April 18 - 26, 2011: What Happens In Vega, Stays In . . . . . The Blog

The Las Vegas Interlude 

Don writes:  There comes a time in our trailer trips when we need to settle down for a bit.  The Desert Eagle Family Campground on Nellis Air Force Base just twenty-five minutes outside of Las Vegas was beautiful, convenient and economical.  With the “sounds of freedom” in the background (Air Force fighters and the Thunderbirds doing touch and go landings), we realized that this was our settling down point.

The new landscaping at Desert Eagle Campground was so appreciated.

Our arrival on Monday, April 18, was easy and we quickly got settled into our campsite.  Took the recommendation of one of the campground hosts and went to Memphis Barbeque for dinner.  Good choice since the meal was terrific!  The next day was devoted to some blogging (didn’t get too far), laundry and talking with some of our fellow campers from Vermont.

Roses in the desert. Welcomed sight.

Wednesday, April 20, we ventured into the Vegas Strip for some sightseeing.  On the drive in, we saw the pawn shop featured in Pawn Stars on television.  The long line out front confirmed that it was, indeed, the same place.

There were wedding chapels everywhere along the strip.

We parked the truck at the Bellagio and went in to see the sights.  We were bowled over by the Easter flowers in the conservatory, the art gallery featuring works by Richard MacDonald, and the chocolate fountain.  Someone put a lot of money into this place!  We decided to eat at the buffet here after someone told us it was the best on the Strip.  They were right.

A touch of Chihuly's blown glass on the ceiling of the Bellagio's lobby.

The conservatory was decorated with Easter flowers.

Who needs flowers when there is a chocolate flowing fountain.

After Bellagio, we went to the Cosmopolitan, one of the newer casinos on the Strip.  We had been told that their slots were set to pay off more frequently than others so they could build traffic.  Couldn’t prove it by us as we dropped half our gambling stake in fairly quick order.  We did score a couple of free drinks, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Evening walk along the strip to catch the sights.

Fountain light show outside the Bellagio.

We followed the Cosmopolitan with visits to the Palazzo and the Venetian.  On the way back to the truck at the Bellagio, we watched the volcano erupt at the Mirage.  What a way to end the day!  Interesting to note that we didn’t see a lot of folks at the gaming tables or slots in any of the casinos we visited.  Guess the recession hasn’t let up out here in Sin City.

Mirage's volcano in action.

Thursday, April 21, was another admin day.  A little more blogging (still not far enough) and visits to the exchange and commissary.  Although it was windy in the late afternoon, we enjoyed cocktails outside while we watched the jets doing their takeoff and landing practice.

Friday, we did some more blogging in the morning.  While we were pounding the keys, the camp office brought over the wheel and tire assembly that had been UPS’d to us here by the manufacturer.  Whoopee!  Hopefully, this will be the end of our tire problem.  I went right out and got it balanced so I’ll be ready to mount it tomorrow.

The left tire is being replaced! Hooray!!!

We headed into the Strip around 2 PM.  Had dinner at I Love Burgers in the Palazzo before trying our luck on their slots.  Once again, we lost more of our remaining  stake.  We didn’t even get the free drinks here.  Oh well. . . .  At any rate, it was time to go to our first Las Vegas show, Jersey Boys, which was conveniently staged at the Palazzo.  What a phenomenal show!  To begin with, our mezzanine seats got changed to some great orchestra seats.  The story of Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons took the audience from their beginning in urban New Jersey all the way to their breakup.  We hadn’t realized just how many great hits they had during their time together.  The acting, and especially the singing, just made me want the show to go on forever.  But all good things must come to an end and this was no exception.  Still, we left feeling good and fortunate to have seen the show.

We loved walking through the lobbies of the hotels and casinos. Such outrageous opulence.

Saturday, April 23, I put the new wheel and tire assembly on the trailer and delivered the old wheel and tire to the campground office so UPS could pick it up on Monday.  So nice to have that done.  Now, if the new assembly will just hold air and wear evenly like it should, I will be one happy camper.  Now, to the fun part of the day.

We had tickets to see LOVE, the Beatles show performed by Cirque du Soleil, at the Mirage, so off to the Strip we went again.  This time we got in a little later, but in plenty of time to have an early dinner at the buffet at the Mirage.  It was very nice though not as impressive as the one at the Bellagio.  We particularly liked that it was not jam-packed with people.  When we finished, it was off to the slots again to try our luck one more time before the show.  Our luck was a little better this time as we scored some free drinks, but the money portion of the experience stayed the same with one difference.  This time we lost all of our remaining money (it wasn’t much by now). To tell the truth, we only bet $100 total, so with parts of three days gaming, we gained high entertainment value.

We got to the show in plenty of time thanks to our poor run on the casino floor.  This was my first Cirque du Soleil show and I was hard-pressed to take in all that was going on.  The show was performed in a theater-in-the-round so everyone could see everything that was happening – provided you had 3 sets of eyes that you could focus and process independently.  With Beatle’s songs and music in the background, the group did acrobatics that almost defy description.  Suspended high above the stage, they worked with ropes, wheels, revolving cages and other devices to keep the audience on the edges of their seats.  There were in-line skaters doing amazing tricks on back-to-back half-pipes, crossing each others’ paths in mid-air.  Portions of the stage would rise or fall at different times during the performance with the actors never missing a step as the landscape changed.  By the time the show ended, I was exhilarated and exhausted.  WOW doesn’t even begin to describe what we saw! 

Sunday was Easter so we went to the base chapel for the eight o’clock service.  It was our good fortune to have inadvertently chosen the gospel service to attend.  It was certainly a joyous occasion!  Their choir really rocked out with a number of celebratory Easter anthems that demanded clapping in time with the music.  Just what we needed to start this special Sunday.

Following church, we headed for the Hoover Dam to see one of the 7 wonders of the modern world.  It is certainly an impressive feat of engineering.  The pipes that feed water to the generators and the generators themselves were immense.  Going through the exhibits in the visitor center, we learned how the dam was constructed with concrete being poured into forms layered from the bottom up.  They cooled the concrete during the drying process using stainless steel cooling pipes that circulated cold water pumped from a cooling plant built on the construction site.  Contrary to popular opinion, no one got buried in the concrete while the dam was being built.

Model of Hoover Dam and the new bridge.

Mike O'Callaghen-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge - highest and longest concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere. Opened in October 2010.

Next, we went to see Lake Mead, the lake that was formed when Hoover Dam was built.  As we approached the lake, we couldn’t believe how blue the water was.  It almost looks unreal.  We were also struck by the white ring around the lake that emphasizes the 10-year drought that has caused the lake water to drop 54 feet!  All the lakeside buildings and businesses are no longer at the lakeside.  They are about a quarter of a mile from the water.  The exception to this is the marinas that use floating docks.  They just keep moving down the shore following the water level.  Our daughter, Shana, advised us to take popcorn with us to feed the carp in the lake.  As we started walking out on the floating pier, we started seeing these big fish eyeing us expectantly along the sides.  When we started tossing cinnamon-sugar popcorn (it’s all we had) to them, things started getting a bit frenzied.  I mean some of these carp were almost the size of Ella, our two-year old granddaughter.  The sight of all those fish faces with their big sucky mouths vacuuming up the popcorn was somewhere between terrifying and comical.  All right, it was more comical, but I’m sure that more that one little kid has had sucky mouth dreams following a Lake Mead fish feeding trip.  Speaking of little kids, a youngster next to us lured most of our fish away with their preferred food, puffed wheat cereal.  I thought it was kind of rude for him to swipe our fish, but what can you do?  We decided to head back to the campground via the Memphis Barbeque restaurant for a return visit and Easter dinner.  Once again, we had a tasty meal and left full.

Monday and Tuesday, April 25 & 26, were spent taking it easy at the campground.  We did some blogging (still didn’t catch up), some shopping at the commissary and exchange, and just hanging around.  We were also hoping that the winds would die down a bit before we took off for Zion National Park in Utah.  It was nice taking it easy for a couple of extra days. Desert Eagle Campground, here at Nellis Air Force Base, to date, has been our favorite military campground.