March 7, 2021 Lunch - Shake Shack in Las Vegas. Dinner - Le Thai in  Mike’s Garden

We woke up at 5:30 to see the sunrise at 6:51 at Sunrise Point at Bryce Canyon, although the diurnal shift started at around 6:15 when we arrived.

We sat and watched the sun ride over the far Mesa and then returned to the room to eat our breakfast of yogurt and fruit salad.

We then packed our gear into the car and drove to Las Vegas.

When we arrived in Las Vegas at around 11:15 we drove directly to the Outlet Mall.  The outlet stores no longer seem to be outlets for unsold seasonal and discontinued items at low prices. Calmest all of them are selling a second item for 1/2 off, which is only a 25% discount from nearly retail.  We initially walked to Shake Shack and ordered hamburgers and a drink.  Suzette ordered a double hamburger with double provolone cheese slices.  I ordered a hamburger and a slice of cheese.with a Smoon which was cheese between two portobello mushrooms that was battered and deep fried into a round loaf.

Suzette ordered a beer band I ordered a root beer, for a total of $33.56. Welcome back to the real world.  Actually the bun that seemed to bee egg bread, meat and other ingredients were first quality and the portobello loaf was a cute idea. After we finished I tested Danny Meyers historic reputation for friendliness and hospitality. I told the server who passes our table that my root beer was mostly ice and could my top off the half glass of ice in my cup with additional root beer.  He said, “Let me bring you a fresh cup of root beer. That was light ice that you wanted?” 

When I said, “Yes.”  He disappointed for a couple minutes and returned with a fresh large cup of root beer filled with mostly root beer and little ice.

So the reports are correct and they passed bot the hospitality test and the Covid test.  I realize there was a danger in me handing him my cup and him taking it to the kitchen to refill it, in that moments well as the tradition is food service of making right for the customers, what was not right for them from the beginning.  I loved that response for both aspects of it.

The root beers helped get me through the nearly 2 mile hike we went on to the telephone accessory store  for a replacement car charger and ended up with two new cell phone cases with built in extra batteries, a car charger, a magnate to hold the phone on the dash in the car, and an extra glass to cover the phone screen, thanks to the fast talking and hard selling of Doron, the Arab salesman.

After that experience, we walked or should I say hiked to Banana Republic, Downey and Bourke, and UGG.  I would not have made it for the two mile hike without the sugar and cool liquid of the extra root beer, so another thanks to Danny Meyers and his Shake Shack crew’s hospitality.

After the long walk we returned to the car and drove the short distance to the Plaza Hotel. I felt like I had entered the heart of Las Vegas as we waited under the huge portico in front of the hotel/casino.  While I was waiting in the Highlander there was a commotion with loud shouting behind me.  Suddenly a group a black women were yelling beside the car and one in red hair was hand cuffed and on the ground near the vehicle.  Immediately, a group of about seven or eight security guards appeared and two or three picked up the lady and carried her out of sight out of the portico followed by three or four other black women, some screaming and others filming the scene on their phone cameras until the security guards established a security line on the sidewalk at the end of the portico where it became a portal beside the casino. I did not know whether to think George Floyd or January 6th and ended up assigning the incident to “Crazy Las Vegas.”

A security guard came to my window and said, “You need to move on. We are clearing the area.”

I calmly explained that I was waiting for my wife to check-in to the hotel and he said he said it again.  

Luckily Suzette arrived a moment later and we drove out of the portico and to the large five story parking garage attached to the hotel/casino.

I can not think of a more surreal comparison of America at its best and its worst than the juxtaposition of a small group of people sitting on Sunrise Point in Bryce Canyon National Park and a me,ee at the door to a casino in Las Vegas, and this occurred on the same day.  I thought I was in a Werner Herzog or Sacher Baron Cohen movie.

When we arrived in our room we ordered on-line our dinner for 5;30 pick up from Le Thai restaurant on Fremont street. Then I showered and we rested from 3:00 until 4:30 when we shared a welcome back to society period by watching half of an episode of the home remodeling program, Home Town on HGTV.

At 5;15 we drove to Le Thai and picked up our order all neatly packed in aluminum and plastic containers tied in two plastic bags.  We had ordered a Pad Thai with pork, a stir fried flat dish with beef with a sweetened soy sauce that I usually like very much but had turned a greasy mess by the time we ate it, a chicken lard with lettuce, an really good Thai style beef and Chinese Broccoli to which we added tofu, and the best of all, fried pork belly that literally melted in our mouths.

After we picked up the food we drove to Mike’s house, arriving just before 6:00 as he was returning from a Trader Joe’s run, which allowed us to see some of the expanse of Las Vegas that now numbers 2 million people according to Mike.

Mike has a lovely house in a development of town homes on a corner lit that has rather extensive outdoor development including three sitting areas and a shall bocce court.  We sat by a small fountain but moved to another area where Mike has set a fire in a small brazier as it darkened and cooled. Suzette helped Mike re-heat the food. 

We ate on small tables placed near the brazier that Mike kept fed will logs to keep us warmed and cozy.

The food was delicious, just the way I remembered it.  I loved everything, but especially loved the beef and tofu with Chinese Broccoli and the weird stir fried noodles in the sweet soy sauce. The stir fried flat noodle dish illustrates what I like best in Thai cooking, cooking noodles in sauces until the change texture and become translucent as they absorb the sauce.

Mike served us bottles of Trader Jose dark beer that I have not seen in Albuquerque yet that was a delicious Mexican style dark beer like Negra Modelo, but a little more hoppy.

We ate and talked until 9:00 and before we left Mike gave us a tour of his house and office with a demonstration of a video editing app he uses named Movivi.

We returned to the hotel and fell asleep after we emptied and re-iced our cooler.

I awakened at 1:30 to blog and brush my teeth and remember all the serene and surreal sights and sounds of the day.

Bon Appetit