I heart Strange Reno Hotels
I am a poker player, but I am also an artist. I love kitschy things, and the gambling world is full of stuff that I love and that “normal” people might find horrendous.
I’ve had the pleasure (?!?) of staying in casino motels across the country, and the best place to get a wonderfully over the top room is certainly Reno. The night before my husband and I got engaged, we paid $17 for a room at a casino hotel. The gaudy floral pattern on the carpet was the same gaudy floral pattern on the bedspread, which was actually the same gaudy floral pattern on the wallpaper too! No lie. It was like someone decided to camouflage the whole place in peonies. I could have planted a fake flower somewhere and played Where’s Waldo. It was fantastic.
On our next visit, a few years after we were married and had started making a little bit of money, we opted for a $60 “deluxe” room at another hotel. Now this room was really something special. The entire room, including the ceilings were mirrored. All the walls were rimmed with 70’s style track lighting. Fake flowers covered in decades old dust decorated the space, and there was actually a hot tub in the room WITH A WATERFALL. It very easily could have been a 70’s nightclub or a porn set, but a 21st century hotel room?
Both of these rooms may have been weird, but they were clean, affordable, and fun. I recently heard that a lot of the casinos in Reno are doing renovations. I just hope that the execs don’t start charging three times as much for a plane-jane, vanilla, Vegas-wanna-be room. I’ve come to expect so much from my Reno stays.
If you too are a fan of the kitsch, I recommend a stop at The Liberace Museum on your next visit to Vegas. The museum is great, but the best part about it is that it’s in a strip mall! A strip mall museum…strange. And the last time I was there, the only other business in the strip was a gay night club; how appropriate and wonderful. Dave Hickey, who is possibly the best living art historian in the country, teaches at UNLV. He wrote a fabulous book called Air Guitar that discusses The Liberace Museum within a much headier art discourse. It’s a great book that I recommend to all.
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Hey I saw one of your final table compatriots at the Venetian today playing $5/10 NL, do you remember that girl Devi, I think she finished like 7th? I think she lives in Vegas now.
I will definitely check out the liberace museum sometime too, sounds like an interesting place.