Las Vegas: Comedy and Tragedy

My husband serves on the board for the Dallas chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators, which is having its annual meetings in Las Vegas. We're staying on the 20th floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, overlooking the jagged peaks on the horizon. (Mandalay Bay is where the fight took place in the latest Rocky movie.)

We arrived yesterday before check-in, left our bags with the bell staff, and grabbed lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. (Can you believe I had to pay twenty-four bucks for a grilled chicken sandwich that tasted faintly of Ajax?)

After that we caught a cab over to the Bellagio to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. The most interesting part to me was hearing his description (we got audio guides) of how he took his most well-known shot, "Moonrise over Hernandez. " My favorite is his shot of the Grand Tetons with the Snake River in the foreground, also on display. Great stuff.

Then we got a call from my hubby's stationery vender asking us to join the group at their poolside cabana, so we enjoyed their hospitality before wrapping up the evening with an inner-tube float trip down the "river" circling the pool area. Weather here is balmy, warm, and dry. Perfect!

At night we attended the poolside opening reception and danced under the stars to "Sweet Home Alabama" and other seventies tunes. Then at 10:00, do you think we went back to the room to sleep?

Uh, no. We had tickets (purchased weeks ago) to see "O" at Cirque Du Soleil inside the Bellagio complex. We caught a cab back to the Bellagio, and arrived just as the fountains were gearing up for their famous show on the lake. So we watched water jump and twist and fall to the melody of "Proud to be an American."

Then on to the theater. Cirque du Soleil produces an aquatic show in which world-class acrobats, synchronized swimmers, divers and characters perform in, on, and above water. Sometimes the audience gets sprayed. Imagine a theatre in which the curtains open and before you appears a stage that sometimes allows actors to walk on it but then it sinks, fills with water, and serves as a swimming pool for performers with a different set of talents. Later liquid becomes solid again. A "wow" experience. After the show, it took thirty minutes in a tenth-of-a-mile-long line for cabs to catch a ride back to our hotel.

They say New York is the city that never sleeps, but I think the strip in Vegas has New York beat. Last night is the first time in my life I've sat in a traffic jam at 1:30 a.m.!

The city is not all fun and games, however. We passed more than one person sobbing his heart out as he sat outside a casino, head in hands, apparently having gambled more than he could afford to lose. That'll put a party scene in perspective really fast, huh?