Two days in the mountains, two days in the desert. Part 2.

The sky is too big, the mountains too vast, the road too endless, the radio only playing road trip music (Stuck in the middle with you....) Sam and I speculate as to whether the mountains are in fact flats from an extra large sound stage in LA and we are part of a social experiment that is at that very moment being broadcast live to the rest of the nation...oh hang on, they already made that film right?  It is all too perfect, too achingly gorgeous.  We climb higher and higher into the mountains.....and then....DESERT.  Comedy cactuses appear.  If there was a bend in the road, I would expect to see Roadrunner outwitting Whiley Coyote. But there are no bends.  Just miles and miles and MILES of flat flat road that goes on and on into the distance. Every mile  expect to see Vegas in the distance.  We get closer and closer, 30 miles to Vegas, nothing, 20 miles, still nothing, just hills in the distance.  A strange Area 51 type place that is obviously using the suns energy to power hidden underground laboratories, a HUGE cross roads with nothing but gas stations and antique barns (because truck drivers need old lamps too), a hilly billy encampment by the side of the one and only gas station with the customary sherif and random old folk sitting outside checking on the passing trade....

 And then BAM... Vegas baby.  Not quite out of no where, although I am sure at night it must cut an impressive site after hours of no lighting on the freeway. HOLY SHIT.  Massive culture shock.  There are simply no words to even begin to describe what we see.

New Bloody York. The Statue of Bloody Liberty

Omg omg omg omg.  Freaking out in a massive way and all of us screaming Sam does a heroic job of piloting us into the lobby of the Monte Carlo and we are introduced to the delights of Valet parking, simply the only way that I am ever going to park my car again, in fact when I come home I am going to insist that Sam meets me outside the house, takes the keys off me and parks the car discreetly for me.    

And now I am sitting in bed, the night before we are leaving, I am not really sure how many days we have been here, everything blends into everything else after a while.  How to describe it?  Having been to Orlando, I would say its a very, very adult playground similar to Orlando.  But bigger, much MUCH bigger.  You can not even leave the casino without a struggle.  There are literally no exit signs and the doors are tinted so you can not see the outside, the carpets are too swirly, the lights from the machines too dazzling and they are all literally too huge for you to escape

Inside ever casino there is a shopping mall, but they all sell roughly the same thing, and every casino has roughly the same games, so after a while it feels as if you are endlessly repeating time and space, it's all the same and yet slightly different.  The Excalibur is a castle, complete with staff dressed as Hallmark interpretations of Knights.  The Luxor is Egypt as interpreted by someone that has only seen it from pop out books when they were 6, the rooms going up in decreasing squares into the top of the pyramid, the MGM Grand, once entered can never be left.... Of course it is amazing and wondrous, the fountains at the Bellagio are astounding and beautiful, the volcano on the other hand at the Mirage is just plain weird and makes me laugh non stop for 20 minutes.  Thankfully we didn't see the pirate pornfest that is the show at TI (not even Treasure Island anymore, wouldn't want to appeal too much to families) but we do stand outside the Venetian and gasp at the people that have paid money... REAL money to be in a fake gondolier.  WOW.  The Rialto bridge? WOW. 

We explore, laugh out loud, get hot.  Retire to the pool where they are blasting out loud trashy Euro pop with a DJ by the side of the wave pool... Hmmm, no quiet alone time for me with Rupert Everett and his memories....

There has to be more than loud swirly machines and 'love in an elevator' played loudly day and night?

Part 3 of Vegas to come when I am safely away from here.....