Sin City

Wow!  God must look out for stupid people.  As much as David and i knew that las Vegas was a desert, we still planned to camp for two days and then treat ourselves to a day or so at a hotel.  Sounded like a good plan until we got closer to Las Vegas and heard the weather report..110; 115; 112, and then stopped for lunch and found that it got down to a whopping 85 at night.  How foolish we are!  I immediately got on the interent and booked a $35.00 a night motel right on the strip where all the Elvis weddings are!  What a hoot and what a motel.  We had to move to a different room on the third day because our toilet backed up.  But it had air conditioning, and showers and toilets right in the room as well as a wonderful pool.

Our first night we went to Freemont Street, home of older casinos, $.99 margaritas and a roof over the street that hourly puts on a great light show.  Won $4.00 at the penny slots but lost it all!



 

Our first full day we fled the city and went through Valley of Fire State Park

which was a display of red sandstone formations rising out of gray rocks.  Here I am trying to avoid the heat in a little overhang. Enough to knock your socks off.  However, that would be dangerous because it was 115 degrees!  Next we jumped at the chance to swim in Lake Mead (made by the damned up Colorodo River) and cool off.  Quite nice and a break from the heat.

Then it was on to Hoover Dam which was a bit disappointing because he couldn't even stop to see it without paying.  however, we did get to drive across it and since we had been to Glen Canyon Dam and had a great tour inside the dam, we didn't feel too disappointed.

That night was our big show!  We went to the Rio Casino to see Penn and Teller.  We had gone earlier in the day to the ticket window that had reduced price tickets for that night's performance and were able to get great seats and saw a great show.

The next day, Monday, was errands day.  We had to take the car to the Toyota dealer, do some practical stuff and hang out at the pool for a bit to prepare for our big night on the las VEgas strip.

Again, what we did not know could have filled a book.  i thought that we would walk from casino (building) to building, visiting the strips of stores in their lobbies.  Little did I realize that each casino is the size of a small city with enough stores to fill a mall.  And what stores. I spotted a Mikimodo store and quicker than David could turn around I was being helped by a saleswoman who put a strand of south sea's golden pearls around my neck,  12 mm to 16 mm with a golden clasp.  I was walking around the store admiring myself in them as David followed me muttering, "take them off.  Take them off now." I can understand his angts.  They cost $64,000.00 (All my zeros are in the right place.)  Then we went to Bauman's Rare Books (quite a surprise) and saw a photo of Darwin with his handwrittne comments about how much he liked the picture underneath.  Wow!  As David and the salesman started talking about what an investment the photo could be, I had to quietly remind David that we had no home to display it.

We walked and walked and walked and walked.  We really did think that the casinos were next to each other, but we were wrong and it was hot.  And, on the way back to our car, we got so lost in Caesar's casino that David, the surveyor, talked about the experience for hours afterwards.

The Belagio's dancing fountains were our favorite, and the Veneitian Casino, with Mikimodo and canals with gondolas, blue cloud filled ceilings in some parts, and coffered, painted ceilings in others, was also a highlight.  However, after 5 hours we were truding and quite ready to go back to our little motel.

All in all, we were glad to go to las Vegas and quite glad to leave.  An un-real interlude in our journey.