Everyone needs a Decompression Day, and I took mine this past Saturday. Got in the car, turned up Roxy Music’s “Stranded” album +  landed, just like that, at the newly reopened (4/28, after a two-year pandemic closure) Palms Casino Resort. It’s the first resort in Vegas now fully owned + operated by a Native American Tribe.

Soon after walking through the casino, I was poolside at the bar enjoying a specialty cocktail + the standout avocado toast, listening to a hot salsa band with warm desert breezes contributing to my lightness of being. It’s definitely a nice touch that the pool is available not only to guests, but to locals as well.

Add in the free parking + one of the most welcoming staffs I’ve seen at a Vegas hotel, and you know I’m rooting for this off-Strip property’s full-on comeback. Looking forward as well to the reopening (this summer, per the website) of its 2500-seat Pearl Concert Theater + the opening of the Shag Store art gallery, which will fittingly bring a little bit of “Palm” Springs to Vegas.