Around Vegas

Another day in Vegas has come and gone, and I manage to still be in full health.  Clearly I'm not vacationing hard enough over here.

It was a great day over here, although I really don't have too much to tell since the day essentially boiled down to a whole lot of wandering around.  The Strip is just such a fascinating place to be that we wasted away an entire day just walking around taking it all in.  Actually, I shouldn't say "wasted" since it really was an excellent way to spend the day.  In fact, we might do a slight repeat of the day tomorrow since we're still feeling like we've scratched the surface.  So many of the hotels are connected, either through tunnels, walkways, or by the monorail that runs a significant length of The Strip.  Combine that with the fact that each hotel is such a MASSIVE structure and you can walk around for quite awhile without ever managing to find the outside world.  Given the subdued lighting and lack of windows I can see how easy it would be to lose track of time in the casinos.

That reminds me actually - I finally gambled!  I completely forgot to so much as put a quarter into a slot machine yesterday.  I'm not much of a gambler, but I am in Las Vegas, so I thought that I should make an attempt at some gambling.  We were on our way out of the hotel today and passed by one of the giant $1 slot machines, so I gave it a pull just to say I'd gambled before we proceeded with our day.

As we passed through the MGM Grand we happened to stumble upon the entrance to the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and I just had to get a picture there since so many of the UFC fights take place there.  I would have loved to be able to actually see the arena, but at least I got a picture with the sign:

Another cool hotel that we ended up in was the Venetian.  There was one stretch that was completely indoors but had a very convincing sky painted onto the ceiling:

I'm afraid that the photo doesn't really do it justice, but the subtle lighting gave the whole thing a very realistic effect.  I actually found it a bit unnerving walking under the fake sky; as I moved while looking forward it seemed like the clouds were rushing past quicker that normal in my peripheral vision, and it gave the illusion of a rapidly spinning sky.  I had to spend a lot of time looking at the ceiling to convince myself that it was, in fact, not moving.

While we were out and about I was taking photos of the city, and when we went back out for dinner tonight I took a few photos of the same areas to compare.  Here's a few that I liked:

We were actually heading to the replica of the Eiffel Tower that you see glowing in the background there, but when we got there we found a line-up for the buffet that extended WELL outside of the restaurant and down the hall, so we didn't end up having dinner there.  Here's another day-night shot of our hotel:

The funny glow around the edges of the pyramid is actually caused by a lot of lights that are constantly running up the sides, but it appears as a solid line because my shutter stayed open so late.  I liked the effect though.

I got a pretty good night shot of Excalibur, largely because it's so bright at night that the photo actually turned out okay.

Tomorrow we'll likely continue our adventures around the city.  We've got tickets to go see Penn & Teller in the evening though, so that will be a ton of fun.  On Tuesday we've got a car reserved and we're going to head out to Red Rock Canyon for some driving fun and a bit of hiking.

I think I'll go pass what little remains of the evening in the proper Vegas manner: playing some slot machines.  I've got to put more than just a dollar in there at some point.  I hope you're all doing very well, and I'll talk to you all again tomorrow.