Snapshot from Vegas #4

The Four Block Walk that Turned into the Four Mile Walk

After viewing the outrageous prices for bottles of liquor on The Strip we took advice from a local and decided to hunt down Lee's Discount Liquor for the city's the best deals. At the time we happened to be at The Mandalay Bay Hotel which was conveniently located, or so we were told by this local, about four block from one of Lee's several locations.

More specifically, we were told to go outside and take a cab and that we'd be there in two minutes. She finally finished with this famous last line:

"You can't miss it."

Well, at the time we thought to ourselves, heck, it's a nice day and we all felt like we could use a walk and a discount so we forwent the cab and decided to walk it. If need be we could take a cab back but at this point we had nothing to lose. I mean, we know there's a difference between regular city blocks and New York City blocks, how big of a difference could Las Vegas City blocks be? Surely we could trek the equivalence of four Vegas blocks.

Here's a glimpse of what you might see if you were walking for miles and miles in Las Vegas on the hunt for a discount liquor store:

And keep going...
You "can't miss it..."

And you're still going...Yes, that's right, if you've now gotten yourself past McCarran Airport then you're on the right track.


Wait a minute. McCarran International Airport? This is where the needle on the record player should start to wobble. Do you have any idea how far a walk it is from The Strip to McCarran Airport?!?!

Yes, after four blocks that turned into more than four miles something sure started to feel off, though I'm afraid there was little we could do about it. We had wandered so far away from The Strip by foot that taxis were nowhere to be seen and we had nothing left to do but look for another big tourist attraction so we could hail a cab.

We finally found refuge in a cab at an outdoor shopping center some ways down on that beaten path, and she agreed to take us to the now infamous Lee's, which was still located mind you, about 2 miles from where we were. I don't know what we did to piss off that local or what school taught her the distance equivalency of a block, but I do know we happened to learn two valuable lessons along the way:

#1. If you've come to the pink elephant you've gone too far:

And #2. It's never worth it to walk over an hour and a half for a discount bottle of booze only to pay a $60 cab fare back to your hotel. Cue our Homer Simpson moment.