“You have to see it at least once.”

“I’ve always wanted to go”.

“You should.”

“You know, when it comes to outdoor gear, all I have is a set of golf clubs.”

My brother, Chad, was in the same situation. Neither of us were campers. The extent of our childhood experience was pitching a pup tent in our parent’s backyard and eating frozen pizza at the picnic table

“We gotta do this,” Chad reiterated.

His friend, Dave, was organizing a trip and could furnish the gear. Dave’s brother-in-law, John, and a friend, Don, were already on board. They were looking for a couple more to join. So, Chad and I signed on and I was sitting on well-worn log in a part of the world where the United States meets Canada; where the providence of Ontario and the State of Minnesota are separated by a chain of lakes; where breakfast is cooked over a campfire and a college-aged barista wasn’t going to serve my coffee.

Dave raised a dented pot and I extended my tin cup. He then offered the same to Chad who replied, “Only green tea.”

Chad doesn’t drink coffee. I saw him try it once. It hit him like a speedball. He talked faster than a New York stock trader and dominated the conversation at the table. He then went to an estate sale where he bought everything in sight. He even bought a ten-foot toboggan and it was the middle of July.  No, coffee could not be his friend.

Chad knew green tea wasn’t a macho drink like coffee or whiskey. So, he started to brag about its medicinal benefits of being “nature’s broom.”

Barely into our trip and Chad was already talking about pooping. When we were kids there were the constant jokes. When he visited a friend in India, he had a near religious experience staying with a family who installed their first toilet. They asked him every day if he had the opportunity to celebrate his morning stool.

Celebrate? Maybe there wasn’t much to celebrate in India or maybe the Indians love to celebrate everything. Whatever the case, Chad returned from the trip even less inhibited about defecation.

Chad’s “nature’s broom” caught a favorable reaction with Dave. And over the course of the trip a level of camaraderie would develop between their love of pooping. Dave would even spend the time reworking the lyrics to a John Denver classic:

Forest home take my load
To a place with a commode.
North of Virginia (MN)
Boundary Waters

The reason for the poop talk was our location. We were not in a national park or national forest. We were in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), a designated national wilderness. What does that mean? It means no hotels, motels or campgrounds. Nothing can be added except for what was originally there. We had a steel grill for a fire pit and a few hundred feet away a plastic toilet rising from the earth. No walls or magazine rack, just a free-standing commode amongst a copse of trees, a setup that was the exact opposite to the bathroom I used days before…

The Bellagio is a Las Vegas hotel with layers upon layers of comfort with king size beds, 90-inch TV’s, full-size living rooms and Italian marble pouring from the bathrooms with walk-in showers the size of New York studio apartments, and Jacuzzis big enough to host a Tupperware party. And inside these most luxurious bathrooms, a separate door leading to a commode, and next to the commode, a bidet.

My friend, Ron, invited me along for he had a free stay. Why? He is a gambler, not a high roller, but a steady enough player to get the casinos attention, especially in the dog days of summer when most people are not looking to vacation in the desert.

I tagged along, not to gamble, but to hang out with Ron. Over the years I followed him to many gambling pursuits from dog tracks and riverboats to Native American and Canadian casinos. Some trips involved Ron winning hundreds if not thousands of dollars and me losing whatever I had in my wallet. Still, I enjoyed my time, and it seemed like The Bellagio was the pinnace to this gambling adventure.  And though I don’t like gambling, I’ve always enjoyed being in casinos for there is always a bargain to be found.  That is how I ended up at a buffet just outside of Duluth…

“So, what did you do,” asked Quynh.

“We talked about poop.”

A while back I asked my friends Vu and Quynh if they wanted to spend a few days along Minnesota’s North Shore. Normally, I wouldn’t combine three separate trips in 14 days, but that’s how it went. The first two vacations were spur-of-the-moment and the last was my ideal getaway: taking a few days with friends to explore state and national parks while finding a nice place to eat and a cheap place to stay. That’s why we were at Black Bear Casino. None of us would drop a coin in the slots, but we had no problem taking a discounted room and visiting the buffet.

“You talked about poop,” Quynh asked.

“We did.”

I told her it had to do with being in the middle of a national forest at a campsite with an outdoor commode surrounded only by trees. I said that when the body is taken out of its normal routine, the digestive tract sometimes shuts down. So a daily function soon turns into a topic of conversation as we would come to announce to the camp when we celebrated our first Boundary Waters’ stool.

Quynh stared back with no comment. Vu added that the musician, Moby, said one of the benefits of his vegan diet was having a healthy stool.

“Healthy,” I asked.

“Yeah, healthy,” Vu replied.

“What’s a healthy stool?”

“You know, firm, consistent with a curl at the end.”

“A curl?”

“Like a pigtail.”

“A pigtail?”

“The pigtail is important.”

“For a healthy stool?”

“So says Moby.”

Even though I brought it up, I felt like we needed a different subject. I was feeling a little bad about suggesting the buffet with most of the dishes past their prime. I stuck with pasta. Quynh poked around for better cuts of meat. Vu was trying the salmon.

I took a pass on the fish for it looked like it had been under the heating lamp for the better part of a week. I didn’t want to ask, but we had to get off pooping.

“How’s the salmon?”

“Not great.”

That’s one of the disadvantages of eating at a buffet: the overextended stay of some selections. A year before it wasn’t a problem for people lined up and waited for a table. But at the moment (circa 2010) with an economic downturn, cutbacks and shrinking dollar –

“Don’t get the salmon,” Vu added.

“You know you are still eating it,” I said.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to finish,” Quynh added.

“Just listen to my tale.”

He sounded fatalistic, aware of his mistake, but knowing it was too late to stop.

We’ve all been there, eating something that we don’t even like, but can’t stop for we have an idea of how it should taste. For me it’s burnt popcorn. For Vu it was this dried out fish.

“Just listen to my tale.”

So Quynh and I waited. There was no hurry. The tables around us were empty. Even the casino floor was dead. That’s why I was a little surprised when someone asked…

“Are these seats taken?”

I was sitting in a lounge chair at one of The Bellagio pools. I came down to get some sun and to see the rich and beautiful. Actually, I was hoping to see the couple I first encountered at McCarran Airport.

They were a good looking pair, moneyed with an East Coast pedigree, definite WASPS with stingers still attached. They were the type of people casinos showed in their brochures, the rich and beautiful, laughing and drinking while placing thousands of dollars on… What did they care what they were playing?

The woman was tall, lean and athletic. She had an auburn mane that probably had its own expense account. The man towered over her with a coiffed swoop of chestnut. He had an angular look and a confident walk, a walk that guaranteed him a position in any blue-chip enterprise.

I was behind them on the escalator heading to the main lobby. And as I followed, the woman asked the man about his weekend. The man said he barely survived a bachelor party for he accidentally lit himself on fire with some expensive and flammable liquor.

The details? I didn’t ask. One thing was assured. This guy did not need Las Vegas. He was Las Vegas.

I didn’t see the couple at the pool. In fact, not many people were there. A few were swimming, others planted under a couple palm trees. I sat in the open under a blistering sun. I’m not sure why I tried to read from my book for the pages started to singe and peel. It was so bright my pupils struggled to focus on the person asking the question. I was also  confused for I am from the Midwest and we normally don’t strike up a conversation with a stranger unless the other person is on fire.

Through a desert haze I saw three women. I recognized them from earlier in the day, moving across the casino floor.  Not only were they beautiful, they were multi-generational, a grand/mother/daughter, a portrait on how beauty can age gracefully.

The grandmother was the one who asked if they could sit next to me.  I casually gestured towards the open chairs, trying to act the role of a worldly gentleman, easing into the day while my investment portfolio did the heavy lifting. I figured since I was surrounded by luxury, I might as well play the role. It didn’t help that I was wearing a ten dollar swimsuit covered with coconuts and monkeys. But it wasn’t about me. It was about this trio and their attire: the grandmother in a one-piece, the mother in an elegant two-piece and the daughter wearing enough fabric for one cocktail napkin.

I was pretty sure reading would no longer hold my interest. I wanted to strike up a conversation. But since none of them were on fire, I pretended to bask in my non-existent financial portfolio as the afternoon passed, the sun arched and the temperature baked. Eventually, I chatted with the mother and found they were from Mexico and currently living in Austin, Texas. And the reason for the visit? To celebrate the daughter’s 21st birthday.

I heard Mexican culture is family oriented and quite conservative. Still, blackout debauchery is how a 21 year-old should celebrate such a milestone, not being shepherded by her mother and her mother’s mother. But what did I know about Mexican tradition? I do know when a girl turns 21 in Wisconsin her step-father will turn from the Green Bay Packers game and ask, “You still live here?”

Still, to be 21 and celebrate even with family. It was nice meeting them, but I knew our paths would never cross for two times is a long enough streak in Las Vegas.

Before heading back to the room, I took a final dip. The pool was not very deep. So I crouched and paddled. And as I paddled, I contemplated what it meant to be in the city of sin.

Prophets and philosophers have often sought the desert to reflect and ponder. Tourists fly into Las Vegas with every intention of doing the opposite.  So much surrounded by so little, but then, Las Vegas has always felt the need to overcompensate:

We have casinos inside of casinos and card rooms where you can lose your home. We have night clubs with no visible entrance and day spas nobody can afford. We have haute cuisine, blue men, white tigers and a wedding Elvis. Why would you go anywhere else with Venice, New York and Paris all on the same street?

On my flight I read the latest edition from Time Magazine. On the front cover was “Less Vegas” by Joel Stein. He had always been a fan and paid a visit to see how the city was doing in the middle of a recession. The gist can be summed up with these jarring facts:

• Unemployment jumped from 3.8% to 12.3%.
• 73 out of every 1000 Nevada homes were in foreclosure.
• 60% of all Las Vegas homeowners’ mortgages were underwater.

These were staggering numbers, but what I found more shocking was the story of Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. At one point he was the third richest person in the world at $40 billion. He was so successful he was able to borrow seven dollars for every dollar he earned. His stock was trading at $144.00, and he was swimming in so much money he built the Palazzo next to his Venetian not because the hotel was needed but because he could. But then the balloon popped and Adelson’s stock moved two decimal points to the left and he lost 90% of his net worth.

Las Vegas definitely was a city that had its pants down when the mortgage industry collapsed. Overbuilt and overextended, yet, still a place where one can win big. At least that’s what Adelson was betting when he told Stein:

There’s no way people are going to stop [visiting Las Vegas]… People aren’t going to say, ‘I’m going to see Old Faithful or the redwoods… Or I’ll go to Cape Cod with a book.’

Why was Sheldon shooting down reading? Why did he think a national park lame? Why did he compare my perfect vacation to overcooked salmon?

I finished a lazy lap and bobbed in the middle.  It had been a while since I had whittled a lazy afternoon in a body of water. Swimming seemed like a childhood pursuit like building sand castles or shoplifting bubble gum. I forgot how refreshing it could be: to bob in and out of the water until I was completely under and terrified my feet had yet reached bottom…