From a photo series that I am just about to invent called “Places I Frequent But Rarely Photograph”, otherwise known as #pifbrp (pronounced piffburp), I present the Saskatoon Symphony. If the photo wasn’t distant, washed out, and sort of blurry, you’d be able to see several friends and/or children of friends in the symphony, and a couple of clients.
On most days, twice a day, I get a few minutes of pure pleasure as I partake in this delightful nectar. Watch the beauty of this espresso extraction as it first bubbles, then forms streams, then joins into one stream with lovely tiger striping.
Then add a little steamed milk and my “flat white” is born. mmmmmmm
Initially I thought it was clever to call it Rock Vegas because that’s a reference to an old Flintstones episode, and I loved the Flintstones! But I’ve come to realize that most of my favourite things about Las Vegas are actually rock related, and this last day at Rock Vegas was probably my favourite. (Don’t get me wrong, I still loved the fancy dinner and amazing show too!)
On day 4 we drove about an hour north-northeast from Las Vegas to the Valley of Fire State Park, named for the brilliant red rocks and canyons found there. Indeed, some of the pictures below look fake, with the reds almost unnatural. There were times I was staring at the rocks and sands in front of me and blinking my eyes and checking if I was wearing sunglasses, because my own eyes couldn’t adjust to the unnatural colours. I DID NOT push the saturation on these pictures. I didn’t alter the colours or add filters on my phone or computer. The rocks were truly vividly red, and some places starkly white, and the sky was crystal clear and deep blue.
My enthusiasm for the Valley of Fire means you have to endure 24 photographs from day 4 – maybe a throwback to the old days of film with 24 exposure rolls (Yes, I know, you could always squeeze 26 pictures from a 24 exp roll!). Click below to enter the gallery of today’s photos and read the descriptions below them.
Just to be clear, given the title of this post, we didn’t actually lose any wages. In fact, we never even figured out how to gamble, so in that regard we failed Las Vegas. I looked at the slot machines, the ones where you pull a lever, and of course they don’t take coins any more and I couldn’t make sense of the vocabulary in the instructions, so I didn’t even manage a 5 cent or 25 cent gamble, which I had thought I’d try.
Day 3 was mostly a quieter rest for us. We slept in, found some nice coffee, spent time reading / napping by the pool, had lunch by the pool, and didn’t stress ourselves much in any way. We did however plan to have the “Freemont Street Experience” in the evening.
The casinos and entertainment started long ago in downtown Las Vegas, mostly along Freemont street. Almost any movie from the 1990’s or earlier that features Las Vegas shows this original downtown area. In the 90’s and 2000’s they started building mega-casino resort complexes several miles to west, which you saw in my Day 2 photos. The older, earthier, more colourful downtown area continues to exist, reborn in some ways, but definitely more indecorious. At the edge of Freemont street we found “Container Park”, an area of little shops and eateries created entirely out of many shipping containers. This area felt quite a bit like our Broadway district in Saskatoon, or maybe West Broadway in Winnipeg. We had a lovely pizza supper there in the central park area and then wandered to the Freement Street Experience proper.
What is the Freemont Street Experience? I won’t say too much about the men and women one might see along the street, but imagine if you took a wide street, closed it to cars, filled it with people, completely covered a 4 block area with digital displays using 12.5 million LED lights and added a 550,000 watt sound system. O, and 8 ziplines that run overhead for the length of the digital displays. And non-stop people, bars and casinos. It’s definitely an experience. Be sure to play the last video (there are several in today’s gallery) for a little 3 second snippet of the overhead display in action.
I guess the videos don’t show in the slideshow, so here are today’s 3 videos.
First, a water fountain show along the new strip – the Bellagio Fountains.
Next is a Fire Breathing Mantis. On Freemont street outside Container Park we saw this large insect spewing flames to the tune of HandClap. Make sure you have your sound turned up. 🙂 Huh!
And finally, please enjoy a few seconds of overhead video from Freemont Street. It was much louder in real life!
Day two of our trip had two planned events, one outside the city, and one very much in the heart of Las Vegas.
After a “healthy” breakfast we drove out to the Hoover Dam, formerly the Boulder Dam, to check out all the associated parts – Lake Mead, the Colorado River, Hoover Dam, the power generating station, and Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. The drive is less than an hour, through some intriguing desert landscape. The scale and magnitude of that dam and bridge are truly remarkable. I hope the pictures give some sense of scale and wonder. Our goal was to choose a destination with less walking, so we’d still have fresh legs for the second leg of the day, but Eileen informs me we passed 10,000 steps before we ever got to the strolling part of the day back in Vegas.
The second part of our day was dinner and a show, while oggling the sights and sounds and ambiance of the Las Vegas Strip – the stretch of road with the biggest, newest, and most opulent casinos. We walked from our “home” to the strip, took in the sights, and had supper at a Bobby Flay restaurant called Mesa Grill in Caesar’s Palace. I’ve included one of my very few food photos from that supper in the gallery below. After supper we walked to The Mirage, where we watched a Cirque du Soleil show (Canadian!) which had a Beatles theme. The show is called LOVE, and while I have no photos of that amazing show, you can see a big banner for LOVE behind the blue and copper casino in one of my city shots near the end of today’s photos.
We took an Uber home since it was now late, at least by “Saskatoon early to bed people” standards, and had an Uber driver who thought he was the world’s best comedian. I suggested he keep working on his routine as we were dropped off.
The first day of our trip to Las Vegas involved a 4:00 am wakeup, but got us to our destination by 9:30 am, giving most of the day to do some exploring. We headed West from Las Vegas to Red Rock Canyon and enjoyed the desert sun on a scenic drive and several hikes.
Viewing instructions: Click on a picture (you might want to start with the first one top left), which should allow you to see the larger picture. You can move from one pic to the next by clicking/tapping toward the side of the picture, or swiping if you are on a touch device. The picture’s title, and sometimes further descriptions, are shown below each picture.
To quit the slideshow, click or tap the X at top left, or press the ESC key on the keyboard).
While driving in some blowing snow between Morden and the Winnipeg airport, the setting sun shared these sundogs.
Out for a winter hike.
This dragonfly was captured while at rest, but soon it will hopefully be chomping up the skeeters.
