Las Vegas… not as gaudy and bawdy as I thought it was going to be, and nowhere near as dirty! I expected trash, more dark corners, prostitutes, lost souls, mopes and transients, more observable squalor and sin…
But then again, we walked only the surface of “the strip”, and thus left it for our imaginations to fathom the unimaginable vices that grip this city of excess behind locked hotel doors and velvet curtains, and in its underworld (as this excellent NPR story details).
Of all the attractions we could see, I have to say, the Bellagio fountains were my favorite!
With a pricetag of $50M, this ensemble of underwater pipes includes more than 1,200 nozzles and 4,500 lights, all submerged in a 9 acre pond between the hotel entryway and the strip.
The fountains perform their choreographed numbers, timed perfectly to show tunes, every 30 minutes or so until midnight, and the hotel tests the system overnight, as we discovered when Ethan left his camera on autopilot to shoot the sunrise.
We sinned a bit ourselves and pulled some slot machine handles here and there, and I realized that gambling establishments thrive on the premise that hope springs eternal…
While in town, I needed to record voice tracks for a story I was filing for an NPR program called Day to Day, so I stopped by the local member station to do the job.
The folks at KNPR Nevada Public Radio were so kind and welcoming that I felt a bit like I dropping in on my country’s embassy while visiting some foreign nation!
The station is lovely ~ clean, sunny, full of friendly employees who say hello to you in the hallway, and offer to help you figure out why you can’t make a simple transfer of your audio from their system to one of your 6 flash cards!
Who knew NPR had such a fan base in sin city! Overall, a surprising visit.
Next stop: Bryce Canyon & Zion National Park
