We stayed the first few days near the Convention Center at a Hilton Grand Resort. This is a condo-like building, and for being farther from "The Strip" it was a nice place to stay. We'd made plans to see two shows during this time. One was "The Rat Pack is Back" and the other was "KA - Cirque du Soleil."
The Rat Pack was near Freemont Street in the old downtown area. During the day when we picked up the tickets it looked seedy and run down. Once the sun went down this all changed! The show was fun. As someone who watched a lot of TV in the 1960s the characters -Sinatra, Martin, Davis- were all familiar. I was a bit taken back with the Sammy Davis Jr. character sang "The Candy Man" because I'd always associated it with drugs, but that was his big hit so I guess it couldn't be avoided. After the show we went to Freemont Street. It was a fun area. The street is covered and they had a light show and several live bands playing. This being Las Vegas there were casinos but we didn't go into them and the street entertainment was plenty.
"KA" was totally overwhelming. Dan loves the Cirque du Soleil and bought good tickets. We were on the second row with preformers swinging over top of us duirng the numbers. I think this must be where Olympic gymnaists go when they retire.
Our other pre-conference activity was a bike ride in the Red Rock Canyon area on Friday. This got us out of the strip area of Las Vegas. Driving out to the ride we went through many new subdivisions. Remember Howard Hughes? Apparently he designed some of the subruban areas we drove through. They're nice, very consistent - lot of zero-lot-line homes behind adobe walls. Maybe a bit uniform for someone who lives in an old jumbled-up neighborhood.
The visitor center at the park notes that the population of Las Vegas has grown by more than 200,000 in the past ten years. That's more than just a few big families! It's hard to understand what draws people to this spot.
There were more than a few spots where I was off the bike pushing, probably attributable to the "higher elevation" (LOL).
But, in the word of my father - quitters never win and winners never quit - so I pushed and eventually I won a fun ride.
Breath caught, a stop along the ride.
Since we were on vacation Dan caught a few rays.
It was a short walk and on the way down I discovered why that house must have been there. We ran into 2-3 families with children and I was able to tell them that to look for the Fintstone's House at the end of the trail. Ah children - they'd hop and skip their way along with the promise of a magical playhouse.
