Full moon over Vegas. Photo by Carol Mac Photography. In thinking back over our brief overnight stay in Vegas, we agreed that it was such a surreal, time-turned-on-its-head experience that it’s hard to say exactly what we did and the order in which we did it... So I won’t tax myself unduly in trying to piece it together again - suffice to say we began our stay by arriving in the early hours on Sunday morning, having driven across the Mojave Desert, and celebrated by having (as you do in Vegas) Bacardi and Diet Cokes and Budweisers for breakfast, and ended our stay by strolling along the Strip at 3 a.m. and then losing what we could afford to lose at the roulette table while having an early breakfast of... Bacardi and Diet Cokes and Budweisers... However, by then we’d worked out that you only get ‘free’ drinks in Vegas when you’re spending money gambling, so at least that time they were ‘free’ (if you don’t take into account what we lost at the roulette table). Most of the croupiers seemed a tad jaded, apart from one lovely one who chatted to us about sights we needed to see in the desert - all the while quietly raking away our losing chips...
The other thing I’d like to say about Vegas is that I didn’t find walking along the Strip in searing heat the most pleasurable pastime, not only because of the heat but also because you can’t simply walk in a straight line from one end to the other. Instead, you have to go up and down escalators or stairs and across walkways over the busy thoroughfares. We zigzagged our weary way back and forth to get to Caesar’s Palace, at the other end from the Tropicana where we were staying, only to find the roulette tables way too expensive to even consider losing any money there. Night time on the Strip was much more pleasant, with fewer people and a lower temperature - definitely the way to go! Except that when you get back to your hotel in the early hours, you might well expect to stumble across a couple feverishly making out on your corridor. It’s best to do the British thing in such a situation, and hide your eyes by putting your hand across the appropriate side of your face while muttering, “Sorry! Sorry! Don’t mind us! Sorry!”
I developed a bit of a complex about being pounced on every time I ventured onto the Strip by the many and varied purveyors of skin-firming lotions and potions. Being too polite, and too heat-weary, to tell them where to go, I ended up with both eyes firmly glued open from dawn to dawn, and with a bag full of samples to keep the pesky wrinkles away. I did, however, resist shelling out hundreds of dollars for bottles of the products - so maybe I wasn’t quite as naive as they pegged me as being... Maybe.
By the time we checked out of the hotel on Monday morning, we were feeling somewhat jet lagged from such a bizarrely unreal experience (yet my eyes remained firmly pinned wide open) and not quite ready for yet another long drive through the desert to get to Lake Montezuma in Arizona... but we’re such troopers, so we did it anyway!
The other thing I’d like to say about Vegas is that I didn’t find walking along the Strip in searing heat the most pleasurable pastime, not only because of the heat but also because you can’t simply walk in a straight line from one end to the other. Instead, you have to go up and down escalators or stairs and across walkways over the busy thoroughfares. We zigzagged our weary way back and forth to get to Caesar’s Palace, at the other end from the Tropicana where we were staying, only to find the roulette tables way too expensive to even consider losing any money there. Night time on the Strip was much more pleasant, with fewer people and a lower temperature - definitely the way to go! Except that when you get back to your hotel in the early hours, you might well expect to stumble across a couple feverishly making out on your corridor. It’s best to do the British thing in such a situation, and hide your eyes by putting your hand across the appropriate side of your face while muttering, “Sorry! Sorry! Don’t mind us! Sorry!”
I developed a bit of a complex about being pounced on every time I ventured onto the Strip by the many and varied purveyors of skin-firming lotions and potions. Being too polite, and too heat-weary, to tell them where to go, I ended up with both eyes firmly glued open from dawn to dawn, and with a bag full of samples to keep the pesky wrinkles away. I did, however, resist shelling out hundreds of dollars for bottles of the products - so maybe I wasn’t quite as naive as they pegged me as being... Maybe.
By the time we checked out of the hotel on Monday morning, we were feeling somewhat jet lagged from such a bizarrely unreal experience (yet my eyes remained firmly pinned wide open) and not quite ready for yet another long drive through the desert to get to Lake Montezuma in Arizona... but we’re such troopers, so we did it anyway!
 You gotta know when to throw the towel in... |  Wide-eyed and legless... |
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