Apart from being a huge country, the United States of America is
not horizontally challenged with population because of their inclination:
to the vertical challenge! Yes, why waste ground when everyone can
live on top of each other? Build-em high, that's the motto there.
Although it works, it does give rise to a huge density of people and
vehicles down on the ground where they live. Guess they didn't figure
that one out. Strange, then, that Americans don't think much about
distance.
Nevada
& Arizona
Hot and dry: that's Nevada ... and Arizona. Hot an dry: that'll also
be you, unless you keep drinking your water.
Right in there, hardly noticing they are surrounded by desert, is
Neon City: Las Vegas! This was the start of a trip to the west coast.
After a brief spell among the neons and a short flight across Hoover
Dam and Lake Mead to the Grand Canyon, I crossed Death Valley and
headed for the oasis resort of Palm Springs: first stop in California.
The stop-off in Nevada and Arizona was, however, the start of a long
sequence of contrasts. It's nice to share them with you. If you haven't
been to the US, then perhaps this might just make you want to change
all that!
Las Vegas
Amazingly, Synergise have been unable to find a web site which adequately
provides a picture of this very visual city, and so I have
unusually been permitted to use more of my photographs than usual.
Even then, I've had a job to restrict myself. Just a glance will show
you that it would be impossible to adequately do justice to Las Vegas
in mere words.
 They
build casinos... in a very special way in Las Vegas. They make
them easy to enter but difficult to leave. |
It is a very sad city, of course, when you come to analyze it. Who
can really admire an ethic designed to extract millions of dolllars
from gamblers only to spend it on glitz and buildings, when there
are so many better causes? Having said this, however, the city architects
have created a heritage which one might also say borders on
the eighth wonder of the world. For here you will see a modern answer
to the pyramids that is just as amazing, a tower as tall as the Eiffel
Tower in Paris, the spirit of Paris itself, shades of Venice complete
with the Realto Bridge, a transplanted New York syyline, and various
other themes created in the form or architectural edifices. All this
is a shell for the casinos, of course, but even as a non-gambler,
you cannot help but admire these unsung, architectural masterpieces.
So I take it from there. There are some worth singing about!
The
picture shows the exterior of the hotel and casino complex which goes
by the name of New York New York. If you think the name is
over the top, then you'd better get used to everything being
over the top in Las Vegas! I start with this so that you can get into
the spirit of the place. Here the casino has externally created a
skyline meant to represent famous landmarks of New York: including
the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. And those interconnected
mini-skyscrapers are not wasted: they contain hotel rooms. A typical
casino complex in the city contains several thousand hotel rooms,
and the Venetian, yet to be fully completed, will have something like
6000! So, as you can see, all these people bring more than a little
cash to the 'Entertainment Capital of the World'.
I
stayed in the Stratosphere hotel and casino. Over the top?
You could say so! With three main buildings, one of them the 100-storey
Stratosphere Tower. This is just over 1,000 feet high, the
highest observation tower in the US. This is as tall as the Eiffel
Tower, but only in Las Vegas would they dream of putting a roller-coaster
ride around the top. Oh yes, and another thrill ride which catapults
you some further 100 feet up a mast pulling in excess of 4g, before
gravity-falling beneath your pants. I actually rode this roller-coaster:
so that I could report back to you, of course! The nice lady told
me it went round nice and gently so that you can admire the view.
Well, let me tell you, with the evening lights of the Strip laid out
so far below through what appears to be open space, and no evidence
that you are connected to the tower, there is little time to admire
the view as you career, weave and dive around the top. True, as roller-coasters
go it is tame - no loops for example - but at 900 feet above
sand-level, is can still thrill ... or chill! Anyway, I did earn my
'Scream Team' badge as a result!
They build casinos (let's just use the word 'casino' for short when
I actually mean a casino and hotel complex) in a very special way
in Las Vegas. They make them easy to enter but difficult to leave.
The latter is achieved by confusing, rambling internal design and
no exit signs. They dream up new ways of getting people in but keep
up the old ways of keeping them in: confusion, keeping daylight out,
total absence of clocks, and endless arrays of slot machines ready
to take your last dollar: or nickel. The Stratosphere followed these
principles and it was even difficult to remember how to get to the
hotel elevators or the restaurant. To help you to get a grab on the
scale of these casinos, it typically will take at least 15 minutes
to walk through the ground floor in the nearest thing to a straight-line
you can manage.
It's
not all gambling, either, although there is no shortage on places
to undertake this, as you can imagine. Take Treasure Island,
for example. Here two enormous galleons sail upon a coast scene constructed
outside the front of this casino, and you can watch acted pirate battles
here several times a day! This is just to get you to the outside of
the casino in the hope that you'll go inside. New York New York
had the same idea with their exterior, but they keep it up on the
inside, and you walk through sidewalks with cafés and steaming
manhole covers to get through to the gambling area in the centre -
which really brings you down to earth.
Nearby,
the Mirage has a regularly erupting volcano of water and flame,
as shown left. It even looks as though the flame comes through the
very water. In between times, this area looks like a fairly conventional
fountain. (Fountains here can be rather ambiguous!) Looking across
the strip from the viewpoint of this photograph you see the new Venetian
casino: soon to be the largest hotel on the strip. The exterior of
this is an architectural masterpiece catching the Doge's Palace and
the Rialto Bridge to perfection, complete with canal. Then inside,
on the first floor, best approached over the Rialto Bridge, you'll
find a complete Venetian scene, a morsel of which is depicted in the
picture to the right. To get to this area you walk down passageways
alongside a canal, complete with working gondolas, passing a canal-side
café. In contrast, but thankfully well separated, on the floor
beneath all this is a vast room full of slot machines! Enter at ground
level and you would never dream what lies above!
What
I am trying to show here is that there is far more to Las Vegas than
meets the eye. Sure, there are enough neons and light bulbs to light
a small country - one of the signs on the strip alone takes
enough power for a small town - but the architecture and the internal
masterpieces make it a worthwhile place to explore if you don't even
risk a dollar gambling - or approve of those who do. Of all the casinos,
it was Caesars Palace which will stay in my memory best, and
this is a good example of how you can completely miss something if
you judge it by the slots you first see through the entrance doors.
Penetrate through a hall of slots in Caesars Palace, if you are unfortunate
enough to come through the door that I did, and you reach ancient
Rome flanked by modern, up-market shops. Above you is a fantastically
realistic blue sky, complete with fluffy white clouds, and 'ancient
stonework' surrounds you. Two shows - one about the Fall of Atlantis
- regularly impress the crowds with their laser, water and pyrotechnic
displays, but more creepy is the atmosphere created in this vast place
which really does seem to be out of doors. The fantastic sky can be
transformed slowly from day to night - and then back again while you
shop or eat 'out'! A truly amazing achievement. Don't miss this!
There is so much more I haven't got space for: like the Egyptian.
Imagine an enormous, smoke-glass pyramid of a hotel with a light so
powerful at night that its upward beam was judged to be a navigation
hazard: mainly because all the passengers in plane landing at the
nearby airport would want to get up and cross to one side of the plane
to see it better! Then go inside, penetrate the slots, and you see
around you ancient Egyptian architecture and, breathtakingly, the
inside of the pyramid with its inwardly sloping walls, vast open space
like the inside of a cathedral, and balconies stacked above you on
the four walls to provide access to the hotel rooms; any figures on
the top balconies are hardly visible they are so high. How can you
not be impressed by such architecture?
Why, even the ancient Egyptians couldn't have built this!
All
this is on the main strip is relatively new. It is not part of the
old city. Here, too, you will find the instant marriage-parlours,
the marriage drive-thru, a marriage chapel, etc. After all, there's
not much time to spare in Vegas! Go downtown, and you see the famous
kicking lady, the Pioneer, and downtown's answer to the light-show
that is the strip: the Freemont Street Experience. The downtown
casinos 'chipped-in' to pay for this display to bring the punters
back to the strip. On the appointed hours the casino lights click
off and the entire street above lights up to a moving sound and light
show. (What is shown in the picture on the left is transformed to
something like that shown on the right.) An arched framework running
the entire length of the street, and containing millions of light
bulbs, provides this moving tapestry of light - which is like a giant
screen linked to the changing sound-tracks. Hard to believe it is
all outdoors! Not hard to believe it could only be happening in Las
Vegas!
Finally, when you get bored of the glitz, provided you've saved quite
a few dollars, why not take a trip to see the Grand Canyon or Hoover
Dam?
The Grand Canyon
There are many alternative trips to the Grand Canyon to choose from.
I took the Scenic Airways 19-seater plane to land near the Southern
Rim, and their included bus trip to a couple of locations on the rim:
with lunch thrown in. This was not a gastronomic feast, but it did
keep me going. Although more expensive than a simple fly-over trip,
I would strongly recommend that you land: for you cannot truly experience
the Canyon from the air: you miss out on some awe! You could cut costs,
if you've got the time, by taking a bus tour there: but it is a fair
old way!
I
can tell you: this place is silent and breathtaking. |
Now, firstly, I must confess to feeling churlish to put up so few
pictures of this far more awesome feat created by Nature than that
created by man in Las Vegas, but this is entirely justified: the linked
web site contains dozens and dozens of fabulous pictures,
far better than my own.
The flight from Las Vegas across Hoover Dam and Lake Mead was interesting
but cramped. Not that you can expect much else from an aircraft only
designed to seat 19 passengers. Its extra-large windows made the experience
much more worthwhile, as the great expanses of the Canyon spread before
us: or should I say: below us. We experienced some turbulence,
and you must expect this, given the fact that it is hot out there
and thermals and winds do tend to get diverted a little by sheer canyon
walls. I was quite glad I did not opt for a helicopter flight in the
Canyon for I do suspect this can require a little more calm from its
passengers.
Here
are a couple of pictures taken from different viewpoints on the Southern
Rim. I might add that you are privileged to see these at all, since
I was nearly prevented from taking them. My camera then went on the
blink in the aircraft, so my first port of call before gawping across
the Canyon at the first ground stop was the gift shop: I needed new
batteries urgently. They were fresh out! Wouldn't you know it? I come
all this way to take pictures for you and they are fresh out? What
bad planning they have! I did find another smaller gift shop and they
- bless them - managed to find some: the very last they had in stock!
And here are the results, once I had enough electrons to power the
shutter. Great view, or what?
I can tell you: this place is silent and breathtaking. As I said,
you really do need to be down there, next to it - or even in
it, if you have a taste for adventure and are expert at trekking -
rather than just above it. You need to hear it and feel
it, as well as see it! I was only there for half a day
- I only scratched the rim, as it were - but if you like Nature, heat,
and 'Wonders of the World', then give it longer! (Don't miss the linked
web site!)
