Vegas: Downtown Alley Sprawl

It's absolutely fascinating, to me, how you can walk a few short minutes away from the center of action and find yourself almost entirely alone. Downtown Las Vegas and especially Fremont Street, and the area directly around the Fremont Street Experience, are the hub of activity in this area. Once you find yourself on the numbered streets (like 6th or 7th) beyond Las Vegas boulevard to the East, you're far less likely to have to worry about finding any space on the sidewalk to navigate through. Crowds here are sparse unless there's a special event, and the later the evening gets the more sparse the traffic becomes. The raucous sounds of laughter, live music, fist fights and other drunken shenanigans fades into the distance as you walk. Murals start to proliferate the walls with a nearly manic frequency, though I'm not sure whether it's to disguise the decay or try to fight off urban depression. There's a lot of homeless people in the area, pushed out of the busier tourist areas by the ever-present security guards and police presence,  forced to congregate in more residential corners. I've stopped and given a girl my leftover food not far from here, after she cowered in fear as I walked by and her instinctual cowering tugged my heart strings. It's not just homeless people or night-owl locals you'll encounter here, though- sometimes you'll see a party bus or limousine roll by, or a rickshaw being pedaled by a dinosaur. Given that Las Vegas is home to many Burning Man aficionados (aka "Burners") , you shouldn't be surprised to encounter brightly lit bicycles or strange sculptures and vehicles at random, either. These things tend to happen here. It's Vegas, and it's weird here. Something about a city that thrives on sin, hedonism, and debauchery attracts artists and creatives, and yes, the just plain weird. Random sequins on the side of the road, too, are not so uncommon as you might expect or hope. 

Vegas: Walk to Mantis at Container Park

Good ol' Mantis, the fire-spewing fixture of Container Park in Downtown Las Vegas, has become a local mascot of sorts. Japan gets to have thousands of local mascots, after all, so why shouldn't we have some fun of our own here? Like our locals here in Vegas, the Mantis can be a wise-cracking oddball with a bit of a hot streak... in that, he actually spews real flames from his majestic antennae. Sometimes he'll sing, sometimes he'll play catchy tunes you might remember from yesteryear ("Who let the dogs out?! WHO?! WHO?!") before tooting out bursts of flame. He's been downtown for years now, greeting guests to the Container Park and scaring tourists with unexpected bursts of sound or flame all the while. Needless to say, I've grown a bit fond of the big beast. Since we live pretty close to his home base, we try to stop over and say hi every so often. He's a local legend, but don't be shy. As far as we're aware, he's never used those massive claws of his on anyone...yet. 

Being in such close proximity to Fremont Street experience, you get a lot of the same traffic overflowing into the area. Some of it is fun, charming, goofiness... and some of it is blunt and to the point, like this guy. I've had homeless people in the area shoulder check me (walking across the street at the same light and he rammed my shoulder with his) and also had people shout compliments or insults in the same few blocks. With so many people, and a lot of them down and out, it's always going to be a medley and you never know what you're going to get. There's been a lot of gentrification and upward shifts in the demographicss of the area as Zappos brought in a lot of higher-paid tech and sales industry workers, and new expensive condominiums and apartments were built to accommodate them. Some of the residents have been priced out in the immediate downtown area, but if you go further east or north you'll still find some more affordable and questionably maintained living spaces and residences. There's a lot of empty businesses and buildings just a few blocks from the main hub of Fremont. Some have been painted over, to give a fresh and lively veneer to the urban decay occurring throughout the city.  I highly recommend exploring more of Las Vegas than just the glossy, high-trafficked tourist areas so that you can get a more nuanced vision of what the city really is. There's a lot more here than just slots and casinos.