The Professor Errant

Las Vegas is always a fun and easy weekend if you live in the LA area. Hopefully everyone else won’t have the EV charging drama we did!

Getting there

This past Memorial Day weekend, we drove to Vegas for the first time in Rob’s EV (Ford Mustang Mach-E). On the drive there we learned something that made the trip not so fun and easy: the adaptor he has that we thought gave us access to all Tesla chargers actually doesn’t!

We made it to Barstow with no problems and had lunch at an Original Tommy’s (our first time at one); they have great chili burgers.

In Baker, CA, we went to a gas station with both Tesla Superchargers and non-Tesla chargers. The line for the non-Tesla ones was long so we went to the Tesla side. Well, when we found ones that reached to his charging port, none of them worked! (A lot of the cords didn’t even reach his port at all and you can’t tell me Tesla doesn’t do that on purpose! Their official advice for using them just amounts to “I don’t know, bro, just park across two spots, I guess.”) Rob later, on the internet, ascertained that some Tesla Superchargers are not compatible with Fords (old software?) and some are even another kind altogether: Destination chargers, not Superchargers. He has since bought another adapter that can access those and we will test it on our next road trip. The ones in Baker were the BAD Superchargers.

Anyway, we said “eff it” and decided to make for the dying town of Primm, NV. It’s right on the Nevada side of the state line and had non-Tesla chargers. Well, if you know anything about EVs…you lose charge/%/miles rapidly on the uphills. Rob’s car started telling us we weren’t going to make it to Primm with the charge we had left. What saved us was the fact that you regain charge on the downhills. And there is a HUGE downhill into Primm. So we actually had plenty of charge to get there. We just sweated a bit along the way! Had to wait in line for a charger but, whatever, we got it done.

Staying there

We learned just couple of weeks prior to the trip that it was a big BTS weekend in Vegas (multiple concerts and lots of fan events) and our friend Laura (big K-pop fan) was there. Alas, she was so busy with her fan stuff that we didn’t get to see her. K-pop isn’t really our thing (except for K-pop Demon Hunters!), but, hey, whatever gets you through these dark times.

On a previous recent trip we stayed at the Park MGM, which I have to say is awesome solely based on the fact that it is entirely non-smoking. Las Vegas hotels and casinos are one of the last bastions of smoking in American culture. If you don’t want to smell like a nightclub after just walking through the lobby, definitely stay there. For this trip, though, we tried out another MGM hotel we had always wanted to stay at: New York-New York.

New York-New York is built to (kinda) resemble the city’s skyline and features New York City theming throughout. A cartoony, Vegasy version of New York, sure, but we still found it super fun. Our clothes got stinky but it just had so much more character than the bland luxury of Park MGM. And if you do visit any of the other MGM hotels, you can charge anything you buy back to your room. You just have to tell them which MGM hotel you’re staying at and the room number.

We had one issue with our room. The shower had two temperatures: ice cold and dangerously, scaldingly hot. Maintenance fixed it (bad valve) as soon as we told the hotel about the problem. Very nice work.

Fun Stuff

We had been wanting to experience the Sphere, so going to that was the centerpiece of this trip. The band No Doubt was in residence at the time we went (yuck, no thanks!) but they were also doing daytime screenings of an enhanced version of The Wizard of Oz. That was definitely up our alley.

Also, we went to Vegas for the food. Obviously!

The night we got there, we went to the local outpost of Top Round, one of our favorite fast food places, whose two LA area locations have closed. Think Arby’s, but much, much better. The Las Vegas location is, conveniently, attached to New York-New York. Sadly, although we enjoyed our food, the one employee we interacted with seemed to not want to be there.

The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere the next day was fun. They expanded the visuals to fill the spherical screen space and even made it 4D (?) by having fake leaves and apples fall on the crowd. I noticed they cut out some of the dialogue in places (I really have seen the movie that many times, I guess!). That was the only thing I didn’t like. Rob thought the visual expansions looked like sloppy AI a lot of the time. Not a fan of AI, but I wasn’t bothered by it in the moment.

Would I go again? Well, it would depend on the event. We paid concert-level prices for a movie screening. It would have to be a big special deal for me to see another movie that way. Concert by someone I really like? Absolutely! Cosm here in LA does same thing for movies for much cheaper (with a smaller screen, of course).

I wanted pizza after we returned to New York-New York. Rob hates pizza but loves hot dogs, so we went to Nathan’s Hot Dogs, which has both pizza and hot dogs and we were both happy!

For dinner our second (last) night, I made reservations at Toscana, an Italian restaurant in Park MGM’s Eataly food hall. I had a super sweet cotton candy-flavored cocktail. I may have gotten a cavity! Rob thought his spaghetti with shrimp was too salty but my shrimp risotto was perfect. Eataly has so much more to explore and try. We will have to go there again.

Going home

Going home was less harrowing. We charged in Las Vegas (with Tesla’s “park across two spots trick,” which we weren’t the only ones doing!) and then again in Barstow. Many lessons learned!

Our cat Ocean was nursing an ingrown claw, and we managed to get home in time to take her in before the vet closed.