The Strip

The gallery at the Bellagio borrowed 21 wonderful painting of Monet's from the Massachusetts Museum of Fine Art. Sally and I never miss a chance to see Monets. We had discussed going to the exhibit several months back…and of course, time slipped away from us while we were otherwise occupied, and the exhibits were coming upon the end of their showings. As we were going to be away the following two weekends, it came down to, see it now or forget it. Forget seeing Monets? I think not. In addition, the Guggenheim Hermitage at the Venetian was featuring an exhibit entitled. "A Century of Painting: from Renoir to Rothko," and we felt it would be akin to a criminal offense to not visit it.

Las Vegas 1, Helmerichs 0. We succumbed and made reservations to spend a weekend in Vegas.

Every photo we've ever seen of the Vegas Strip has been taken at night-and now we know why. During daylight hours, 'hideous' would be an understated description of it. Still, when one is surrounded by tacky, one should revel in it. The cheesy Eiffel Tower, Arc D'Triomphe and Opera Garnier are don't-misses, but for serious kitsch, one should definitely visit the Excalibur. It's the sort of place an 8-year-old would think is totally cool. We ate lunch at the Subway in the Flamingo Hilton, another paean of tackiness. Sally noticed that food prices had gone up astronomically since her last visit-she was pleased the first time around that she could eat so well for so little money, but those days appear to be gone forever. Let's just say we didn't see any $4.99 buffets.

On the plus side, Vegas was very uncrowded that weekend. The crowd was generally well-behaved-drunk and disorderly seemed to be limited to young women traveling in packs. As we have a daughter in that age range, this was not a comforting phenomenon.
We got to see one Elvis impersonator and were accosted by numerous young men and women handing out cards offering "Special-girls--$45!" "Strippers direct to your room!" I mentioned that I was certain that the girls would look nothing like their photos so that $45 would be no bargain, and Sally pointed out how expensive it was to keep her. All right, so maybe $45 is a bargain. Not that I'd ever find out…

I did not get a lap dance, either. Some would say I missed the total Vegas experience.

THE EXCALIBUR

For sheer cheesiness on the Strip, at least at the South End, it's hard to beat Excalibur. Done in a tacky Middle Ages motif, it's the sort of place a kid could get excited over. We suspect that its architects most likely take a perverse pride in the place; you'd have to in order to design such an atrocity. The washrooms feature the requisite "Lords" and "Ladies" signs, and there appear to be plenty of puppet shows and the like. It's next door to the New York New York, which has a killer roller coaster, and as long as there's a pool, I imagine that anyone under the age of 12 would find it a satisfying experience.

On the upside, we ate dinner at a very decent Italian restaurant in the Excalibur, which was not horribly pricey. Sally was happy because she was able to order a margarita where she could actually taste the tequila, which, at $8, she should have been able to.

The Hotel

Sally and Randy had stayed at the Monte Carlo five years ago and had a wonderful experience there. The hotel is quite nice; unfortunately, housekeeping fell down on the job. We arrived to find that not only had housekeeping not cleaned the windows, but they had failed to place amenities in our room. To be fair, they remedied the problem quickly, but it's annoying to pay $100 per night and not get your shampoo, particularly when you forgot to pack yours.

On the good side, the room was quiet, large and contained comfortable beds. I was a bit dismayed to have the water go out on Sunday morning-that was peculiar, not to mention annoying.

The most hateful thing about Las Vegas is that, no matter what hotel you're in, you have to walk through the casino to get anywhere. Sally gets very disoriented in the casinos and she swears that that's by design. The casino did manage to get us to lose $2 in the slots. I might have tried something with better odds, but I'd just completed a week of CMM assessments, which meant I'd worked virtually nonstop all week.

We didn't arrive on Friday till nearly 10 p.m. By that time, Sally was starving and demanded food. We ate at the Café in the hotel, which is open 24 hours to serve the needs of hungry gamblers. The food was fine, but the service was weak. Sally said that she noticed that there were far fewer employees than when she'd last visited, and that the service had declined noticeably. I guess even Las Vegas can't escape the effects of Living in Bush's America.

Monet

21 of the loveliest Monets were on display at the Bellagio. It was a positively breathtaking exhibit. We weren't permitted to take photographs, of course, but we did purchase a book with all of the paintings that were exhibited. The Bellagio did a nice job with the gallery. We had tickets for a 2 p.m. entry time, and it was great-not crowded, plenty of viewing room. The audio tour, which I took, was included in the admission price. The audio tour was actually a good way of maintaining flow control so that the gallery never got too crowded, although by 3.30 p.m., it was much fuller than when we arrived. Sally's favorites were "The Fort at Antibes," "Snow at Argeunteuil," and "Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light." (Insert Larry's favorites here). We took home a poster for framing of "The Fort at Antibes."

At both exhibits, you HAD to exit via the gift shop. Once again, Vegas excels in methods of parting you with your money.

THE GUGGENHEIM HERMITAGE EXHIBIT

We then trucked up to the Venetian, which is home to the Guggenheim Hermitage. The program was "A Century of Painting-from Renoir to Rothko." We were able to see a truly lovely Cezanne, a wonderful Monet, a beautiful and stark Van Gogh, and best of all, Picasso's "The Lobster and the Cat." It's truly a humorous painting-one could simply envision a cat's expression at having a live lobster crawl towards it, opening and shutting its claws. (The cat would be quite at ease if the lobster had been emptied of its meaty contents). We tried to find merchandise featuring that painting, but no go.

The Venetian, true to its name, features canals, which, unlike the real thing, are not repositories for raw sewage, but do feature guys rowing gondolas in weird costumes.

Conservatory

Sally and I went to the Conservatory at the Bellagio hotel. The flowers were quite lovely. The artwork, however, was the epitome of 'cheesy.' Then again, Vegas is all about cheesy--why should the conservatory be any different? The current theme was the Fourth of July and, this being Las Vegas, one can imagine the results.

SIGFRIED AND ROY'S SECRET GARDEN

Sigfried and Roy, of the now infamous white tigers, built this sanctuary at the Mirage for breeding and preservation purposes. It houses not only white tigers but golden tigers, white lions, a leopard, a black panther, and a Thai elephant. The big cats were extremely awesome, but the problem with them is that they wouldn't cooperate when I ordered them to stand still for photo-taking purposes; in fact, one of them moved faster and farther. You'd think they were cats or something. It was close to closing time when we viewed them, which was good, because it wasn't as hot as at midday, but they seemed to be revved up for dinnertime. Sally was loving every second of it.

THE DOLPHIN COMPOUND AT THE MIRAGE

One of the unexpected pleasures we encountered was the Dolphin Sanctuary at the Mirage Hotel. The Mirage was home to Siegfried and Roy for many years. It doesn't appear likely that they'll work their stage show again, at least not anytime soon, but their work lives on wonderfully in the wild animal sanctuaries they have created at the hotel.

The Mirage has wonderful landscaping as you enter. Of course, that sense vanishes immediately once one is inside the door and-of course-in the casino. But we made our way through and went to see the dolphins. When it comes to animals, Sally is about eight years old; even those who only know her slightly are well aware of this. She was no different on this trip. The dolphins were really cool. What was really great was that there was no staged show, just the dolphins interacting with their trainer and enjoying the attention from onlookers. That made it even more fun. The trainer, who looked as if she were barely older than Randy, was great with the kids, too, holding them and letting them pet the dolphins. Interestingly, instead of feeding them fish for a behavior properly performed, she would feed them ice cubes. We asked her about this, and she said what they really valued was the interaction, and in fact, giving them fish all the time did not yield good behavior.

There were 9 dolphins at the compound and we could observe them from both above ground and the glass-enclosed observation tanks below. We also saw a film of the birth of Squirt, one of the younger dolphins, which elicited a few 'eeuw grosses' from some of the kids. Sally and I thought it was kind of cool, actually.

Baker

Okay, to all of our friends who've driven to Vegas and didn't bother to warn us: we're going to yell at you. Why didn't you tell us, never stop in Baker? (Yes, Sally drove there once before, but she didn't stop in Baker, mostly because, with four teenaged girls in tow, she stopped everywhere else). We checked out the following morning, prepared for an uneventful trip home. Alas, this was not to be. After lingering forever on the 15 to the Nevada state line due to a fatal crash the night before, we really needed a break.

Baker is a one-horse town with one main drag littered with fast food joints and the World's Largest Thermometer. I figured it was getting late and it would be a while before we could eat and hit the washroom, so I got off the ramp for Baker. Big mistake. We fell into line with about a half hour's worth of traffic. We finally decided on Jack in the Box for lunch (that alone should demonstrate desperation), because it was the first stop and it was on the right hand side. We got in line for the washrooms. All around us, people were on their cell phones, universally bemoaning the fact that they'd been stupid enough to get off at Baker. One guy's friends could be heard laughing at him over his phone. We suspect that at that moment this gentleman was substantially less amused than his cronies.

After lining up for gas, the washrooms, and lunch, we made it back to the freeway.

Consider yourself warned. NEVER stop in Baker!