One more Vegas post for you....

How could I leave you off without a visit to the fountains at the Belliagio?  It really overdoes it- the lights, the music, the thunderous jets of water.  I love it.  

I like the bizarre hidden spots in the big hotels.  Obviously, in the Flamingo, there is a Flamingo Garden.  It's a bit dilapidated and it smells like a water-bird enclosure might.











And yes, like every other person from New York to come through here, we went to Rao's.



It was overpriced, good but not great.  Kind of a letdown.  At least I went to Rao's once in my life though!  There were quite a few restaurants that were New York mainstays, but we managed to find a few good places.  The Cosmopolitan Hotel has quite a few.  As much as my travel companion wanted to, we didn't go to the Excalibur for their turkey legs and jousting.  You can do that in New Jersey!





There was also a rockabilly convention going on while we were there, and there were lots of good greased pompadours and sweet vintage cars to check out.  The vintage clothing marketplace was amazing.  I have pictures somewhere.  I have to go deal with customs forms and pain and suffering now, but maybe I'll dig them up later.

Red Rocks

I know I've gone on about this before, but I love the desert.



I will amend my previous statement to include the fact that my love is conditional.   I love the desert when it's nice and cool out and you might feel the need to wear a light sweater.  None of this 100 degree nonsense.



We took a nice trip to Red Rock Canyon, just a short drive outside of the city of Las Vegas.



It's a Bureau of Land Management area, meaning we had a chance to see some wild horses or burros.  We saw signs of them (and tried not to step in it) but no such viewing luck was had.  We did see plenty of birds and tiny lizards, but it was probably too late in the day to expect any really good wildlife viewing.  Hello, no one gets up early in Vegas.  It's against the law.



I love the color palate of the desert- the muted silvery sages and shades of gamboge to salmon pink.  The unexpected pop of wildflowers crop up here and there.















There's a 13-mile loop road through the park that begins and ends at the visitor center.  There are plenty of places to stop along the way to hike or take in the view.









We headed for an easy trail through the valley that ended up at a waterfall.  By waterfall, I mean a rather refreshing trickle of water splashing down on the rocks below.     



There was also some petroglyphs nearby.


See them?  It was hard to get a good picture with the sun high in the sky at that point and the barricade telling me I can't get any closer.

Vintage Neon

One of my favorite things about Las Vegas is all the bright lights.



 It's dazzling.

 

It's tacky as hell.

 

It's beautiful.

 

Fremont Street was made into a pedestrian walkway with a covered awning that you can zipline through.  There's about 20 bands playing really loudly the length of the street and blaring out of bars.  It's overwhelming.



I especially love some of the vintage neon signs that they preserved as sort of a museum of neon awesomess.











The downtown area maintains some of the glorious seediness that was seems lost on the Disneyfication (just like Times Square!) of the Strip.  It's still there though.  The crowds downtown are completely different- a bit less glamorous, but die-hard regular visitors who stand by their favorite gambling dens.  You can still get hotel rooms for less than $50 in this area, and in some cases, much less.  My love of nostalgia embraces this part of Vegas.  



Double self portrait on Freemont St:

Las Vegas

What better was to spend your last couple of weeks in the States than to make the pilgrimage to the grand temple of excess?

I couldn't think of anything better.

There's an idealized version of New York, Paris, Rome and Venice. All tightly packaged into a casino. No mounds of garbage on the sidewalks, no overwhelming stench of urine in the dark corners, no sewage from the waterways. Squeaky clean and made of plaster, dotted with amusements. You can't take a step in any direction without being amused anyway.









While I didn't get a chance to practice my French, it was nice to come to Vegas as a tourist and not for work for once. Quite honestly, the city planners in the real NYC need to get their act together and get on the whole skyline rollercoaster thing. You can learn a little bit from your Vegas mirror image.



It's top-class people watching, and a lot of what goes on to see is inside the hotels.

















More pictures coming soon (I do tend to take quite a lot).