But seriously, I used to hate Las Vegas, so what happened? Did Vegas change or did I?

I certainly have changed in my ability to enjoy the sheer insane, surprising, throbbing spectacle that is the heart of the Vegas experience. I appreciate the way Vegas is like Disneyland for adults: a place to play, be silly, and take a break from real life. I confess to being intrigued by the chance to do laps in a Ferrari around a race track or to fire an AK-47 at a shooting range. In fact, tomorrow we have reservations at Dig This, where I will learn to operate a “state-of-the-art Caterpillar D-5 track-type bull dozer,” dig trenches, drive over tall mounds, and push giant boulders. Stay tuned for that report.

But mainly it’s Vegas that has changed, or, more accurately, has expanded. As Vegas went up market, so did my opinion of it.

The original Las Vegas that I hate still exists. The dark and hazy smoke-filled casinos littered with old ladies gripping their supply of quarters in plastic drink cups, smoking and plying the one-armed bandits? They’re still here. So are the all-you-can-tolerate buffets and the woozy tourists roaming The Strip and cavernous indoor hallways with 32-ounce containers of aqua blue cocktails. Still going strong is the cheezy entertainment served up by has-been and never-were entertainers. (Seriously, was Carrot Top ever funny? Was he actually funny in the 1990s, or were people just in a good mood that decade and laughed at anything?)

Anyway, that dated, lame, middle-brow Las Vegas still exists right beside the shiny new upscale Las Vegas, which features high-end hotels, first-class dining, serene eco-spas, and memorable performances by entertainers you actually want to see. There’s even the occasional art gallery (think the Bellagio collection of fine art) as well as tons of public art. Vegas has come a long way, baby!

For example, my first recollection of Las Vegas is from 1985 when a co-worker returned from a business trip and showed me a “menu” of sex acts available at the Chicken Ranch outside of Vegas. They all had cute, suggestive names that made the Chicken Ranch sound like a Girl Scout camp instead of a brothel.

At my first visit to Vegas in the late 1990s, we were on our way to Death Valley. We spent less than 24 hours here, and that was more than sufficient. It didn’t help that we stayed at the Excalibur, a cheap and nasty hotel with a King Arthur theme, decrepit oversize wood furniture, and a general seediness that made me avoid touching any surface in the bedroom.

Staying at the Mandalay Bay for trade shows was better, especially the time I was upgraded to The Hotel, a smoke-free enclave where I had a suite on a high floor. I loved having breakfast in the serene dining area with only the sounds of clinking china and splashing water as my companions. Still, I was forced to go through the smoky casino to reach the convention floor. This 10-minute ordeal left me coughing and my eyes burning every morning and evening. Once I tried to find a route to the convention floor by going outside, but I found myself locked out. I had to retrace my steps and go through the casino after all.

I realized Vegas was changing the time I arrived for a convention and saw billboards for Blue Man Group. I had seen this show in New York a decade before at an Off-Off-Off Broadway theater with low ceilings and cramped seating. It never occurred to me that this inventive, irreverent piece of theater would turn into a blockbuster show and end up in Vegas, but there it was.

Still, I find myself holding two opinions at once, sometimes disgusted, sometimes delighted by what I encounter here.

Here are things I still hate about Vegas:

1. The casinos
2. The cigarette smoke in the casinos
3. The cigarette smoke in my eyes and lungs and on my clothes
4. The way you are forced to walk through the casinos to get anywhere (see #2 and #3)
5. The sight of people roaming around drunk.
6. The focus on booze, gambling, and illicit sex.
7.  The whole Sin City vibe—“what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

Still, when I make a list of what I actually like, this list is much longer:

1. You can walk everywhere.
2. It’s egalitarian: there is something for everyone, at every price point.
3. It’s cosmopolitan: you can run into people from around the world here. I hear people speaking so many foreign languages, I may as well be at Heathrow.
4. It’s diverse: Everyone comes to Las Vegas sooner or later. You see business people here for conventions, tourists here for vacations, honeymooners, girlfriends here for a weekend or a bachelorette party, even extended families with three generations roaming around.
5. High-end restaurants by famous chefs from New York, San Francisco, and beyond. Yes, the restaurants are expensive, but the food is excellent and the service is great.
6. The clear, dry air and the views of the mountains and desert, especially at sunset. I love seeing the mountains swept back like rock waves and painted with shades of lavender, rose and gold.
7. Casino-free, smoke-free properties like the Vdara where we are staying this time.
8. The spa life: instead of casinos, I go to the spa. That is my own addiction, and although it’s expensive, at least I’m not throwing my money away.
9. Cirque du Soleil: I loved Ka! so much when I saw it in 2004 that I decided Cirque du Soleil alone is a reason for Las Vegas to exist.
10. The welcoming and efficient workers in the hotels and restaurants, who do everything professionally. It’s nice to visit a city that lives or dies on tourism, because people take their jobs seriously and things run smoothly.
11. The monorail: I am a sucker for monorails, ever since I was a kid living in Missouri and my cousins visited Disneyland in their station wagon while we stayed home. It was like they had visited the future with their tales of riding the monorail.
12. The spectacle: I’m in awe of the visual attractions, whether the fountains at the Bellagio or the ersatz Eiffel Tour or the roller coaster that runs around a Manhattan cityscape at New York New York. It’s all so preposterous and crazy that it puts a smile on my face.
13. The art: There is public art everywhere, in unexpected places. For example, where we are staying, there is a City Center art collection sprinkled around the public areas. A Frank Stella fills the back wall at the registration desk of our hotel. Out front a giant sculpture built out of different colored canoes explodes overhead above the taxi line. At the Julian Serrano Spanish restaurant, beautiful mosaics cover the floor and walls. The ladies’ restroom is especially memorable with wavy strips of different colors crawling right off the floor and up the wall. I like it when a trip to the ladies’ room is like a trip to an art museum.