Todd’s Travels: Vegas, Baby! My Time on Historic Fremont Street

Last week, I told you a bit about my first legit vacation with my wife in nearly 5 years as we spent an extended weekend in Las Vegas just as the pandemic restrictions began lifting.

After getting into town late the first night we basically just got settled into our room and then went down to the casino floor at the MGM Grand Hotel for a few hours before hitting the sheets. A friend of ours that used to live in Moxee is now the Head Engineer at the hotel and was nice enough to get us upgraded from a 350 square foot room into a suite. Sweet!

Our first full day we met up with my old radio buddy "Spence" who is moving to Florida soon. since he is a local, he took us to one of his favorite haunts off of the Strip, an Irish Pub called McMullan's. It was extremely authentic - I had a shot of Bushmill's Black whiskey and a pint of Guiness back.

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The next day, after my wife went to the pool and let me sleep in, we hooked up with another former Yakima radio broadcaster, MoJoe Roberts. He took us on a tour of the iHeart Media studios that he works at before heading down to the Fremont Street Experience or, as some call it, "old" Vegas. On our way, we stopped by the brand-spanking new home of the NFL's Las Vegas (formerly Oakland) Raiders -- Allegiant Stadium.

It had changed a bit since we were last there about a decade ago. The canopy over the street complete with zipliners, recently had a $32 million facelift. After seeing the freaky street performers, Joe took us to the opposite end of Fremont to Container Park (justifiably named as it is constructed by old shipping containers). On the way there, we stopped by the first new casino/hotel built on Fremont in 40 years called Circa. It is home to the largest sportsbook in all of Vegas. It was PACKED as patrons flocked in to watch the Vegas Golden Knights playoff hockey match on the MASSIVE TV screens.

Before all of that, however, we grabbed a bite at Capo's Restaurant & Speakeasy. My wife, Carrie, and I are big-time fans of the television show "Bar Rescue". Host and hospitality expert Jon Taffer had just been there weeks earlier to film the, then, latest episode of the show so we definitely wanted to check it out. It did not disappoint!

Here, now, is Part II of our trip highlighting the day we spent on historic Fremont Street.