Escalante to Las Vegas

August 18

Today we drove from Escalante to Las Vegas.  It's a 4:45 drive.  We didn't stop much.  The drive was beautiful, as expected.  A stretch through the mountains SW of St. George was particularly great.  It was National Park quality, but I guess you can't have National Park everywhere.

Las Vegas was a shocking, especially compared to what we had been doing.  Man made wonders instead of natural wonders.  We checked into Mandalay Bay and gawked from our room first.  Floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall windows showed us the view of the many hotel pools (wave, lazy river, regular, etc), and points West.  The better view from an entertainment perspective is probably the other direction, overlooking the strip.  Miles also discovered the "Romance Kit" in our room and read the contents before Karen hid it with the mini bar sign.  

Then we walked around the restaurants, casinos, and other entertainment in our hotel.  We were entertained by the betting boards.  (Red Sox 6-1 World Series winners.)  There's open smoking and drinking.  You can't escape the smoke. The casinos are a bit cheesy.  You can play craps by pressing a button to roll 6" square dice in a boggle-like dome.  There's a slot-type game for every theme.  

There's a shark theme aquarium in our hotel, but people coming out told us it was OK but too small to be worth the ticket price (gouge).  We ate dinner at a Wolfgang Puck place (gouge again).  I couldn't wait to get out of Las Vegas by the time we were done.  I felt gouged over and over.  You can use the pools at the Mandalay Bay but shade costs extra (umbrella or cabana), and you can use the lazy river but you'll need $24 if you want to buy a tube to float on.  It's hard to get anywhere because the hotel layouts are designed to make you pass by all of your gambling and shopping options.  Las Vegas, over charge and under deliver.  And your clothes end up filled with smoke and the perfume they use to cover the smoke.  Yuk.  There were fun things too, but I'm not going to mention them.  We spent way too much time here, for me at least.

That's all for this trip report, unless Karen submits a Vegas rebuttal.  (Emphasis on 'butt'.)   For the last two entries, please see Miles' blog posting next, followed by notes from an interview of Callie and Brady.