Recently, while returning from a trip to Arizona, my wife and I stopped for the night in Las Vegas.

Through the decades, we’ve stopped their several times, but never for more than a night. It’s a convenient way station, never a destination.

So much has been said about Vegas that I hesitated to even write this column. What could a clean-living schlub have to stay about Sin City that would be worth the time you take to read it?

I’ve heard Las Vegas described as Disneyland for adults. If true, then adults are a sorry lot.

That’s because adulthood is always messy, no matter where we live on the sliding, slippery scale from debauchery to sainthood. Even the purest of us sometimes dream of decadence — and occasionally those dreams can occur while we’re awake.

Meanwhile, those who live in what the judgmentally pure among us like to call the gutter, sometimes secretly long to be reborn.

No matter where we are on that constantly sliding scale, Vegas allows for our itches to be scratched. Just by walking up and down the Strip, we can shiver at the sight of all the implied debauchery, like children on Halloween dressed up to be something we’re not for just a few hours — to feel the tiniest tremble of what it might actually be like to be undisciplined, heedless and wanton.

And for those who are, in fact, undisciplined, heedless and wanton, Las Vegas gleefully provides the needed fix, the addict’s needle.

If you’ve been there more than once, you can’t help noticing that although the city is always the same, on the streets it’s always different. Las Vegas is certainly the undisputed star of its own show with its infinity of lights and jumbotrons illuminating all its colorfully vile amusements, but all the flashing garishness doesn’t stop the people crowding the sidewalks from working hard to be part of the show themselves.

And the crowds are overwhelmingly young, or trying very hard to appear so. The women especially tend toward excess — with excess being defined by the concept of less is more, if you get my drift. Meanwhile, the men seem to be searching for the perfect combination of tailored grunge, from their sport coats worn over ratty jeans, to the immaculately styled hair finished with the precisely shaved sloppy stubble.

As usual, the street performers were everywhere that night — the break dancers, the contortionists, the caricature artists, the violinists, the singers and the street preachers. Carnival barkers, all.

There were, of course, street beggars, but, like litter, they were just something to step over or around.

There were also those who I can only describe as physical “specimens,” spread out two to three on a block. There were big hunky guys in very tiny costumes that suggested policemen or Chippendale dancers. The outlandishly curvy women wore similarly minimal costumes that tended towards the naughty nurse theme. A few took the Catwoman route.

All the “specimens” stayed busy, and their customers consistently appeared to be more than a little encouraged by alcohol or, these days, by marijuana. Men posed for stupidly leering can-you-believe-this selfies with the nurse-vixens. An arm around the predictably tiny waist was all they got away with.

But the hunky guys received a different response from their female customers. In every case I observed, the women unashamedly embraced them, running their arms over the bulky biceps and up and down the muscular backs and well-defined abs.

The oddest thing I saw that night was a middle-aged woman carrying a half-filled cup of beer walking up to one such hunk with someone who I presume was her daughter. The daughter was perhaps 20 years old and appeared to have Down’s syndrome. The obviously tipsy mother encouraged her Down’s daughter to rub her hands across the man’s chest and arms. The daughter obeyed, but both she and the hunk seemed uncomfortable about it. Afterward, the laughing mother walked off with her embarrassed daughter in tow. The hunk looked sadly at them both. His expression was the most human and empathetic thing I saw all night.

But that’s the Strip. All façade. A place where empathy occurs, if at all, only by accident.

Chris Huston is an author and award-winning columnist living in southern Idaho. Connect with Chris on both Facebook and Instagram at Chris Huston-Finding My Way and at chrishustonauthor.com.