Vegas. Reload.

[merimask]

Back from my trip to Las Vegas.   As soon as I landed in Buffalo I wanted to turn around and do it again.

From the top:

I've gotten much better at flying.  It's due to a combination of factors:  
A.  You can't get anywhere cool unless you fly.  Won't fly?  Forget about Europe or Japan.   
B.  It's just plain arrogant to assume that your plane is going to be THE plane that goes down today, out of all the thousands of planes that are flying.   You're just not that important.
C.  It's neat up there.

I like the window seat.  Like a nerdling with a camera, I took pictures.

Those are the Rockies.  I'm 30,000 feet up, somewhere over Colorado.

That's the eastern end of the Grand Canyon.  It was much more impressive on the other side of the plane.

So, uneventful flight.  After my wild landing in Costa Rica last year (which I obviously survived), nothing really bugs me anymore.  Land in Vegas and there's my brother John, who I haven't seen in a YEAR.  That's far too long.

We went to his new house, which I have decided to name Casa De Awesome.  I'll try not to go on too much about all the awesome.  Pictures speak a thousand words.

The floor is this incredible dark hardwood that is worn as if it's the deck of a ship.

Fireplace.  I have some ideas for a large, free-form wall sculpture on that expanse of naked stonework, there.

Kitchen area...biggest central granite island I've ever seen.  John loves to cook.  That sunroom to the right is SO cheerful & completely empty.  He said something about plants & trees & wicker furniture (that'll be so lovely).  He just moved in a few months ago...the place is brand new.

Most of the art is John's own work, but I just love this paper wall sculpture.  It's huge & textured & really beautiful.  You can only hang art like that in a house like this, y'know.  That'd look ridiculous in my little Cape Cod.

Up da stairs, looking at the second floor landing.  There's a charming sitting area there with modern leather furniture.  The "sitting area" is about as big as my entire living room.

The whole house fills with light every day; he has almost NO curtains and I think that's awesome.  He said that each house in the development has 40 to 60 windows and all his neighbors are busily covering up theirs...so why should he even bother?  Better view this way.  At night you can see the entire Vegas valley...all the lights twinkling like jewels.

My guest room was all gold and burgundy, like a Venetian dream. My bed was piled with superfluous pillows, all artfully arranged (John gave me a "B" for my bed-making skills, because I didn't arrange my pillows very well.  He has that "Metrosexual" decorating gene that is missing in the rest of my family). 

There is SO much more, but this is just my blog and not Better Homes And Gardens. 

I did SO much while I was there...it's quite the mental blur right now.  There was Red Rocks casino and an awesome gourmet buffet (the sushi was great!).  At one point we went to Old Las Vegas...a huge outdoor strip covered with an amazing LED canopy.  I drank some kind of margarita (it came out of a machine all mixed up like an alcoholic Slurpee) that was very RED...and it stained my whole mouth the color of murder.  John of course did NOT tell me and when I got home & brushed my teeth, I spit bright red for ten minutes.  I must have made a spectacle, because of COURSE I walked around all night like a gawping tourist with my mouth hanging open (John said it was alarming!  I looked like I'd killed something with my teeth).

While in Old Vegas, we visited the famous Golden Nugget, which is all new inside.  There's a GIANT shark tank four stories high that has a slide tube passing right through it...you can slide right by the sharks.  I thought that was endlessly neat.  The swimming pool went all around & cut through it in channels and tubes...a huge WOW factor.  I'm not sure but it has to be just about the coolest hotel swimming pool ever.

We went inside The Venetian, which made me chortle with glee.  The canal goes on and on!  The ceiling is painted to look like a lovely cloud-speckled sky.  It's like you're outdoors, but you're indoors.  We stopped at a restaurant and ate at a bistro...we were offered a table "inside" or "outside"...but they're ALL really inside.  Head hurts!  It was so much fun.

Friday night, John took me to see Le Reve.  Oh.  My.  God.  It was amazing and emotional...like a ballet of dream images.  Some of the acts were so moving that I cried.  John did some of the set design & costume design (it was his first collaboration with Franco Dragone), and the whole experience was much like being immersed in a display of whirling, living art.  I still can't stop thinking about it.

moko_moko flew in LATE on Friday night.  She got caught in a combination of storms and air-traffic glitches, and was almost four hours delayed.  Poo.  We went straight back to Casa De Awesome and crashed.

Saturday was CRAZY BUSY DAY!!  We got up (a bit late) and John drove us into the desert to see a place called the Valley of Fire.    It's out in the Mojave Desert, about an hour's drive from Las Vegas.   John says it's as beautiful as Sedona (I've never seen Sedona so I'll just take his word).  On the way, we stopped at a thermal oasis.

It was very neat.  The water is filled with strange & lovely little fish, but there are warning signs telling you NOT to touch the water, as a rare organism lives there & can cause a horrible disease and death.  Not wanting to die badly at the hands (pseudopodia?) of a rare amoeba, we refrained from touching the water of microscopic doom.


Here's John and D, posing in the desert.  It felt like the world's biggest hamburger lamp.

They are aesthetically pleasing; in other words, "fly".  Later, John saw his hair & commeted that it looked like he'd been whacked in the head with a pan.  It's a look that only my brother can carry off with any panache.

As you drive along, suddenly these red rocks pop up out of the desert.   They look like hills, but desert distance is deceptive and the closer you get the larger they loom.

And then they are HUGE and you're inside the formation.

The whole area was sculpted by water (there was a huge indand sea in this place 50 million years ago) and later, wind.  The rock is carved in swirls and whorls, with tiny grottos everywhere.

D in the hole!


Me in the hole!

It was nice, in the hole.   Like, about fifteen degrees cooler.  I could probably live there like some kind of desert hobbit.

We walked into the desert...

to see some formation called "Elephant Rock".  It was lovely, but bakey-hot.


John stopped and pointed at this blackened twisted shrubling and said "ART!" so like a couple of art nerds, D and I immediately took photos.


Elephant rock...

From another angle...

it really does look sorta like a skeletal elephant.  

John finds his own cave.

He doesn't need no stinking cave...he has Casa De Awesome.

Also, NO ONE IS OUT THERE and you can do stuff like this...

John said "Hurry up it's hot!!"   In hindsight, we should have done the Beatles/Abby Road thing.  Ah...missed chances.

So, back to the castle, with a quick stop in between at the Ritz Carlton for an incredible late lunch.  The ahi was astounding...mmm.  Then, on to see Ka at the MGM Grand.   My first Cirque Du Soliel experience ever.  I felt like it was ok for me to go, now that I have their money.

The theater is incredible and the WHOLE THING is the set...you are right in it.  The stage effects were simply astounding.  It was more of a spectacle than Le Reve...less like art & more like the neatest Kung-Fu action flick ever.  There was even a sexy/slinky bad guy with silly pretty hair...moko_moko and I agreed thatrumdiculous would have fallen for him immediately.  Just...an incredible show.  Two great shows in two nights...I was utterly spoiled.  John said I had "showverload".

A late dinner at Bellagio (we were exhausted by then...I don't think I've ever been so tired), then back to crash in the beautiful house.  

Sunday was an easy day.  Everyone (except me) slept in and D & John did some work.  Then to the airport (my flight was a lot earlier than D's).  I hated saying goodbye to my brother.  :-(   

Flight was mostly uneventful.  At one point, the captain came on and said "flight attendants take your seats" and it got bumpy...but you know, I just kept eating my sandwich & everything was okay.  I'm so proud of me.  :-)

So now I'm home and my little house is so UGLY and small.  :-/   John gave me some good ideas for painting over that awful wallpaper (you use thin tissue paper and paint, the paint-soaked tissues stay ON the wall and you get a real parchment texture that hides any and all wall-covering sins of the past...it's exactly the look I want), which I plan to implement as soon as possible.  I want to "Vegas-fy" my house a little.  Some of the colors of the Mojave in my home...that's what I think I need right now.

Still, missing my brother & his house & his cute pets...sometimes, running the show here gets to be entirely too much and it was a wonderful escape from the thousand daily stressors I have here.  Basically, counting the days until I can go back there.