Here’s What I Learned from My Pandemic Vegas Trip

Just to set the stage, I took my first real (not visiting parents) since well before the pandemic began in 2020. It’s the first time I’ve flown anywhere in 2 years and the first time to Las Vegas in more than 3 years.

For the next few days, I’m going to share some of what I learned on my first big trip in a long time.

First up…

1.) Everybody Masks in Vegas

Everybody. All the stores and casinos have signs saying that masks are required, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. I didn’t see anyone refusing to wear a mask. I didn’t see anyone having to be told to wear a mask. I barely saw anyone griping about the mask and what little I DID see seemed to be good-natured.

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How complete was the masking in Vegas. I’ll tell you an absolutely true story. On Saturday, I was walking into Paris (the casino, not the town). Walking a few steps in front of me was one of Vegas’s many transient individuals. This guy looked like he’d been on the streets for years. And, he also had obvious mental problems. He was shouting racial epithets to a group of African-Americans eating on a patio. He was flipping them both fingers. He was yelling to no one in particular about…well, who knows? He was crazy.

As soon as this guy gets to the casino doors he stops, takes his dirty mask out of his even dirtier pocket, puts it over his nose and mouth and then walks right into the casino and immediately starts hollering crazy, incoherent threats.

Wow. This homeless man…this insane, possibly dangerous, homeless man…was FOLLOWING the CDC’s masking guidelines. It really makes you wonder about the people who refuse to wear a mask or argue about being asked to. I never thought I would say this but, “Anti-maskers, you should try to be more like the homeless deranged racist that I saw on the Las Vegas strip”.

OK, coming up soon: You can’t drink booze on an airplane anymore!