From One Extreme to the Other (Our Trip, part 2)

Hoover Dam provided a transition from the wild extremes of nature to those of human nature. It's an amazing engineering feat, explained so that even we non-engineers can begin to understand how difficult it must have been. Yet it came in early and under budget, due in part to the hundreds of workers who died in the process. It's a tribute to what people can do when they set their minds to something seemingly impossible.

And I guess the same can be said of Las Vegas, though with less admiration. On the one hand, the Strip was far from the dirty, tacky place I'd expected. We spent much of our time walking around the grand hotels, and they do take your breath away--in both elegance and mileage! No dime or detail was spared to create The Bellagio, The Venetian, Caesar's Palace, Paris, New York, The Mirage, etc., or should I say to re-create Lake Como, Venice, Rome, etc. The fountain picture, the only one we took in Vegas before the camera died, represents well the grand and beautiful side of this city my Frommer's guide called "Disney World on Steroids." The high point was probably Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere." If you haven't seen a show by this group, put it on your must-do list. Another place well worth the admission was Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden, a gorgeous zoo and serious research facility with more than a dozen very active white tigers and lions, alpaca sheep, and dolphins. We also saw David Copperfield's show, but he was surprisingly underwhelming. I got the feeling he was both bored and more impressed with himself than we were.

As for the decadent side of Sin City, I found the worst thing to be the hawkers of girlie shows who line the sidewalks clicking their fingers against the ad cards they stick in your face. Watching people gamble can be both exciting and depressing. Other than wasting a few bucks on the slots (actually, Ray won there), we didn't gamble, preferring to spend our money on beautiful expensive food. Not to mention Venetian glass earrings. But hey, I bought the cheapest ones in the store!

Three days in Vegas was enough to say Been there, done that. Next time I want to see Rome or Paris, it will be the real deal. But the rest of the West--well, I'll be back.