Las Vegas Notes

As I wrote yesterday, we had a really grand time in our Las Vegas weekend. The problem with Vegas, though, from the perspective of an old curmudgeon, is that it's just too much: too loud, too fast-paced, too bright, too everything. We stayed at the Bally's Casino & Resort, and every time the elevator door opened into the casino level, the thundering din of bells, whistles, clattering slot machines, electronic beeps and squeaks, and people shouting at each other over the general din was deafening. Interestingly, some of the other casinos we visited or passed through (the Venetian and the Bellagio, in particular) were much less noisy and seemed a bit more "sedate," if that word can be used in connection with anything in Las Vegas.

The other thing I noticed, as on our last visit, was that everyone over the age of two seems to smoke like a factory chimney. I've never smoked, Agnes quit years ago when we started dating, and I've gotten spoiled living in a largely non-smoking environment. The smoke level was very annoying.

Okay, enough of that ... how about a few pictures?

This is a shot of the marvelous dancing fountains at the Bellagio hotel. Each hour the fountains erupt for a five-minute show, synchronized with the music being played. In this photo, the fountain is dancing to Frank Sinatra's "Luck Be A Lady Tonight." A still photo can't capture the incredible fountain activity, but this one tries. That's the back of Agnes's head in the foreground (and a nice head it is, too).


Inside the Bellagio Hotel lobby is a beautiful garden with all sorts of wonderful displays of flowers, trees and assorted sculpted plants. This picture is a closeup of a display featuring Treebeard the Ent from The Lord of the Rings. I'm especially fond of this picture because this is what I look like before I've had my morning coffee.


We offered to take a picture of another couple, and they returned the favor - this is Agnes and I at the entrance to a beautiful flowered bridge through the garden.


We also visited Hoover Dam, which was very interesting and impressive. Pictures can hardly do it justice because it's so huge, but this is one of the best I took of the face of the dam itself:


We also took the tour down inside the dam and the diversion tunnels originally cut to re-route the Colorado River for the construction of the dam. This part of the tour was not for the claustrophobic or faint of heart...

This photo is of the inside of the generator hall on the Nevada side of the dam (there's another one just like it on the Arizona side). Each of those generators is seven stories tall.


And this is what the generator halls look like from the outside:


If you ever have the chance to visit and tour Hoover Dam, do it. It's beautiful and fascinating!

Oops...out of time for today! Time to pack my lunch and head to work.

Have a good day. The tour continues tomorrow.

Bilbo