Man-made!

When an artist strives to imitate nature it's often a disaster. The waterfalls at the Wynn in Vegas must get a lot of justified attention. After a superb dinner which at the moment escapes me, (so much for keeping a Dining out Journal!) I was captivated by the placement of rocks and cascading water. The sun had set at least 5 hours earlier but I decided to take a chance and photograph the showstopper. I saw abstracts in the formations and sure enough they were on the digital film.

Quote: One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.
Henry Miller

More Vegas

It's in the high 90's today here today so I imagine that it's about the same on the other side of the mountains in Vegas. Good thing we went last weekend; I don't imagine that it's a lot of fun seeing the sights when it's hot.

I love reflections in windows and when the crowd following the Beckham's finally left I was able to take the one on the left. The bird shape was in a jewelry store window; the glass pane surrounding the bird is black. I didn't see the reflection until my camera flashed. Nope, didn't actually see the Beckham's myself, but would have liked to see what Victoria looks like in person. We did see 5 women enter the theater just before "O" started and couldn't figure out why cameras were clicking away. A woman sitting next to me immediately phoned a friend, "You won't believe how many women were with Hugh Hefner tonight!" Ah, so that was the short man with them!

The grinning fool in the middle photo was taken in the butterfly garden at the Bellagio. I think that the carved tree trunk receives more attention than the live butterflies do, sadly! The butterflies are amazing! The third photo is a bit odd; I couldn't get a decent photo of the glass flowers or the butterfly, but the combo is sort of interesting.

Quote: The purpose of life is to remember. Henry Miller

Mini-Vacation

A mini-vacation just in the nick of time!! I was starting to fold under the stress of getting Stacy through the kidney transplant evaluation tests and trying to figure out mom's continuing disappearance into Alzheimer's. Last weekend Las Vegas seemed to be the place to go, especially seeing how I'd never been there! It's about a 4.5 hour drive which is doable; I had no idea that the Mojave Desert looks different than the Coachella Valley/Palm Springs desert area, but it does. All of these photos were taken at the Bellagio. Art decor on ceilings is something way too many builders/designers don't seem to think is important enough to consider, but not in Vegas; I was tripping all over my feet looking at the ceiling artwork. Very grand. I'm not usually one for glitz, but when it's done well I find that I'm in awe.

The food was incredible and might even have surpassed what we've had in Europe, which to me is hard to do. We saw Cirque Du Soleil's "O" and I can honestly say that I was completely blown away! We chose Wynn's "Le Reve" the next night and while it's not quite as good as "O" sitting in the second row made the show quite an adventure. There isn't anything comparable to seeing outstanding physical conditions put through so many twists and turns. I hadn't seen "Phantom of the Opera" since around 1993 so it was time to see it again. It was just as haunting and the music has stayed with me once again. Nope, we didn't gamble, I'm not a fan of games in any capacity, but we did enjoy watching. There was one young man, who looked to be about 12 and all of the spectators thought so too, who had a huge stuffed animal tortoise good-luck charm at his side. He was betting $500 chips and the crowd nearly fainted when he lost $8000! It didn't register on his face and he kept going. We went off to dinner and stopped back by his table afterwards. Neither he or the Black Jack dealer looked like they'd moved from the spot; the only difference was that he now had a drink at his side and was chain smoking. His stack of chips had grown considerably. We couldn't help but wonder how often he plays.

I haven't posted a link in quite some time, but this one be of interest. Nancy Renyor has an

acrylic painting book out so she may be familiar to some of you. Her blog is at:

Quote: Another winner from Sally Huss! Make yourself into a stress-free zone. Everybody benefits.

If only I could figure out how to do this!