![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
First things first... I know I'm jumping the gun here but I want to send a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to rumdiculous, who is a sweetheart and deserves to have nice things happen to her all day on Sunday. :-) (I'm makin' something extra-special for you...it'll be a bit late but it's coming soon! Shock and awe, baby.)
*ahem*
I FINALLY got around to loading the pictures from my trip to Vegas last weekend. Damn, they're pretty. :-) Makes me want to shove mini marshmallows into my Nikon Coolpix 5200 ('cept, that probably would be a bad thing to do).
So, pictures.
The setup: My brother John lives in Vegas (awesomly cute house in Henderson). Mom visits him there frequently. She was there for a 3 week visit. He'd decided to surprise her, so he flew me, my daughter Charlotte, and my sister Nancy out to Vegas for a weekend. She was indeed surprised! :-)
We got off the plane from Buffalo, ambushed Mom and the rest of the family in the Luxor, and headed straight to the Bellagio to look at the fountain show.
I cried, it was so damn pretty. It's hard to explain, but it's like a ballet of water, set to classical music.
Inside the Bellagio is an incredible display of art.
Dale Chihuly did an amazing ceiling of glass flowers, and also these giant poppies that just glowed in the sunlight. Here's my brother John and Charlotte, digging on the giant glass flowers.
Back outside...looking across the expanse of the fountain pool at "Paris".
Next day! We drove to Lake Mead (which is an improbable manmade oasis in the midst of the desert)and the Hoover Dam, which makes it all possible.
I took about a gazillion pictures...but I'll spare you the fun. :-) There was the most beautiful dedication memorial, though, that featured these gigantic awesome Art Deco angels...
So many people have touched the feet (It's supposed to be good luck or something) that their toes are a bright polished brassy gold. Did I touch the angel's foot? *hangs head sheepishly* Yeah. I was a big stoopid "magical thinker" that day. At the same memorial there was a display of all the astrological signs...
Yeah, I'm a Scorpio. Go figger!
John and Char, posing outside the Hoover Dam gift shop (one of 'em, anyway). John's mantastic!
Last day (aww!). We went on a tour of the desert to the west of Vegas (I think). The Sierra Nevada mountains were simply spectacular.
The mountains made me freaking cry too. 'Course, it didn't help when John put in a CD of Pavarotti singing "Ave Maria". I call "no fair". I could wake up every day and see these, and never tire of the view.
Just a note; The flipping mountains looked almost exactly like the mountains in "Shadow Of The Collossus", a game that's been evading completion for a while now. Seeing them made me remember the good old days when I was riding my horse across the landscape, looking for another innocent giant to kill slowly with pain...
Anyway! For levity (and John's all about the levity...he's the funniest person I know) we went to an "Old West" town. Combination dude ranch/petting zoo/amusement park. Charlotte and John, in a blackmail photo op...
Don't you think Charlotte has a sort of dapper "KD Lang" quality about her? John of course is just fine with the cross dressing...you should have seen him in the stage production of "Rocky Horror Picture Show", he was Faaabulous!
There are wild burros in the desert!
We saw about a dozen of the little guys running around, right by the side of the road. There are wild horses too, apparently (didn't see any of those).
At a scenic overlook, we stopped for family pictures. My sister Nancy, brother John, and myself. Youngest to oldest.
And some candid shots:
This is the last pic we took before we left for our flight back to Buffalo. I wanted a nice one of Nancy and me, together, so I asked John to take it.
Wahh! I need to get back there as soon as possible. All the bright sunlight and family love was good for my soul. :-)
*ahem*
I FINALLY got around to loading the pictures from my trip to Vegas last weekend. Damn, they're pretty. :-) Makes me want to shove mini marshmallows into my Nikon Coolpix 5200 ('cept, that probably would be a bad thing to do).
So, pictures.
The setup: My brother John lives in Vegas (awesomly cute house in Henderson). Mom visits him there frequently. She was there for a 3 week visit. He'd decided to surprise her, so he flew me, my daughter Charlotte, and my sister Nancy out to Vegas for a weekend. She was indeed surprised! :-)
We got off the plane from Buffalo, ambushed Mom and the rest of the family in the Luxor, and headed straight to the Bellagio to look at the fountain show.
I cried, it was so damn pretty. It's hard to explain, but it's like a ballet of water, set to classical music.
Inside the Bellagio is an incredible display of art.
Dale Chihuly did an amazing ceiling of glass flowers, and also these giant poppies that just glowed in the sunlight. Here's my brother John and Charlotte, digging on the giant glass flowers.
Back outside...looking across the expanse of the fountain pool at "Paris".
Next day! We drove to Lake Mead (which is an improbable manmade oasis in the midst of the desert)and the Hoover Dam, which makes it all possible.
I took about a gazillion pictures...but I'll spare you the fun. :-) There was the most beautiful dedication memorial, though, that featured these gigantic awesome Art Deco angels...
So many people have touched the feet (It's supposed to be good luck or something) that their toes are a bright polished brassy gold. Did I touch the angel's foot? *hangs head sheepishly* Yeah. I was a big stoopid "magical thinker" that day. At the same memorial there was a display of all the astrological signs...
Yeah, I'm a Scorpio. Go figger!
John and Char, posing outside the Hoover Dam gift shop (one of 'em, anyway). John's mantastic!
Last day (aww!). We went on a tour of the desert to the west of Vegas (I think). The Sierra Nevada mountains were simply spectacular.
The mountains made me freaking cry too. 'Course, it didn't help when John put in a CD of Pavarotti singing "Ave Maria". I call "no fair". I could wake up every day and see these, and never tire of the view.
Just a note; The flipping mountains looked almost exactly like the mountains in "Shadow Of The Collossus", a game that's been evading completion for a while now. Seeing them made me remember the good old days when I was riding my horse across the landscape, looking for another innocent giant to kill slowly with pain...
Anyway! For levity (and John's all about the levity...he's the funniest person I know) we went to an "Old West" town. Combination dude ranch/petting zoo/amusement park. Charlotte and John, in a blackmail photo op...
Don't you think Charlotte has a sort of dapper "KD Lang" quality about her? John of course is just fine with the cross dressing...you should have seen him in the stage production of "Rocky Horror Picture Show", he was Faaabulous!
There are wild burros in the desert!
We saw about a dozen of the little guys running around, right by the side of the road. There are wild horses too, apparently (didn't see any of those).
At a scenic overlook, we stopped for family pictures. My sister Nancy, brother John, and myself. Youngest to oldest.
And some candid shots:
This is the last pic we took before we left for our flight back to Buffalo. I wanted a nice one of Nancy and me, together, so I asked John to take it.
Wahh! I need to get back there as soon as possible. All the bright sunlight and family love was good for my soul. :-)
