June 9, 2009

June 9, 2009

Last night we walked the Vegas Strip to check out all the new resorts since our last vacation here almost twenty years ago. It is totally changed…again. Pirates and castles are out, Old World is in. The famous landmarks of Paris, Venice, Rome, and Egypt have been meticulously recreated here. In some ways they are nicer than the real thing: cleaner and newer without the flaws. Plus they are all within walking distance of each other!

At 9:30 we catch one of the Cirque du Soleil shows, Mystere. I have wanted to see what all the hype has been about. The show was an eclectic mix of acrobatics and dance set to music and lightshow interspersed with comedic skits. For me it started slow but ended well. We almost missed seeing the performance though. We showed up at the wrong hotel. The booking number we called failed to tell us this version was playing at a different hotel. Good thing we were early.

Since we were up late last night we tried to sleep-in this morning. We depart Vegas and head northeast of town to Valley of Fire State Park. After driving thru a desolate desert stretch we turn a corner and head downhill and suddenly are faced with brilliant red rocks springing out of the otherwise gray landscape. With imagination the red rocks do look like flames roaring out of the valley floor. We spend a couple hours exploring and climbing the honeycombed red rocks in the park. We also see loads of Indian petroglyphs etched into the rock walls. We call it a day early and laze around a very nice campsite nestled within some red boulders.