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After two weeks of City Center/Bellagio/City Center/Sahara/City Center/Planet Hollywood/City Center (note the pattern), I decided to get out of town this weekend.

Fortunately, when your sphere-of-being is the geographic area between Fremont Street and the Mandalay Bay, “getting out of town” requires little more than crossing the I-15.

On Saturday morning, I gave serious consideration as to my casino choice of the day.  I didn’t just want to go someplace far.  Red Rock Station is “far”, but I’ve already been there a hundred times. I wanted to go someplace unfamiliar.  A place with a different flavor.  A place to lift the burnout of PR speak, over-saturation, and talking points.  A place that didn’t have a Twitter account.  A place void of scenesters, trendsters, and those who are hipper-than-thou.  Someplace that was not on the radar of a single talking head within a 100 mile radius.

I double clicked the ever-present Las Vegas casino map that resides on my desktop, and the Silverton caught my eye almost as soon as the file opened.

Here was a place that I had only been to two times in the past decade, yet it was only about 10 miles from Rexville.  It’s a place that doesn’t get a huge amount of publicity because it doesn’t seem to need it.  It’s consistently held in high regards by its patrons, and tends to lay low.

It seemed almost perfect.

I jumped in the Porsche, headed south, pulled onto Blue Diamond Road, passed a truck stop, and arrived at the casino who’s exterior reminded me a bit of Sam’s Town.

I walked through the main entrance, and immediately stopped in my tracks.

Why?

Because Santa Claus was waving at me.

“So what, Rex, it’s that time of year.  Santa Claus waves at me at the local mall.”

Fair enough, but this Santa Claus was fully submerged in a gigantic fish tank surrounded by sharks and other fish while breathing through scuba gear.

“Touche’, Rex.”

Indeed.

Unbeknownst to me, the Silverton has an attraction called, appropriately enough … “Underwater Santa”.  Local children line up at the large fish tank, grab a microphone, and tell submerged Santa what they want for Christmas.  After patiently listening, submerged Santa responds via a microphone built into his scuba suit.  It’s really, really weird — but I say this in a good way.

I don’t know how many hits of amyl nitrate the creator of this attraction took before coming up with the idea, but it is fascinating to watch and the kids seemed to enjoy it.  As a matter of fact, having seen it, I will probably return with my own sprogs.

After watching the bizarre aquatic scene play out before my very eyes, I reached for my weekend bankroll and headed to the adjacent gaming tables.  Here, I found all the $5 3:2 Blackjack I could possibly want.  I immediately took a seat, played for 30 minutes, and walked away with three times more than I sat down with.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, as long as I can cover the cost of the tetanus shot, I’d rather win at the Western than lose at the Bellagio.

The Silverton dealers were on the “mature” end, but this is not always a bad thing.  Eye candy is well and good, but there is a certain wisdom and character that comes with age.  Sometimes being able to hold a conversation with a genuinely nice person with life experience under their belt trumps eye-humping a bimbo.  Notice I said “sometimes”.

After cashing out my improbably profitable run and tipping out more than I should have (you have to spread the joy this time of year), I decided to cruise the rest of the property.

Five years had passed since I was last in the Silverton, and I had forgotten just how nice it is.  The casino has virtually every video game that one would want to play, and a sizable percentage of the machines are of the new “glass cockpit” variety.  VP paytables in the center of the room were based on 9/5 JOB, and feeling lucky from my BJ session … I plugged a $20 bill into dollar Bonus Poker and lost it in 4 plays.

I don’t think sentences that contain the phrase “feeling lucky” ever end well.

After my fifteen second video session, I headed to the Poker Room to see what was happening.  A single table was running, but the manager informed me that the room didn’t start jumping until the $2,000 guaranteed afternoon tournament.  This is something that I will probably play at some point.  I’m eying the 2010 WSOP, but I have been very deficient in tournament play lately.

The Poker Room at the Silverton is a very nice looking venue, and it appears to be comfortable and laid back.  Hopefully I will be able to comment on the competition in the near future.  After the Poker Room, I made a point to stop by the Sports Book.  The book is a “Leroy’s” affair that does not accept wagering on the NBA or NHL.  It seems adequate for most everything else, but it’s quite small and nondescript.

After scanning the bet sheets (I did not find a wager), I grabbed a $4 slice of Villa Pizza, then headed over to visit the Bass Pro Shops.

I have mixed feelings about these places.

When I was young, I was sent to stay with my uncle in West Virginia.  I don’t remember the details of the visit (I hope I am not repressing memories of sodomy), but I do remember this:

He took me hunting, ordered me to shoot a rabbit, I refused, he berated me, then sent me home early with the opinion that I was somehow less than heterosexual.

Seriously, he was very upset that I had refused his orders, but I could not bring myself to kill a rabbit with a firearm.

I’ve got nothing against hunters (the planet would not survive without them), I’m just not one of them.  I don’t want to kill anything that is minding its own business and not bothering me.

Who wants to eat a bullet-riddled rabbit anyway?

For that matter, who wants to eat a goddamn rabbit?

As a consumer, I think it is safe to say that my buying patterns fall directly in the middle of The Crystals Mall and the Bass Pro Shops … but I found the latter more fascinating than the former.  The Pro Shops were cool to peruse, and it almost felt like a museum.  There were wildlife displays everywhere, and products on display that I never knew existed (they sell audio tapes that supposedly will call a Moose).

My favorite section was the pistol case.  As a general rule, there are no gun stores in New York City or Washington, DC … yet here before me was a long case of firearms.  In a casino no less.

It’s not that we didn’t have guns where I am from (half of the people I knew had one), you just couldn’t buy them over the freaking counter.

I asked the clerk what I would need to buy a gun, and he replied “a driver’s license”.

“No, really”, I replied, “I’ve never been able to purchase a handgun over the counter.  It’s a serious question.”

“Where are you from?”, he asked back.

“DC and New York”, I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that”, he shot back sarcastically.

Sometimes country boys are a little too proud of their rural-ness. Even though it would have been easy to do so, I never tried to directly belittle the folks from flyover country who would routinely ask for subway directions.  Instead, I would politely give them accurate instructions.  “Country boy can survive” types have a tendency to be reverse-elitist pricks. I’m fairly sure there is a wide range of things with which they are not familiar, so I’m not sure the inflated sense of self-esteem is warranted.  At least Crocodile Dundee was affable.

Even though the guy was a hunter-douche who would have ended up in Brooklyn while trying to get to midtown Manhattan on the F Train, I considered purchasing a pistol, but then thought better of it.  I don’t want to have a gun the next time I hear someone shout “Vegas, Baby!”.  It would be too tempting.  I guess some people do deserve being condescended to.

Anyway, after hanging in the Pro Shops, I went back to the lobby and decided to do a little “blog work”.  Moments later, I shouted “Sweet!” to nobody in particular.

While I struggle to get a data connection in places like Planet Hollywood and Aria, all I have to do at Silverton is flip open my laptop, click the “Silverton Free Wi-Fi” SSID, and I am running with what feels like full-blown broadband internet.  There is no proxy portal, no “I agree that I’m not an asshole” terms of service page … no nothing.  Just click and surf.

This is a perk that far too few Vegas casinos offer, and it’s ironic that a place that sells fishing poles kicks the ass of the slick glass and steel structures 4 miles north.

I did a little web surfing, and then headed back into the casino where I proceeded to give about 25% of my profits back.

When I was done gaming, I headed outside, walked through the small outdoor park, and bought a hamburger from the Boy Scout troop in the parking lot to help send them to the “Jamboree”.  I know absolutely nothing about scouting, so hopefully this was a noble thing.  Either way, the hamburger was quite good.

Overall, I had a very pleasant and entertaining “gambling and hanging out day” at the Silverton.

I am going to go back in the near future for the Scuba Santa thing and also to hit a higher-end dining option such as the buffet.  Much like the M, I wish the Silverton was not so far away.  Were it closer, I’ve no doubt I would patronize it more often.

It’s got a feel, it’s got a soul, and it doesn’t seem overtly phony.  Even though they technically have one … I doubt the phrase “porte cochere” has ever been used in this property.

After spending the majority of December in places that, in my opinion, tend to over-promise and under-deliver, the Silverton was just what I needed.

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