Vegas in the Rearview Mirror

Kevin Burke and friend

Yesterday (at least as I write this) we went to the other two shows in a whirlwind day of excesses.

The first show was “Defending the Caveman” which turned out to be an hour and a bit more of a comedy one man show that I think gives a good fresh-ish look at the Men & Women issues that have been popular in books for the last 40 years or so. I have to say that this live rendition of common sense was very thoughtfully done and I would see it again. Laughing is good for you, you know!

The second was the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur. This show was both less than expected and more than expected. The horsemanship was good and the plot predictable (if you could call it a plot). Since it’s really a dinner theater in a participatory setting you cannot get away from the fact that it was filled with meaningless participation. Fun for some but not all, from the looks of it. Eating with your hands was a good thing although there was really too much food and it was noisy (explosions and such). Overall it was enjoyable, but then, after being on the Strip for that length of time between shows was telling by the time we got to the show.

One thing I will say about all this is that when you order a beer in Vegas it is no longer what you used to have there. I mean, $8 for some version of Budweiser (the ONLY concession beer available… yuuuuck) is a bit over-the-top as far as I am concerned. The wine at the Caveman show was low grade grape peels and the thought of sitting in a side bar (so to speak) for the time to wait out the start of the next thing to do playing about $10 worth (using the term “worth” loosely, of course) of video poker while we swizzled a crappy beer should not be repeated. By the time we got back to the RV we were ready to get quiet and read for awhile. It was a productive day but we are ready to get out of here. I, for one, can only take a few days in Las Vegas and I suspect that on our trek going north next year we will choose another route. This was a stop of necessity since I had to empty out a storage locker so there won’t be any NEED to come here for, oh let’s say, about ten years. At least it was not as crowded on the Monday after July 4th!

The next stop will likely, hopefully, be somewhere in or around Yosemite National Park. There is not likely to be good internet or television so I may have to revert back to my revered cruising mode of not caring much for that!! Anyway, as Las Vegas fades behind us on US-95 I will be humming a new tune and looking forward to things in the Northwest.