Las Vegas & Fresno

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Our hotel for a couple of days is the former Las Vegas Hilton; it underwent a name change in January this year and is now simply the Las Vegas Hotel. It must have been a long meeting and “blue sky” session to come up with that. Historically it has been known as the “LVH” so I guess they could not move to far away from what they had. It was built in 1968 and when it opened it was the largest hotel in the world and Barbara Streisand was the lead act. Such luminaries as Barry Manilow have made it home to their acts over the years and Narelle was distraught that he had left to do a tour rather than be there to serenade her. According to the large sign outside the next big act will be Liza Minnelli. It is a hotel that has held onto its 60s feel and reminded me of a hotel we stayed in Washington DC – the Hilton and Towers; it was built in a similar curve style. There were 3000 rooms available in the hotel and pretty much every one of them seemed booked. From my observations around the lobby there were girls’ soccer teams, Taekwondo competitors and tour groups like us.

So what words does one use to describe the city of Las Vegas? The main one that springs to mind is surreal. I am not sure I have encountered anything quite like it and unless I head back there I may never do so again. We had been to the Bellagio on the first night and watched the fountains that show every 15 minutes – each time to different music. The flowers in the lobby of Bellagio would not be out of place at a flower show. How they keep them looking so good is anyone’s guess. Each of the casinos has a signature show or theme. There is New York, New York with that city’s skyline towering above you. Excalibur had the Knights of the Round Table and castles. Luxor showed off the Sphinx, hieroglyphics and the pyramids. Then there were the Italian influenced Venetian and Palazzo, which not only had floating gondolas on the Grand Canal but a recreation of St Mark’s Square filled with restaurants and shops. We sat in in a bar on the square and people watched for a while. In Caesars Palace there are the famous Forum Shops that stretch for what felt like miles and have tenants that landlords dream about – Tiffany’s, Cartier, Chanel, and Versace. There are also many jewellers that will happily buy your Rolex if you need some cash; I have never seen so many second-hand Rolexs!

Before our dinner under a starry sky in the Roman Forum we stood outside the Mirage for the volcano show. We did not know what to expect and as it started we were a bit disappointed. A bit of steam emerged from the rock pools and bangs erupted. How wrong were we – suddenly it exploded in a series of fire and lava bursts. Out over the lake went red water and jets of flame shot out from the rocks and we were treated to a 5 minute full scale eruption. Masses of people lined the street to watch including one of the many wedding parties who were given their own roped off area outside the hotel. On the theme of weddings Narelle told some of the tour group that we were to renew our vows in Vegas (I could not think of anything worse) and at least two ladies had offered to be bridesmaids – if this had been followed through I would have been the runaway Groom!

It is the casinos that are the eye opener. Every hotel is a front for a casino and every exit or entrance is carefully placed to ensure that you have to leave through the casino floor and the chance to take another dollar off you is paramount. A staggering forty million people will visit Vegas this year and the gaming and tourist industry knows that Vegas’ survival relies on their money. When I went down for breakfast at 8.30am the floor was full of people playing the machines or the tables. It is a city and industry that does not sleep and it is amazing to watch it in action. Narelle and I joined up to a Players’ Club (not high roller level) and were given $10 to play with each. After two nights on the slots I was very pleased to walk away with the huge amount of $23.14. I am not sure what I did to win or what the games meant but lights went on and off and a bell sounded a couple of times. Based on my performance I am not expecting to be met at the airport by a limo or given the penthouse suite – however, I would like to play the Las Vegas Country Club, which was visible from our hotel. It was stunning and is very private – Tiger has played it, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush too. I will not be high on their waiting list.

Sadly there is the flip side to Vegas. I found the number of people on the streets begging for money to be alarming but in reality no different to what we had encountered along the Santa Monica beach front. In fact our first few days were punctuated by our encounters with homeless – we had been warned both by the hotel and friends who had seen this before. Perhaps the biggest downturn in Las Vegas is the property sector. Numerous buildings and shops away from the strip are empty and there are vacant lots with fading pictures of a developer’s dream, which never came to fruition because of the global credit crunch. Perhaps the largest example of this is the Fontainebleau building, which lies empty and incomplete. Windows have been smashed out of it and it is a sad reminder of a time when money and credit ruled. It has been on sold to corporate raider Carl Icahn for US$150m and local rumour has it that once scrap metal prices rise it will be imploded and sold for scrap. It seems no one will ever work, play or reside in this building. The Sahara Casino next to our hotel closed last year and as we drove past you could see the doors chained and the roller coaster waiting for its next customers – again this building will be demolished instead of reopened. The city of a million dreams has become a city of nightmares for some – just don’t tell the 40 million tourists flocking there each year.

I was quite taken by the city but I am not sure it is a place I would race back to. It feels more that we have ticked the experience off rather than found a holiday destination for life. However, I can readily accept why people go. It really is an oasis in the desert in much the same way as Dubai and Abu Dhabi have become – in fact if these Middle East cities have replicated the golf side of Phoenix they have certainly adopted ideas from Las Vegas. It is the provision of the weird and wonderful to entertain the masses and it obviously works. What was more apparent was that we had experienced the plastic side of the city and could contrast it to the natural beauty of the previous three days.

We were back in the coach and heading for Fresno so that we can easily get to Yosemite tomorrow. It meant crossing the Mojave Desert. A desert that is steeped in US history. The Mercury astronauts trained there; Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier above it and the Space Shuttle would land here if unable to get back to Florida. You always knew if it had as NASA would have to “piggy back” the shuttle to Florida on a 747 – it cost over a US$1m to do this so it was always a last resort. It is also the resting place of old planes as the atmosphere means they will not begin to rust as they sit waiting for their next airline to buy them. Our destination is the raisin capital of the world, which sits within the Central Valley of California – perhaps the biggest area of agricultural production in the US. This area grows everything from nuts, stone fruit and citrus fruit. It is so important to the US that at the State border there is an agriculture check much in the same way as we do at the airports in NZ – we were stopped and checked.

When we reached Fresno we quickly found out that the Stanford University NCAA women’s basketball team were staying at our hotel. They were heading off to play there Top 16 match at Fresno College and their travelling band, cheerleaders and dance team were making sure that they got onto the bus in the right frame of mind. It was fantastic – I had not seen anything like it. The band danced, the cheerleaders did their routines and the parents got into the swing of things. It was a show within a show. It must have worked too as when we watched them live later on ESPN they won – we have adopted them as our team and as one of the parents said to us “make sure you watch us from now on”; tomorrow they play for a chance to go to the Top 4. So – “GO STANFORD”

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