Wild and Wacky Las Vegas

It isn't for everyone though it tries to be and there is no easy description. According to Wikipedia there are 62000 hotel rooms on the 4.5 mile "strip" that most people think of as being "Vegas". Everyone of the mega casinos is structured so that guests don't have to leave for any reason with multiple restaurants, bars, shows, recreational amenities including massive pools, the casino of course, and usually some other attraction like: the aquarium at Mandalay Bay; wildlife habitat at The Flamingo; Botanical gardens at The Bellagio, the canal at The Venetian, etc.

the bar at The Wynn

canal rides in The Venetian

and outside!

The architecture is nothing if not imaginative, the shows extravagant and exciting, and the casinos dark and smoky.
I think it would be fun to stay in one of the big resorts in the middle of the action but it's very nice to be 2 miles off the strip in an apartment! Not to mention buckets less expensive.

Crazy as it sounds, it's Vegas after all, we overlapped with Paul and Sue for a couple of hours. The best bonus!

For entertainment we chose 3 events: Love, Las Vegas The Show, Donny and Marie
First, we went to The Mirage for the Cirque de Soleil show "Love" woven around Beatles music and all 4 agreed that we've never seen anything like it nor likely ever will again - and it's not our first Cirque show. It is truly remarkable and there's nothing much else to say.

Las Vegas The Show is in the tiny Saxe Theater at Planet Hollywood and it tells the story through song and dance of the evolution of Vegas entertainers. The performers are really good and it made us wonder what twists and turns makes a singer/dancer a mega star or a chorus girl in a perennial revue.
Tonight Donny and Marie, which we saw a few years ago and enjoyed. I can't say I ever loved their TV show but they are excellent entertainers in person and the showroom at The Flamingo is a classic Vegas design; maybe the last one left.

In between, we've wandered to look at some of the buildings, and taken two excursions out to the adjacent desert. Monday it was cold so we did a car day with the long drive out to Death Valley. Besides the crazy scenery, we came across Death Valley Junction, an adobe building housing a hotel, cafe, opera house (I kid you not), and museum. The story is that the company who owned the local borax mine, built the facility in response to a scathing magazine article, written by Zane Grey, about the miners living conditions. Later, the energy and artistry of Marta Becket kept the theater alive for years.

Today we did the much shorter distance to Red Rock Canyon, a small jewel of a park with a lovely visitor center. Both trips brought us to the brilliant variation of colours and formations that are prevalent in this area. And the profound silence and serenity of the desert on a beautiful day. The austerity of terrain, the sheer mass of rock, the never ending sky, help me with perspective and ground me in the reality of the insignificance of any individual, idea, fad...