A million photos of Death Valley...

.... Will follow at some point... But for now a quick debrief. Our interesting diversion this morning was to rise with the smog and head north instead of east, taking in some interesting sights and some bad roads (I felt guilty for a while, we forsook the freeway direct to Vegas for my diversion and the roads were as bad as the ones at home in places...) but it was worth it to finally see the place, to drive through the barren desert at 200 feet below sea level (yes, in a white Challenger), and to say we felt the noon day sun in Death Valley.... Which was, indeed, warm, and I am very thankful for an air conditioned car not a pony or a wagon train.  

From there it was down to Vegas, and some combination of luck, genius or divine intervention saw us (let's say me, I was driving) guesstimate our way through Vegas traffic directly to our hotel in the city centre with only a vague idea where it actually was. The Excalibur is full strength Vegas cheese with little pretence of class. Right now I sit in the lobby bar, with the gaming area going nuts behind me, and take in the... interesting... sights of the clientele flowing past in front of me. It's a fairly bargain priced joint thanks to our convention discount and while not fancy nor particularly modern it is still a far far nicer place than many I have stayed, indeed about ten times nicer than last night. The benefit of Vegas hotels is good deals can be had if you just make out you are planning on blessing the hotel casino with all your money. 

This afternoon after our eight or so hour drive and looksee we elected to just wander the strip a bit, taking in everything from the Mandalay Bay up to the Bellagio to varying degrees. Some pretty cool looking places around that will warrant some further exploration, and some nice looking clubs I may not get to this time around. For dinner I introduced my companion to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co where I had a not too bad jambalaya. We ended the night with a show at the Bellagio fountains, which would have been more romantic in different circumstances also, but was still cool. 

So I have decided Vegas is quite full of very fake attractive people and very real ugly people... Not sure if it is really my kind of place but I guess it would be fun when in a party sort of mood. The trouble is it is full of a lot of people I don't want to hang out around. There are many, many crimes against good taste and fashion being committed every second of every day. Definitely plenty to see and do though regardless of who you are or what you want (or, apparently, how many kids you drag around with you) and obviously teeming with people even on a Wednesday afternoon.  

I was about to go and donate a dollar or two to the tables just because I figure I should, since I am here, but I realised I left my cash upstairs and only have enough on me for another beer. And we all know I have a strict set of priorities. Which are not this -

Cold beer is going down very well also... Would have been good to have one in Death Valley in fact, just to prove our modern superiority somewhat further, but that may have been too much of an afront to nature and may have resulted in a coyote attack or locusts or something. 

I realise now it's 2315 but my body clock is still refusing to comply and I find myself awake and hungry again... For a long-awaited obscure music reference I give to you something ultra-cute (a break from the norm yes, and also not very obscure given it has 27 million YouTube views) which came on the radio today and reminded me of things back home... I can't link it on this thing but YouTube 'Jorge and Alexa Home' without the quote marks... 

Anyway the beer money has run dry so I guess time to sign off and do some research for tomorrow's travels...