weigh over 300 pounds or something like that on the Frontier Street experience, oh wait, I think I mean Fremont Street.
Like I said, not a documentary, just for your amusement and my memory. Dig it (or not) // regardless, makes for comfortable time traveling.
