Inside the elevators at the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, a small plaque reminds riders that this means of conveyance is actually an “inclinator,” as it travels upwards at a 39-degree angle instead of a perfect vertical line.
The tech was breakthrough in 1993, when this giant pyramid first opened at the end of the Strip. But now the inclinator rides a little rickety on its way to the upper floors, there’s plaster crumbling in some of the corners and the concept — ancient Egypt and all its accoutrements — seems hopelessly dated.
That year, 1993, also marks my own first visit to this city, at the impossibly young age of 23. This was before they put a roof over downtown, before the Bellagio and the Blue Man Group came to town, when the Stratosphere’s phallic tower was just beginning to rise and a hip, young tourist could still find some molly at the Double Down Lounge.
In other ways, Vegas is exactly the same as it’s always been: Flashy and seedy and unapologetically shallow. It’s me who has changed. Not the Luxor.
I have taken many subsequent trips here since, most of them with my wife over a span of years so wide that we have trouble remembering exactly which hotels we’ve stayed at before, and the exact date of our last visit, which we agree was at least 10 years ago and probably more.
I have changed so much since our last visit: I don’t drink; I don’t smoke; so much of the toxic behavior that drove me in my youth has been excised that I’m spending more time in the hotel gym and spa than at the gaming tables.
Through those years Vegas has changed much. The giants of the Strip have risen and fallen; home for residents, which 10 years ago could not be given away, are accumulating value again. Yesterday my wife and I took a driverless Lyft.
In other ways, Vegas is exactly the same as it’s always been: Flashy and seedy and unapologetically shallow. It’s me who has changed. Not the Luxor.
But the Luxor’s impossible pyramid can still elicit a sense of wonder when you walk the open hallways to your room and understand its vastness, its scale, its purpose and, yes, its irony.
It will most certainly do.
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