More Vegas to Remember

After dinner last night we drove down to see the lights.  We didn’t even get out of the truck.  We just drove from our campground all the way through to the other end of the strip and back again.  Traffic was heavy; apparently other folks had the same idea.  It is only 5 miles from our campground, but that took over 2 hours of driving time. We were certainly going slow enough to get a good look around.

This morning we were out early trying to beat the worst of the heat.  They are having record highs this week—98 today.  It is incredibly hot walking along the street with the sun beating down, car exhaust permeating the air, and the mass of humanity crowded along the sidewalk.  Again, we parked at the Bellagio, but today we walked south from there to the MGM Grand.  It seems like the MGM is always mentioned in any conversation about Las Vegas, but we were not so impressed.  I wanted to see the live lions, but they must have had the day off; they were nowhere to be found.

From there, we made our way across the street to New York, New York.  This is a massive structure resembling the New York skyline.  There was even a roller coaster, I guess representing Coney Island.  Yes, there were people riding.

Continuing south down Las Vegas Blvd, we stopped at the Excalibur and Luxor. I think we were getting tired by then and/or we had reached our enjoyment peak; we just wanted out.  It was lunch time anyway and a nice break sounded appealing.

Gene had investigated the numerous buffets on the internet earlier and we had decided on lunch at the Paris Hotel.  The buffet there featured foods from the regions of France—Alsace, Provence, Burgundy, and Normandy.  This is not the usual fare at the local buffets in Nashville, or even in Las Vegas.  We made our way back to the Bellagio where we had started from and crossed the street to the Paris Hotel.  It was a good choice for lunch.  We started out with peel and eat shrimp, skipped the variety of soups and salad, sampled many of the main dishes (our favorite may have been the coq au vin), and finished with crapes and crème brulee for dessert.

We finished off our visit to Las Vegas by touring the Paris Hotel then one last trip through the Bellagio to our truck.  With our trip back down to the strip last night to see the neon and with today’s excursion, we have had as much of Las Vegas as we can enjoy.  We never got far enough along the strip to closely investigate Circus, Circus, Treasure Island, or the Flamingo—all big names in this city.  We’ll have to save those for our next visit.

I haven’t really been able to gather my thoughts on how I feel about this town.  We are not gamblers or shoppers; we came to see the lights and glitz.  We do enjoy seeing hotel lobbies, especially historic hotels.  The hotels we went in were remarkable—almost like little cities themselves.  Some even took on an amusement park atmosphere.  The Bellagio may have been the most elegant and the Excalibur more on the amusement park end of the scale.  We marveled at the shops in Caesar’s Palace—Armani, Gucci, Cartier, Tiffany’s, and somehow the Gap made it there.  Incredible.

Many folks come for the shows.  We are only familiar with prices for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, but somehow the big name shows seem expensive here.  Personally, if I’m going to pay a high price to see Phantom, I’d rather see it on Broadway.

 The heat had some bearing on our overall enjoyment, but the crowds on the sidewalks and in every building and the heavy traffic pushed us over the edge.  It was very reminiscent of New York City.  At least in New York there are art galleries and museums and many other things to see and do.  I could stay in New York an extended period of time; I’m ready to leave Las Vegas.

And leave we are!  In the morning we will be heading to Carson City.  It is too far to make it in one day so we’ll stop somewhere along the way.  I’ll definitely be glad to get out of this heat.