Viva Las Vegas

150,000 hotel rooms are available for you in Las Vegas.  Today we spent several hours walking around the Las Vegas strip.  I was first in Las Vegas in 1984, on the way to Seattle, it was very different then.  There were a lot of light bulbs illuminating the old casinos.  Many of them are gone.  I did not like it then, and I find I still do not.  To me it illustrates what is worst in the American culture; greed, avarice and poor use of resources, water in particular.  This is the Venetian.  There have been many photoshopped images of the canals and all of their beauty.

 

Actually, no. The "canals" are a large swimming pool.  There are several gondolas being pushed around in the hot sun.  You'd have to pay me to do that.

 

The inside is over the top.  I will spare you the pictures of the slots and etc.  This the ceiling in one of the long corridors.  It's just like the corridor to the Sistine Chapel.

 

A panel detail.

 

Jim standing next to some poor employee playing the accordian and singing in Italian.

 

More ceiling detail.

 

This is the ceiling of the outdoor area where cabs pick up and drop off people.  This is the first thing one sees when arriving from the airport.

 

The front of Harrah's.  We didn't go in, if you've seen one smoky casino you've seen them all.

 

The Shops at the Forum.  Caesar's Palace is the most unbelievably large thing I have ever seen.  This is just shopping, and it goes on forever.

 

The camera does not capture what the eye sees here.  The ceiling painting is phenomenal.  I felt like it was twilight in the building.  There's no visible arch like you see here, it's a bowl of clouds.

 

A Trevi-ish fountain in the shopping area.

 

One of the dealers at the Palace.  There is much emphasis placed on women's bosoms in Las Vegas.

 

All of that is Caesar's Palace.

 

We went into the Miracle Mile shopping mall looking for lunch.  They, also, have the same ceiling treatment.  Their architecture seemed to be a mix of Spain and Albuquerque.

 

Aren't the clouds good?  I believe there is an attempt made here make people forget what time of day it is, or how long they've been inside, by making it seem like it's always twilight.  When we left and went back outside, I was surprised that it was still daylight.  There's a lot of psychology applied here to separate people from their money.

 

Ahhh Paris.  Is it not lovely?  Look at the height of the hotel complex attached to the Eiffel Tower.  It's unbelievable how tall the hotels are.

As the day progressed, the crowds increased and we were forced to do the museum shuffle, rather than walking quickly.  Thus, we did not make it down to the Luxor, which is a big black pyramid.  If one were interested, multiple days could be spent looking at all of the casinos.  We're not that interested, so we're leaving in the morning.
The plan is to make it to Surprise, AZ and then stop.  We could conceivably make it to Tucson in one day, but it would be a long drive.