Las Vegas

Strictly speaking, Manchester first - a 25 hour travelling day to Las Vegas that we survived surprisingly well.



And that is why we went there in the first place! Taken from the pool - on our first day, we had never intended to do very much but potter around, rest, get our bearings. Las Vegas is - weird. It is like being in a giant bubble of artificiality. We didn't step out of the resort apart from going out to the pool area that first day. Everything we needed - and even more that we didn't - was right there, up to and including a tattoo place.

Right outside the resort entrance was a volcano. So, ok, not a real one. A fake one, that erupted every hour from dusk until (I think) midnight. Unmissable (?)



However they do it, there was a considerable amount of heat involved. Actually, it was pretty impressive. If you have to have that sort of thing.


Then there was the Atrium. With a mini tropical rain forest.





And crysanthemums. See what I mean by weird?

Something we saw very little of, though, was gamblers. There may have been serious heavy duty stuff going on behind the doors of the high stakes rooms, but at the tables and slots in the main areas, there were very, very few people. Those that there were looked bored out of their skulls, and many of them were smoking. Amazing how quickly that has become such an unusual sight.

Day two, back to the pool in the morning, and then a trip out to Red Rock Canyon in the afternoon. In a pink Hummer. Bizarre, no?

But stunningly beautiful and really interesting. The contrast between the natural raw beauty of the canyon and the rather down at heel artificiality of the city was marked.

A few photos - there are more on Flickr, just click on through if interested.







An agave plant. Look closely and you should be able to see the fibres.



Then as a complete contrast, that evening we went to see "Love". It was amazing. It was, actually, well worth going to Vegas for.

I didn't dislike Vagas as much as I had thought that I would. At one and the same time, my brain was telling me that this was awful, this place should not exist in the middle of the desert and that it represented the worst kind of excesses; and that in fact, it was not so bad to suspend ones' disbelief and principles for a couple of days to enjoy relaxing by the pool with the biggest mojito conceivable (I never did finish it) and to watch a show stuffed full of extremely talented people that was beautiful and exciting and reminded one of one's youth! So, yeah, glad we went.

And glad to leave, to get on the road. And more fabulousness.

Laters.