Some Fun in Las Vegas

On Saturday evening, Clara, Linda and Jerry went to a show at the Aliante Casino just not very far north of their home. The featured performer was Robert Cray, a blues singer whom they all liked.













On Sunday, Linda had arranged a "Garden Party" for some of our old friends from UUCLV as well as some of her new friends that she wanted us to meet. It was a delightful afternoon, and, just coincidentally, it also included a blind wine tasting for those who were interested (guess whose idea that was . . . )

Dummy

To be edited later

Around Las Vegas

Just the other morning as I headed down the street on my way for some shopping, I was struck by the incredible view of the Spring Mountains just 15 or so miles west of Las Vegas. It was 70 degrees here in town, but Mt. Charleston still had lots of snow – after all, it's over 11,000 ft in elevation (compared to about 2200 here in town) and Mt. Charleston looked so close as if it were just around the corner in the next block.

Clara, Sheral and Linda are all taking an embroidery class at one of the local quilt shops. Clara needed to learn so she could do up an Oregon light-house quilt that calls for "red work" to outline the light-houses; so Sheral and Linda decided to join her. Here they are all hard at work – the instructor had the audacity to give them "homework" to be done for the next class.


Las Vegas got its name from the Spanish for "the meadows" because right near the center of town there is a spring that waters the area, hence creates "the meadows." Originally, the town was founded as a railroad watering stop because of this spring and the availability of water for the trains. Finally the city is getting around to memorializing its heritage by creating the "Springs Preserve," a combination natural area and meeting place complete with a small (but Wolfgang Puck operated) restaurant.

Clara and her friends were there for lunch one day, and just the other evening, we all went there for a light supper and the evening "Café Concert," featuring an
excellent lounge singer who
was also expert on the harp.



















The view of the downtown skyline gave me pause – viewing "New Vegas" from the site of "Old Vegas," where "New Vegas" is even decorated with the Nevada State Bird atop the largest, but as yet unfinished, building on the skyline. [For the uninitiated, the Nevada State Bird is the (construction) crane!]

The Stratosphere Hotel and Casino, shown here after dark, is somewhat reminiscent of Seattle's Space Needle, although it's nearly twice as tall. That building at the bottom is itself 24 stories high. Here's a note from Wikipedia:
the 1,149 ft (350 m) Stratosphere Tower, the tallest free-standing observation tower in the United States[1] and the second tallest in the Western Hemisphere,

The Lettermen

Last weekend, we went to see "The Lettermen," (surely you recall them from the '60's and '70's) who were appearing at a new casino out on the far south side of town. We all enjoyed hearing those old tunes, some of them their exclusives ("Hurt So Bad", "Traces/Memories", "Goin' Out Of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You", "Shangri-La", "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", and many more.... ), others just old stand-bys of the era . They briefly showed, on the showroom TV, some tape from the beginning of the group, including this shot of the original three with Jack Benny. Only one of the original three (Tony Butala on guitar) is still with the group, but he's been there for 48 years now. And what's absolutely amazing is that he, together with various others, has been putting on at least a hundred shows like this every year since 1961!




The lighting in the showroom was great for the show but absolutely awful for any photography (so bright it washed everything out, or so colorful it distorted everything) but I did manage one shot when they had a member of the audience on stage briefly. The old coot with the gray hair is Tony, the original.

Two other things of note – the drummer in their accompanying group was sitting in an acrylic-walled room, apparently so that he could hear only the "pure" sound from the microphones through his headphones. The second thing is, I believe, related to this . . . this "background" accompaniment, especially the drums, was so loud that it seemed as if the singers were almost screaming into their mikes to be heard. We had some discussion about this – you can pick what you think is the correct explanation for it:
1) Today's "young" people are almost deaf from listening to so much loud music, so they insist on very loud presentations. They don't think the music is any good unless it's very loud.
2) The back-up group has it written in their contract that they must be heard, even above the singers.
3) The musical arranger for the group is a young guy, hence number 1) applies to him specifically.
4) The showroom manager is (probably) a young guy, hence . . .
5) Beats hell out of me, but it sure was loud . . .

Dummy

This spot will be edited later.

Fountain Hills

At this very moment I'm sitting in front of a quilt shop in Fountain
Hills, AZ, which is about 30 miles E/NE of Phoenix. We are camped
just north of here at McDowell Mountain Regional Park, a very nice
high-desert park run by Maricopa County.


Here's a picture of Clara by our very own Saguaro, right at the top end of our camp-site. It was interesting to me, as we drove from Tucson up to Phoenix the other day to observe the gradual disappearance of saguaros, going down from at least 1,000 per square mile near Tucson to about 1 per square mile as we neared Phoenix.
They tell me, at the Desert Botanical Garden, that it's a matter of rainfall -- 14 inches per year in Tucson but only half that in
Phoenix -- but that rainfall is directly affected by the drop in elevation -- 2200 ft above sea level in Tucson to slightly less than half that in Phoenix. That seems reasonable in that we go up again as we go out of Phoenix to Fountain Hills and the Saguaros become more numerous.

The second picture shows why it's called Fountain Hills -- the fountain comes up every hour on the hour for fifteen minutes. The big question is why -- a) to entertain the snow birds, b) to aerate the water in the lake, c) secretly it's the Fountain Hills Sewage Treatment Plant -- you may only pick one answer . . .

On Cactus

On our guided tour of part of the Desert Botanical Garden, the docent explained to us that a cactus has three essential things – a cuticle to hold in the water and sugar that it stores, an extensive root system to gather what little moisture is available in the desert, and an attractive flower to bring in pollinators.







In this first picture, of a cluster of barrel-type cactus, you can see the cuticle and the means of storage – barrels. In all of the others, the blooms are the outstanding feature. The first blooming cactus is actually not from the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix but from our friend Margot's front yard in Tucson. It's a Mammillaria cactus with an attractive wreath-shaped bloom. Then comes a Cholla cactus with bright pinkish blooms, followed by a prickly pear, and yes, those are real orange blooms, not some pieces of Chihuly glass dropped in there.

This last one is the most amazing of all . . . remember, as you can see, that cacti are inherently ugly and threatening with their bristles/spines/stickers, but this last one looks just like that piece of exposed root in the upper middle of the picture every day of the year, and for 364 nights of the year. But on one night, for just a few hours, it puts out these
lovely white blooms which wither and die before morning. It's called the "Queen of the Night" and it's Arizona's species of the "Night-Blooming Cereus." No, we did not actually see one in bloom, only the ugly root-like stem – this is a picture of a picture . . . but, as with all cactus, it does store water and sugar – if you were to attempt to pull that " ugly root-like stem" out of the ground, you would find yourself tugging on a large bag/sack of water and sugar, perhaps as much as fifty pounds of it stored just under ground! Cacti are truly amazing!