Saturday Night

It was just another Saturday night in Vegas. Next week the hotel/restaurant/bar/theatre staff and performers will be doing it all over again.

We saw the early (7pm) performance of _Spamalot_ and the late (10pm) performance of Cirque de Soleil's _Love_.

_Spamalot_ was a hoot. Recapitulations of classic Python bits (including a couple that weren't part of _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_) and some parody of musical theatre/Broadway/Vegas.

_Love_ has Beatles music along with Cirque staging and acrobatics - triple threat! There's an awful lot going on... I imagine some folks are very keen on seeing it multiple times.

One good thing about this trip was picking the dates very early. That meant we could buy tickets for shows the day they went on sale. Made for getting very good seats, which is a nice bonus.

Discount

Chocolate Couture at Jean-Phillipe Patisserie



Let's see... 120 pounds of chocolate in that sculpture... 16 ounces per pound... 170 calories per ounce... 3,500 calories per pound of body fat....
Hey, I could eat that and only gain about 93 pounds!

Strip Tease

The Strip is less crowded than the other few times I've been here. One cab driver claimed that it's not just seasonal, it's the economy. Still a lot of people around and a lot of money being spent!

Thursday evening we mostly hung out at _Paris_. Good band, quieter surroundings than most clubs, and an older crowd. Suited us.

Friday evening we went to _Elton John: The Red Piano_. Fun show! The background films by David LaChapelle are engaging - some of the images struck me as self-consciously arty, but they certainly aren't dull. The song selection does a good job of forming a career overview/retrospective. Elton John seemed to be enjoying himself, and the audience members certainly were.

Friend played poker after the show through all last night into late morning. He's sleeping the afternoon away in his room, leaving me rattling around on my own. Good thing it's tough to get into trouble in this town.
:-)

Room

Tower Deluxe Rooms are on corners to give two window views. I hadn't considered that this means the bed does not directly face the television.



I really can't say much for the views from my room's two windows.







Especially when I contrast them with that of my friend's Lakeview room.

Bellagio Botanic Garden And Conservatory Pics

Pacific Northwest theme, complete with running trains.






G-scale Bellagio model.




Fun fountains.

Bellagio Blogging

Back at Bellagio for a getaway. This is my third stay here, so it's feeling familiar.

Another reason for the familiar feeling is the current Pacific Northwest theme in the Conservatory and Botanical Garden. It puts me in mind of the Villas at Disney's Wilderness Lodge, where I've stayed a fair number of days (including seven days last month around Florida 70.3). Oh, yes, and the hopping fountains are reminiscent of Epcot. Maybe some former Disney Imagineers were involved.

Per my sister's comments last year, I think they should have a single line for check-in served by multiple stations. They're still doing it the way folks used to queue for individual bank tellers. If even the banks figured out that they needed to change, shouldn't Bellagio? Comment card time.

I'm in a Tower Deluxe King room. After one night, it's clear that the trade-offs versus a Lakeview room aren't worthwhile for me, so I'll know for next time. Still happy enough.

Pics in follow-up posts.

Gear!

I bought my second digital camera this week, an Olympus Stylus 1030 SW at Cathy Church's Underwater Photo Centre (link for potential on-island shoppers).

It seems that I won't put my other digital camera in its underwater housing for anything short of scuba diving (O-ring and gel too much bother), so a waterproof camera seems useful to me. Maybe some visitors will use it, and given the temperature rating maybe it'll hold up for the Antarctica marathon. It definitely counts as sports gear, because I could choose to use it to record video of my swim stroke.

This morning I took it and the floating foam strap (orange) accessory to the standard evening sea swim spot (and site of Cathy Church's), Sunset House.

Here you can see that there's a nice little formation right at the entry ladder:



I swam on the surface, parallel to the shore, along the usual route (although I cut it very short). The usual route takes us past a few shore dive sites, so the environment is more interesting than the pool. Here's a few of the test pix on the panoramic settting (click to enlarge - if you're at all interested I suggest you do, as the panoramic setting doesn't do much for the fish).







I took that last photo back at the ladders - fish are there, but they're a bit more shy.

Seasonal

Hurricane season officially began on Sunday June 1st.

Rainy season unofficially began a little earlier. The quote in the previous post stated that the ground was getting moist. This week's forecast is wet. And it was a wet, humid weekend just passed.

Saturday morning we had a visitor on our condo steps:

Likely exhausted from the evening, this visitor made no effort to escape intrusive camera lens:

Saturday night's visitor suggests we've had some recent hatching activity:

Looking around the light outside my front door on Saturday night indicated that insectivores will be doing just fine.