Fall comes in colors in Vail
REACH US J I L L C A S S I D Y, J I L L . C A S S I D Y @ A R I Z O N A R E P U B L I C . C O M LAS VEGAS – Kickoff for the first Sunday games of the NFL season was still hours away when Willie Scott headed to the sports book at Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. TRAVEL.AZCENTRAL.COM
It was 6:30 a.m. and the Dallas postal worker, on his annual football pilgrimage with an old Navy shipmate, was determined to get prime seats in the sportswatching shrine.
Scott, 60, loves the camaraderie, betting, down-toearth crowd and wall of TV screens befitting an IMAX theater.
“I think there is no other place in the world to watch football,” Scott said. “I look forward to this every year. I’m like a kid in the candy store.”
Las Vegas will be football central through the Super Bowl in early February, drawing fervid fans, fantasy fanatics and visitors simply rooting for the home team or their alma mater.
Casinos, bars and restaurants compete for football fans' dollars, touting food and drink specials, TV specs, mobile betting and even VIP sections. Electronic billboards at hotels up and down The Strip scream "come here to watch football." Strip clubs even get in on the action, with Crazy Horse III promoting topless tailgate parties.
Here are 15 places to check out. There's something for every budget, viewing style and travel taste, from a hole-in-thewall casino serving 20ounce beers for a buck to a celebrity chef restaurant charging a $75 minimum in food and beverage to nab a seat.
We skipped Yardhouse, Tilted Kilt and other chain restaurants and bars because you can go to those places at home. Downtown didn't make the cut this time but regulars and locals like the small, recently renovated sports book at The California Hotel & Casino and Pizza Rock restaurant.
VAIL, Colo. – From the balcony of my condo at the Antlers, I could hear Gore Creek burbling below me, and I could look up into Vail Mountain, its aspens shimmering so brightly gold in the late afternoon sun that they looked like they were emitting light and not merely reflecting it.
I had spent the day hiking up to the summit, which you can’t even see from town. I took a zip-line ride. I ate grilled trout at a creekside restaurant.
I’ve had a 30-year relationship with Vail, but I had been away a while.
Back in the 1980s and ‘90s I spent a decade as a ski and adventure-travel writer, and I was a regular visitor, dropping in to interview downhill racers or ski-town chefs, or just to ski. I had my favorite guides, my favorite drinking buddies.
Then, in the late 1990s, I got seduced away by Utah, which was easier to get to from Phoenix and didn’t require a two- to three-hour drive from the airport. And