Joe's Final Thoughts

Why did we move away from home to live in Las Vegas for a half a year?

That was the question that I tried to answer when we started this blog. The answer was that we wanted to challenge ourselves, that we wanted to experience a different way of life. We love Philadelphia with all our hearts, but there had to be something else out there. How could we truly appreciate Philly when we didn't know anything else? It was to be a learning experience. Well, I'd say that was a success.

We certainly observed a different way of life. One interesting thing that I noticed is that there are basically two types of people that live in Las Vegas.

The first is personified by a young man we saw walk into the Mirage one night as we sat at the bar near the entrance. He walked in with his suitcase, yelled as loud as he could "LAS VEGAS!!!" as the veins on his head popped and he turned red, and then he literally ripped off his shirt right down the middle. Half this town is tourists that aren't really living here. They are just here to drink and party and trash everything and leave.

The second is personified by a homeless lady that randomly sat down at our table at Champagne's one night. She told us to call her either "Porkchop" or "Big Booty." She was kind of crazy. We asked her how she ended up in Vegas. She said "Well, I came down from Michigan with my friends one day, and they just left me here. I really want to go home." It seems like every local is a transplant from somewhere else, and all they want to do is go home, and Vegas is their jail cell.

Our experience in LV was basically an act of straddling between these two types of Vegas folk. We were tourists in that we weren't stuck here, and we were leaving soon, and we just wanted to party. At the same time, we did in fact call Vegas home, and in our experiences here, we really came to appreciate where we came from.

That, in my opinion, was the most important part of our experience here. We really learned to appreciate our true home. It was more than just missing Philly and the people we left behind. It was that we really grew to truly love our hometown. You don't know what you got till it's gone, they say.

And hey, we had some great times too. We lived in Vegas, so that part was kind of inevitable. When I think over our time here, lots of little moments come to mind: a swim in the hot tub, a slice of pizza, a whiff of smoke in a dirty bar, a beautiful view of a canyon, a massively tall casino, a shot of Ass Juice, a sunset from the Stratosphere. What a city. What a time.

It's been my privilege and honor to share this great experience with my girlfriend, Pamela. We grew even closer on this trip, and my love for her grew a lot deeper. I thank her for taking me along for the ride.

Goodbye, Las Vegas. Thanks for having us.