July 10, 2004 Archives

First it was my sister and brother-in-law leaving, on Friday night it was my parents. Helaine, Steffie and I decided to take another trip to The Bellagio with them. Forget the casino, Bellagio is a destination in itself (and I say forget the casino only because I've never done well playing poker there).

Las Vegas Boulevard was moderately crowded. Friday night means the LA crowd returns. Still, it wasn't anything like what we saw when we got here on the 5th.

We parked the car and walked into the hotel. Our destination was the Conservatory. This large space, with glass paneled roof, is constantly planted in seasonal motifs. Right now, it's pretty patriotic for the 4th of July.

Some of what they do I like. Some, I don't. I specifically don't like the attempts to create people from flowers. It just looks too contrived for me - as if a molded body was pasted with flowers.

On the other hand, the individual flower plots - large expanses of one flower - are beautiful. And there's not a blemish or spot on any petal or leaf.

Within a few of these plots are 'fountains'. The actual nozzle is buried beneath decorative rocks, which allows the water streams to appear from nowhere. A dozen or more of these streams are intricately choreographed to music - much as the fountains outside. In this case, because of the shorter streams, the coordination between water and music is much tighter.

Dinner was at the café adjacent to the Conservatory. I had a chicken wrap which was a little spicy, but mostly undistinguished. That was a disappointment in a place where food rules.

Before leaving, we went to see the fountains in front of the hotel. We got there about 10 minutes before the show. At the appointed time, a cultured voice came on the PA system to tell us there would be no show. There was too much wind.

Looking back at my photos, there is an anemometer near the American flag, atop a giant sign. That's probably the sensor that triggers this decision.

We got the car and heading north on Las Vegas Boulevard. Steffie had already left, not feeling too well. Now, as we stopped in traffic across from the Mirage, Helaine got out. My parents and I continued downtown to the Fremont Street Experience.

Fremont Street is old Las Vegas. It is far removed from the strip. It is an area that had fallen on hard times. City leaders first made Fremont Street a pedestrian walkway and then covered it with a roof resembling half a piece of pipe. The underside of the roof has thousands of little lights, like an animated advertising sign might.

In the past, in a configuration with fewer lights and lower resolution, the "Experience" was cartoonish, but still fun. Now, with the ability to really project discernible high res images, the major shortcoming was what was being shown!

It was a major disappointment. My mother said they tried to be too sophisticated. She's not far from wrong. To my way of thinking, good technology doesn't remove the need for good content. The computer animated show I saw was not entertaining, and it had nothing to do with Las Vegas.

The good news is, Fremont Street has the technology, so they could conceivably rework what's shown and go from there. But they'd better do it quickly, because word of mouth, like this blog, will keep people away.

I got my folks to the airport around 10:30. It was great seeing them, especially here where they had a great time. They didn't gamble at all. They're not Las Vegas' favorite customers, but it's too bad. You don't need to gamble to have fun here.

A whole day and I didn't play poker.

Two quick notes - Friday featured the first "Geoff sighting" as someone came up to me at the Bellagio, actually it was a family, to say hello. They're from Niantic and seemed to be having a good time - especially their son, Kevin.

Driving back from downtown you can't help but see all the wedding chapels. Most of them are in awful neighborhoods. All of them are tiny. If there was a big Friday night wedding business, I missed it.

Blogger's note: I continue to add photos to the gallery for this trip. You can see them by clicking here. The whole Vegas trip has its own category, which means you can link to these stories specifically by clicking here or read about the 2003 Vegas trip here.