My Vegas vacation(s)

Having been to Las Vegas, Nev., a dozen times or more, including a recent family visit, my memories of Sin City are many.

However, the recollection forever etched in the brain came during my first swing through town. A warning to parents: use discretion when deciding if your minor children should read further.

It was the summer before my first year of college, 1975, and Dad, out of the blue, suggested a road trip. This adventure, with my 16-year-old sister, Nancy, from eastern Montana to Tijuana and back, came 18 months after our mother died. I think Dad just needed to get out of town — way out.

To save money, Dad, in his early 50s, rented a small camper trailer that we pulled halfway across the country. On about the third day, we arrived at the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino in Vegas and grabbed a spot in its RV park.

Dad gave us a few bucks to explore the resort, not wanting to know what we would spend it on. Nancy recalls I was ushered out of the casino several times for being under 21, so we headed to the hotel arcade.

Before you could say “ring toss,” Nancy won a giant stuffed St. Bernard, and I secured an enormous pink elephant. They were prizes any third-grader would love, but so big we had to cram them in the small trailer’s bathroom to make room while eating or sleeping.

Before leaving Las Vegas, Dad thought it would be a real experience to see a show on The Strip. With Wayne Newton and Dean Martin out of our price range, Dad asked a concierge to recommend an inexpensive, “family friendly” show. It turned out to be far more memorable, and not as family friendly, as any version of Mr. Newton’s “Danka Schoen.”

As Nancy and I reflected a few days ago, the show featured some acrobats and a foul-mouthed comedian, but the piece de resistance came with the opening performance. After much anticipation, the music started, and the curtain raised to reveal a dozen beautiful show girls ice skating across the stage in full regalia. Almost. The show girls were topless.

As you might expect of a young adult male, I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage — but not for obvious reasons. I was afraid to look at Dad and Sis. What was Nancy thinking, or most importantly, what was going through Dad’s mind?

Nancy recalls she was almost certainly beet-red. My mouth and eyes were undoubtably wide open the entire time. After the performance, we quickly left the arena straight into the casino, greeted by flashing lights and dinging bells from the slot machines. I laughed out loud. What a night.

Dad’s impression of it all? We never talked about it. Not a word. Probably just too embarrassing for this member of the Greatest Generation. As for me, the experience brings a chuckle and a smile every time it pops in my head.

That trip produced other head-shaking moments: the car heater intentionally on full blast while crossing the Mojave Desert, the huge ceramic pot purchased for Grandma in Tijuana that I carried on my head across the border, the car that clipped our trailer while driving through Idaho, and the close call while taking pictures of a mama moose and her calf.

For a while there was a steady stream of trips to Las Vegas. My wife, Patty, and I covered the National Finals Rodeo for a local television station, and there were plenty of University of New Mexico basketball and football games to report on as well. We also took the family to youth basketball tournaments in Vegas, too preoccupied to enjoy the nightlife.

Now, more memories were added this month after seven family members, including our two granddaughters, piled in a rented van and boogied to Las Vegas.

It was a trip without the eye-popping moment witnessed nearly a half-century earlier, but it had plenty of the usual touristy fun. A stop at the impressive Hoover Dam. A tour through the haunted museum. Clashing swords as Knights of the Round Table dueled. The continued demolition of the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, complete with mattresses being pushed out of the 30th floor. My first trip to Meow Wolf. Why go to Santa Fe’s facility when you can find a Meow Wolf 600 miles away?

Seeing the sites on the famous Las Vegas Strip remains a kick, including the fountains at Bellagio doing their dance. There were even show girls, fully clothed, promoting events and posing for pictures on the sidewalk. Patty and I followed their plumage to help us navigate through the crowd.

All these trips were unique in their own way, but Patty pointed out each seems to mark an era. The first vacation with Dad and Nancy brought my youth to an end while starting adulthood.

Others have book-marked life as a family man or a blue-collar worker. Now, this latest excursion seems to have brought things full circle, with the grandkids coming along for the ride and building their own memories.

Patty says we all have places and events that punctuate the path we take. So true. It might be the bright lights of Vegas or the comfort of a familiar park bench. The serenity of Christmas Eve services or the annual phone call from a best friend on your birthday. The key, I am learning at a ripe old age, is to savor each stop.