Living the disco dream

After walking the many acres of shops, restaurants, whistling, tweeting and ringing bells at Caesar’s Palace, I sought refuge at the Bellagio. The 110 degrees on the strip touched my skin for an hour at 7:30 in the morning and never again until I fled to the airport. For a naturalist, this was not my usual saunter. I had to call on subterranean memories of disco nights, bring out my Evelyn Champagne King buried four decades deep. It took me three days to orient myself to the twists and turns of the Roman holiday mall, convincing peasants like me that we are living large – like Caesar, probably Augustus not Julius. While I didn’t follow my impulse to sneak into the Wedding chapels and take some photos, I would expect something along these lines. The Bellagio was more modulated than the Palace, but the atrium pictures shown below rival the kitsch of Caesars, family style. For a tourist once removed (I was attending a Sociology conference) from the many dubious pleasures of Sin City, I did find a taste of something savory here and there (Palm, Joe’s Stone Crab and Steakhouse, Payard Pastiserei and Yellowtail). Cocktails, while expensive, were a delicious and medicinal balm for my irradiated senses. I include snapshots of the Bellagio and Caesar’s in colorful tribute to my Vegas mall walk about.

Well Vegas, for the record, let me just say Danke Schoen. It’s been surreal.