Still a cloudless sky in Vegas

The sun is just rising over the hills to the east and lighting up the mountains to the west. It's pretty!
Las Vegas is in a pretty part of the desert. It's kind of like glitz meets the rugged hills and they fight back and forth.
This is the only place, so far, that I've seen smog in the later afternoon, if there's no breeze. Las Vegas is in a bowl and with little wind the orange haze hangs above it. We had some gusty winds yesterday so the smog got blown away for the most part. It still amazes me that many years ago a bunch of people decided that this little area of Nevada was going to be good for a hotel/casino town. That idea certainly has grown.

As I walked around the strip and in and out of some of the hotels and casinos the opulence of the whole place is over whelming. If there is a fancy schmancy store then it is here. Chanel, Gucci, Hermes, Prada, Jimmy Choo, Coach, Louis Vuitton...you get the idea. All I can even think of doing is taking a picture of the front display.

Somehow I just can't bring myself to spending $1,200.00 on a hand bag (which I don't use anyway). And Gucci shoes? $800? Naw, I'm just not cut from that cloth I guess. I did have fun looking and no, I didn't have the guts to walk in, wearing my San Fran t-shirt, shorts and running shoes to actually check anything out. I know when I'm beat.
Did you notice in the picture above that the hand bags are displayed on little flamingo legs? Right, anything goes in this town. Weird.

Every hotel here has a casino and some of them are really, really old. Like the Flamingo. It's one of the originals. As I wandered down the strip I visited a few of them. Being the big spender that I am, me and my little 5'er sat down at a slot machine to see what would happen. If I lost it all I'm only out 5 bucks, if I won it back great, if I doubled it I'm outta there. (I can hear you all saying, "What? That's it? Go for it!" ) Nope, that's the way I roll.

Some of the casinos really take glitz to a new level, like the Cosmopolitan, which looks like a huge, high ceiling, ball room.

With lots of crystal accents and some natural light it was neat to be there. At 10 am this place was pretty much deserted but it took me nearly an hour to lose my $5!
Then there are places like the old Flamingo. The ceilings are only about 12 feet tall. The cigarette smoke lingers in the air (yeah, everyone smokes everywhere pretty much) and there is no natural light. It's dark, noisey and I think what it used to be like in the "old days".
No wonder Vegas had a bad reputation...
Oh yeah, and I lost my 5 bucks in about 20 minutes. Boo Hiss.

I am a people watcher by nature and nothing beats Las Vegas for doing that. There is so much to see and fun things to watch. There are street performers that are great. There was an Edward Scissor hands that scared the crap out of one group of ladies and those of us walking near there all laughed! It was fun. There are lots of other "statue people" that amaze me. They are real! But truly look like marble. Weird.

Las Vegas' strip has been planned to be a pedestrian area along with 8 lanes of traffic. The sidewalks and road crossings are very well organized to keep both people and vehicles moving. Every few blocks you are forced up to an over road walk way then back down either on to the same side of the street or the other, but it's a neat way to keep moving down the street. It's also a good chance for pictures. This is looking north along the Strip.

But there's also all the fountains and statues to take pictures of too. Caesar's Palace is the best for that.

So it was a great day wandering around and looking at the craziness of Las Vegas. Since my hotel is nearly at one end of the strip I only have a little bit to go to see the rest of it. Then I think it's a pool day. Though the high is only supposed to be 88 F I think I can manage.
Life's rough here.
Really, it is....

NOT!!!

Cheers all.