Sin City. Poolside bottle service, strip clubs, gambling and what? A Neon Sign Museum. Yeah, you heard that right. A Neon Sign Museum.
You know how when you fall in love, you can visualize that moment so clearly in your head? It’s a flutter, this overwhelming desire and then certain details just sit with you forever burned into your long term memory.
No? Ok. Maybe that’s just me. *awkward pause*
Anyhoo… 5 years ago, I had come home from work, picked up the mail, and was doing my normal process of file, shred, and read. I come across my monthly Via Magazine, which I always peruse through to look for the next adventure to add to my ever growing list. Start flipping through to see a brief clip of the Neon Sign Museum. My eyes ate up these deliciously old, worn down, and repurposed signs. They were visually stunning even in print. It was love at first sight.
This is what love feels like.
We used to do a yearly girls trip to Vegas, so I wasn’t particularly anxious about checking this off the list since I was sure we’d get to it eventually. Sadly after 2012, we disbanded the yearly trip and I needed to figure out another time to visit.
Luckily this year I had a conference to attend in Vegas, and I was determined to go during one of the nights, even if I’d have to go it alone. One of the promises I made to myself this year was “Imma do me” and to check off as many things on the bucket list as possible. No more excuses as why something can’t be done, or needs to wait. Float a Neon Sign Museum visit by some coworkers, and receive stunned looks of “I’ll pass *cough* you’re a nerd”, before Wayne and Chris agree to go. I love the people that humor me on my completely random adventures.
Day of, Chris ends up having a late night conference call and Wayne and I are on our own. We grab a cab and oddly enough to head off strip at this hour to the museum is about 40 mins in rush hour traffic. This means we’ll miss our timed tour (pre-booked this months in advance online, not that the place is every really that busy). Calling the museum I only to get caught up in their IVR and get frustrated. Wayne proceeds to laugh at me and then tries the number for himself, of course he manages to bypass the IVR and reach a person without much effort. He gets our situation sorted to where we can join the tour a little late. It’s the little moments like these with friends where I think to myself, “I’m lucky to have you around,” and with a brief mind hug, I look out the window and am distracted by signs.
We arrive shortly and are escorted to the tour, already in session.
Your journey begins here.
As Wayne listens to the history and descriptions I completely ignore the guide and physically skip around, lingering near the back of the pack so I can get the perfect shots sans humanoid forms. Sometimes I don’t think I care what the story was before coming into contact with something beautiful, I just care that it exists in my view, for me to interact with, add my own personal metadata, love, and appreciate. After all, isn’t it our memories that make things special?
Ok enough talk, here are my snaps. Neon Sign Museum Bucket list: Check.
