Thursday, May 16, 2013

Vegas, Baby!

I just got back from Vegas! Yes, I know, excess, water in the desert, waste of electricity, blah, blah, blah. Look, The Boy hates warmth.* He got sent to Vegas for a conference. It was my one shot at a warm-weather vacation with my sweetie. I took it, environmental concerns be damned.

To alleviate the guilt, I look at it this way, I've lived around the Great Lakes most of my life, from which Vegas gets most of it's water. So, really, the water is mine. I should be able to enjoy it wherever it ends up.

And they did a fabulous job with my water. I gave them a pure, natural, resource and they bedazzled the eff out of it. 

Michigan Water  / Vegas Water
I am used to Great Lakes water. It is wholesome, woodsy, you fish in it, grow strong strapping young boys around it. Vegas took our water and made it FABULOUS. Capital F. Capital ABULOUS. The raw material for Zsa Zsa Gabor is evidently Mumford and Sons. 

I stayed at the Mirage with the intention of never leaving the pool. The Mirage pool is called a lagoon. It is exactly not like a lagoon at all. The "lagoon" is never more than 4 feet deep because it is very hard to doggy paddle with a 22oz margarita. 

There are multiple waterfalls majestically falling over faux rocks that appear to be designed by the same team that did the zebra exhibits in any zoo that concerned itself with authenticity in the 70s (St. Louis, Detroit, San Diego).  Two, maybe three secluded hot tubs are tucked away in coves near the pool. All of this is surrounded by lush greenery and sky-scraping palms. There are actual cabana girls.

After lounging four hours in this giant, sunny, adult play-pen, mojito in hand, I was shocked back into reality by a cloud. The puffy white bugger had moseyed right between our not-lagoon and the sun! 

Instantly, the entire pool, about 300 tipsy adults, started BOOING the cloud. The beach-ball stopped being thrown, girls' twittering stopped, the only noise was the singular "boo!" that arose from the entire crowd. Every human in the pool had taken up the same indignant skyward glare.Thirty seconds later the cloud had passed. The pool instantly resumed its revelry, each person content they had done their part to shame the poor forsaken cloud.

And THAT is exactly what Vegas and it's grand desert castles is like. Booing a cloud; a false sense that we, and our 300 new bff's, control the universe. And it is grand.


* Doubt this statement? He wants to go to Reykjavik. Our prior vacation spots include Bosnia, in fall. Italy, in the fall. Whitefish, MT, in the winter. Traverse City, the most Northern point in Michigan before you reach the upper peninsula, AKA: Canada, USA. All my summer vacations involve winter coats.