Living Las Vegas

Real Life in the Shadow of the Strip

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Top Vegas Hotels: Bellagio, Luxor, Rio

Mushroom Clouds over Vegas

People like to watch stuff blow up, and nowhere in the world is there more proof of this fascination than Las Vegas. Hotel implosions — even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 made them politically incorrect — still draw ogling crowds. But they weren’t the first big bangs that lured curious observers to southern Nevada, and they definitely weren’t the largest. That distinction belongs to the mushroom clouds created by atomic bombs detonated in the 1950s at the Nevada Test Site.

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Sharks on Parade

Everyone knows that all the sharks in Las Vegas are in casinos, and nowhere is this more delightfully true than at Mandalay Bay. Shark Reef is a beautifully designed aquarium that boasts not only sharks but also a fascinating array of other aquatic creatures, some of which you can even touch.

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Over the Hump to the Brothels in Pahrump

Prostitution is illegal in Clark County, even though billboards offering “Full Service Ladies Direct to Your Room” suggest otherwise. Those are personal dancers, understand? They come to your hotel room and dance for you. That’s it. Well, okay. You can take them to the movies or out to dinner, but if you thought those billboards were advertising more than a little innocent social interaction, well, you’re just wrong! There’s no prostitution in Las Vegas. Everybody knows that for that sort of thing, you have to go to Pahrump!

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Chardonnay in the Chaparral

“Let’s take a drive out to wine country.” It sounds a lot more like a San Francisco suggestion than something you might hear on the Las Vegas Strip. But the fact is, you can take a drive to a winery from Las Vegas. This excursion is known locally as “going over the hump to Pahrump.”

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Grocery Shopping in Sin City

Las Vegas has a well-established reputation as a good place to eat, mostly because cheap, all-you-can-eat casino buffets are a long-standing tradition. More recently, with the advent of big-name chefs and their prestigious restaurants, Las Vegas’s reputation has expanded.

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Living in Las Vegas -- what's it really like? Ten local writers share news & views from Southern Nevada.