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Well, it happened: Carter turned 40. He and I and his friend Craig took off for the West.

Las Vegas, Nevada. That's Spanish for Fertile Valleys. Of course, it's in the middle of the desert....

We stayed at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay--a huge resort hotel disguised as a boutique hotel attached to an even more huge resort hotel. Upon entering the building, the very first thing we saw was this wall of Richard Serra prints. A good omen for a good trip.

We arrived at noon, met up with Craig for a quick burger, then strolled through the casino. We walked a long way down the strip, to Caesar's and The Bellagio. The dancing waters outside and the fancy interiors of the Bellagio were fabulous, but Caesar's is it in terms of feeling like you're in Vegas. Old fashioned and swank, it had none of the pretense of the new resorts--just good old-fashioned glitz and glam, which is right up my alley. We played a few slot machines, we shopped a bit, and we marveled at the sheer size of all the hotels.

I had scheduled 5pm massages in the hotel spa for Carter and I as a birthday present to him and a well-deserved break from work for me. I had a deep tissue massage that felt like the flesh was being loosed from my bones! It was wonderful. Carter had a gentler Swedish.

After enjoying the spa and then dressing for dinner, we met Craig for a drink, then he retired his jet-lag to bed and Carter and I headed to dinner at Aureole. I've been to Aureole in New York once and loved it, but nothing prepared me for how astounding this meal was. It ranks as among the best restaurant experiences of my life--rivaling Bill's birthday at Gramercy Tavern and the post-theater meal Carter and I had at Maseo in Paris. The dining room--like everything in Vegas--is oversized, but the ambiance is intimate and the noise-level perfectly bustling without being noisy. The service, too, was perfection: efficient, attentive, and practically invisible. We started with a glass of champagne. I had seared “Hudson Valley” foie gras to start, and a special veal tenderloin as my main course. Carter had the Pinot Noir poached “Seckle” Pear Charlotte, then carmelized Sonoma quail. We both had yummy cheese plates after. We drank a delicious Pinot Noir from Oregon--Cristom, Williamette Valley, 2003. The wines at Aureole are retrieved from their enormous wine tower by "wine angels"--servers on pulley-systems to lift them four stories in the air to get you just the right bottle for dinner. It was the most satisfying dinner I've had since that night in Paris.

After dinner, we gambled and drank late into the wee hours. 'Nuff said.

The next day we went to the Hoover Dam.

I loved this little excursion. The Dam is about 45 minutes from Las Vegas. We took the tour, delighted in 1930s/40s architecture and design, ate soft ice cream and drove back to Vegas in time to again attend the hotel spa. See HERE in the Photos section for lots of pictures of the Hoover Dam fun.

This day was Carter's actual birthday, and we'd made reservations at Mix--an Alain Ducasse restaurant right in our hotel. This was more of a bombastic design experience than Aureole, with a huge chandelier of glass bubbles, seating multiple levels, some outdoor seating, and magnificent views of The Strip.

I had a bison steak. It was absolutely delicious. The ambience was very lively. We'd drunk a bit before dinner and the restaurant was a real scene, so much of the meal was a blur. I did have the wherewithal to ask the waiter to acknowledge--without singing--Carter's birthday in his dessert. I got exactly what I asked for:

After dinner Craig again decided to indulge in needed rest, and Carter and I stayed at Mix for a while, enjoying the loud music and bright views from the bar. Pre-dinner cocktails, dinner's wine, more bourbon in the bar... well, you know what comes next: drunken gambling and more drinks. We took a taxi to the other end of the Strip, to the Wyn hotel. I'm told I saw it, gambled some, and took a cab back to gamble more. But frankly I don't remember.

The next day Carter and Craig headed out to Lake Las Vegas to lunch at some new hotel or other there. I decided to stay in town and explore the resorts I hadn't seen yet.

The jet lag, the late nights, the copious amounts of booze, and the constant desert daytime sunshine were getting to me, as you can see in the picture above. So I bought myself a new pair of sunglasses to celebrate my losing $100 at the roulette table at the Venetian. Heh heh. The Venetian was lovely, and I had a nice pasta there for lunch. I also saw Paris, which I thought was a bit too much like a theme park, and New York New York, which was more cleverly executed. I rode the Manhattan Express, the roller coaster that encircles the hotel. It was fun, but I've ridden better.

Carter returned from lunch and joined me at New York New York. The funniest things we saw there were a big banner that says "City Ballet" and then, wonderfully, part of the facade of the Whitney Museum. Carter is a curator there (at the real one, that is), so we had a laugh taking his picture in front of it. He'll hang it in his office.

From there we went to the MGM Grand, which turned out to be my favorite of the big casinos. It's newish (early 1990s) but retains the flavor of the Vegas of old movies. The casino there is sprawling and amazing, and houses a lion's den where real descendants of the MGM lion come to show off for the crowds (although, while we were there the lions were acting just as aloof and snobby as common housecats). In the middle of the casino is a big round bar with lots of lights. Every half hour or so the music in the bar is cranked up and all the bartenders and waiters stop what their doing, climb up on the bar or the nearest table, and dance for the crowd. Awesome! That was my favorite part.

We headed back to the hotel to refresh. Carter took a bath in the room, while I sat for a nice relaxation in the spa's sauna and steam rooms, then showered there in their amazingly rainstorm-like showers.

Dinner this evening was supposed to be a simpler affair, one of the midlevel Wolfgang Puck Italian trattorias. It was right in a busy area of the Mandalay Bay complex, with the music and whirring sounds of the casino keeping it alive and brassy. The wine we'd had at Aureole and the wine at Mix had each cost about $100. I ordered the same--a $95 bottle of Italian something or other again for this meal. But the waiter returned with the list saying they'd sold out of it. I chose another wine, priced at $108. It was a delicious earthy red wine--a Nebiollo--and Carter and I enjoyed it. When the check came, I was stunned to see the total was a whopping $450 for the two of us! The wine was added on to the bill at $350. Um, waiter, can I see that wine list again? Yup, you guessed it. The prices were on the far right edge of the page, the wines listed down the left margin, and no lines or little dots connected the wine to its price on the other side of the page. I had simply put the wrong wine to the right price. Well, that's life, I suppose. Thing is, the wine was delicious, but not really any more delicious than the two previous nights' bottles. But Carter and I had a good laugh about it.

So I had never gambled before. I liked it. I can see how people get addicted to it--because of course the whole time you're doing it feels totally possible to win a buttload of money!!!! Improbable by serious degrees, but possible, and it's enough to keep everyone from little old ladies to urban hipsters tugging on those one-armed bandits. I lost that $100 on roulette, but I won $100 at blackjack. And I probably came somewhere between breaking even and losing a hundred bucks on the slots--but it's hard to keep track because you play $5, win $25, lose another $20, turn $10 into $100, lose another $5, break even and take your money out again, etc etc etc... Good times.

One thing Carter will never win back though is his 30s. That door's closed and another decade's portal opened. They say life begins at 40--so happy birthday, big boy, I had a great time celebrating!

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