The Kirks

Well, here we are in St Mark’s Square Venice Italy

or maybe Paris or Cairo?

No, we haven’t arrived in Europe…it’s Las Vegas. We arrived in Los Angeles after a 10 hour flight from Fiji leaving on the 3rd of July. And when we landed, we got to have the 3rd of July all over again due to the magic of the international dateline. We collected our car which is about the size of my first flat and considerably better than the turkey we rented in Australia. Although we were only in Los Angeles for a few hours, we drove around Beverly Hills and went to Hollywood Boulevard and saw the famous handprints in the concrete. Los Angeles is absolutely huge and so there wasn’t much else for us to do except to drive down Rodeo Drive. No “stars” in evidence but it was 6pm on a Sunday night. Up early in the morning to drive to Las Vegas. It takes an hour on good freeways (motorways) to get out of Los Angeles and then it’s over the Mojave Desert (complete with the signature Joshua Trees). We stopped in Baker just of I15 and thought that it was hot there. It was nothing compared to Las Vegas which is currently 108F.

So, what’s it like in Las Vegas? Well, it really is “Disneyland for Grownups”. Everything is wonderfully clean, luxurious and over the top. It’s also cheap. The suckers stuffing $20 bills into slot machines which will give them back $15 for every $20 subsidise superb accommodation and food for those of us who can (just) resist the temptation to gamble. The “Strip” is an awesome illustration of what you can do architecturally if you have unlimited budget and unlimited land (and possibly limited taste).

We did the usual trawl through the casinos (The Venetian, Belagio and The Luxor stand out as great examples of the genre but there’s also loads of things to do for kids too. The Manhattan Express at New York, New York is an excellent rollercoaster and Shark Reef is good (although, to be fair, probably not as good as the Singapore Aquarium). We went to Coca Cola World

and next door is M&M world which is a complete shopping experience dedicated to…err…M&Ms. Being British, I suppose “Smartie World” would have been more appropriate but the big tubes of “pick your own colour M&Ms did look great.

The strip hotels are home to some fantastic shows. We went to see the Cirque Du Soleil show Ka which was everything that you would want a “circus” show to be. None of us have ever been big fans of the traditional “big top” style circuses but this had all the acrobatic skill and excitement of a circus but done with a huge budget in a purpose built theatre and no smell of elephant poo. We also saw the Blue Man Group which I would unhesitatingly recommend to anybody. A completely entrancing intelligent show with great music and special effects. Go and see this group if you can. And finally, here’s the view from our window. Las Vegas is like no other place on Earth and so it’s certainly worth seeing.

We leave tomorrow to “Canyon Land”: the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce. After all this R&R, it’s time to do some back to nature things again. No blog entries until we get to Jackson Hole in 5 days.

p.s. Frozen grapes are a fantastic poolside snack. However, when Hannah inhaled one by mistake, she couldn’t breathe. A speedy application of the Heimlich Maneuver saved it turning into a very very bad situation indeed. Click on the link. Learn what to do. It’s worth it.