Day Five, Part Two: Las Vegas

I didn't want to spill any of this negativity onto the Grand Canyon. That woo hoo... was probably too much.

This is where the interplanetary part comes in.

There is no conceivable way that Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon exist on the same planet. In fact, I would even question the very existence of Las Vegas itself. This place makes absolutely no sense. It is smack in the middle of the desert, these tall, funny-looking buildings that are all kinds of strange, impractical, devoid of all art. I just don't get this place. It makes me want to write bad words - on occasion, they enter my voice and I immediately shut them down for stylistic sake, but while thinking about Las Vegas, I try harder to justify an exception.

Driving in Las Vegas is a unique challenge. Lots of people driving way too fast and who have absolutely no idea where they are going. It is terribly chaotic, but kind of fun - in a thrilling sort of way.

I was immediately over-stimulated and could barely keep a handful of words strung together. Thousands of people walking every which direction, and I think to myself is what about all the people INSIDE these buildings, and then I realized with greater depth how much of a different planet into which I found myself driving.

We stayed at the Venetian, which is remarkably ridiculous. Indoor gondola; fake piazza - Evelyn kept getting tricked by the fake sky and asking where were the birds; marble everywhere; overpriced everything. This was strangest place I have even been to, and I am so happy we did not take more of a Hunter S. Thompson approach to this leg of the trip.

That said: our hotel was clean, ordered, quiet, and comfortable. Evelyn had her own pull-out bed, so Cassandra and I could at least stretch out at night for a week - as opposed to her squeezed between us, always filling in the space when one of us moved and refusing to give up newly gained territory.

By 6:00pm, we were in our hotel room, eating left-over non-perishable scraps, burning our eyes with the colorful lights of the television and letting our brains melt into the dimensionless abyss of Sunday-evening television.