The desert does lots of things well, in my opinion, but civilization is not one of them. Almost any built up area in the desert looks seedy and Las Vegas is not an exception. Except for the Vegas Strip: there the neon lights work just perfectly. The neon sparkles in the clear air and everything seems alive and crisp and clean.

My plan had been to park the truck at one end of the strip, walk down it and back with my tele-zoom, and then repeat with a wide angle lens. It was further down and back as well as a lot more interesting than I expected and Ed had said that he expected to put a wrap on his frolicking early, so I only made one pass using tele. So most of what I have are detail type shots with almost no street views.

As an aside, one thing that surprised me was that I saw several Muslim women in Hijabs. More Hijabs than I saw at Edwin’s graduation in Freemont which has a large Muslim population. End aside. I also saw more than several people dressed in costumes like the Hello Kitty woman below. I think that you could have your picture taken with them for a small fee – that is if you ever wanted to have your picture taken with Hello Kitty, or Spiderman, or a couple of characters that I didn’t recognize – and the costumes themselves seemed too professional and elaborate to be home made or spontaneous. (Maybe the rent them from central casting – I suspect that the women dressed as showgirls fall into that category.)

Of course there is gambling everywhere but gambling is far from the entire show. There are rollercoaster rides,

and lots of themed dining, events, shows,

lots and lots of shopping (the real American pastime),

and lots of sex in all kinds of flavors (I wonder if the HOT BABES direct to you are delivered in the truck).