From the Sacred to the Profane

    We finally awoke to real winter, with several inches of snow on the ground and on the truck. We broke out the snow brush for the first time. The driving was gray and unpleasant, and the temperature through the high altitude passes dropped as low as -1° at one point, but the sun came out in the early afternoon. 

    We cut across the northwest tip of Arizona and saw beautiful rock formations. We passed through the Virgin River Gorge, but didn't see any. We saw desert plants that looked like a cross between a pine tree and a cactus, a sort of a bottlebrush plant, and our first palm trees. Strange: all the houses in every community are the same colour as the rocks and sand, they blend right into the desert - nobody paints their house blue, or red, or yellow, or green. Does that say anything about the psychology of the region? 

    As we dropped down into Las Vegas, it warmed up to 17°. The first "show" we saw advertised as we drove into town was Andrew Dice Clay, establishing the "profane" nature of the place right off the bat - and the barkers for nudie shows, a dozen on every block, sealed the deal. The place is a flesh pot, and there appears to be no law against drinking openly as you walk down the street. There are better shows, but nothing that got us too excited. 

    We got rooms for $33 a night for two nights in an older hotel called the Clarion, near the conference centre - not fancy, but we were put into a good sized, clean non-smoking room by a friendly desk clerk. Deborah wishes me to clarify that it is a hotel that appeals to seniors, recently refurbished and quite nice, just not like the screamingly modern, massive, luxurious ones on the Strip; more like "Old Vegas", and owned by a Greek company which has put lovely Greek scenescapes in all the rooms and hallways. I think the gamblers downstairs are subsidizing our room...hard to complain about that. 

    We are lucky we came today - prices jump into the stratosphere on Monday for a week because the annual Consumer Electronics Show will be in town, with about 140,000 exhibitors, techies, nerds and journalists who will fill every available room. 

    We began our adventure right away by walking around the corner onto "The Strip", which is a street that'll give your rubber neck a work-out, let me tell ya. What looked like a few short blocks on the map turned out to be a hike that took many hours, but we saw the Sirens of Treasure Island put on a fun show (the staging was exceptional - they sank a ship!), then the Bellagio dancing fountains, and the Mirage Volcano, all very spectacular shows. 

    The architecture was astounding "20th Century fantasy", Disneyland on steroids, but there were so many different casinos that they were simply beyond redundant, and dozens of croupiers and dealers stood around in each with empty tables, looking bored, even though the sidewalks outside were crowded. 

    We found a bike for Brian and Rob, and the Bellagio horse for the horsey crowd at home - click here for a short Picassa slideshow. We saw pansies and yellow, white and rose-tinged roses blooming...in January. After a very late supper at Denny's, we finally limped home to our hotel with very sore feet at midnight-thirty. 

    On Sunday we drove out to the Hoover Dam. It got its name from the first settlers who looked down from the bridge and said, "Dam! How'd they Hoover all that water outa there?" Then we explored a few more casinos, in particular the Circus Circus, which caters to families with kids. We saw the huge indoor AdventureDome, and sat twenty feet away from Nina and Nikolai magically changing their outfits.

    This is probably the only photo you'll ever see of Steve gamboling in a Las Vegas casino...heh, heh... Next post: Zzyzx!