The heat in Vegas

Hi there

Here's the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino.  Every night there is a pirate-ship battle out front.

And, oh, yes, there's a lot of heat in Las Vegas.  Las Vegas exists on heat.  There's sexy ladies wearing just a few feathers and a bit of glitter, and sexy men who are probably wearing the same but I never went to any of the male stripper shows so I don't know how they dress ... or undress.  I did go to  "Showstoppers" at the Wynn Casino, and I really loved this show.  It's how I imagined Las Vegas would be.  Show girls and boys, big stage presence, full orchestra, headdresses, feathers, high-heels, lots of singing and dancing, and tunes from Broadway musicals.

However, it's the real Las Vegas heat that I'm talking about.  On two of the days I was there, the temperature on the LV Strip reached 110F, one degree less then the all-time heat record.    We were warned, via the tv each morning, that seniors must not venture outside, that there were 'cooling stations' and 'drop in' points for cold drinks and air conditioning.  The desert fire that had taken out lots of houses the previous week was still burning.

In Vegas, the August heat is so bad that you can't walk more than say two minutes without wishing to be at the South Pole, or sitting on a giant block of ice.  It's better to nip in one door of an air-conditioned casino and out the other all the way along The Strip.  For those few minutes when you're riding an outdoor escalator or crossing a street bridge, just put up with the heat and don't buy a dollar bottle of water from the bridge vendors; the bottles were found in the trash and filled with tap water.

My visit to the hundred-burro one street town of Oatman was on one of the 110F days.  Oatman is right slap-bang-dab in the middle of the desert.  The temp inside an Oatman shop, in the shade, read at 114F (45c in kiwi language).

Our tour van had arrived in Oatman a few minutes before noon and we parked in a carpark below the main street. .  I was all a-tingle to see the promised 1.15pm gunfight..  I was drenched in sweat within one minute of getting out of the van;  I didn't know how long my body could take such heat.

I heard some gunshots and a lot of yelling.

"They must be practising for the gunfight," someone said.

So.... I ate my picnic lunch, got bit by a burro, and all but expired under the sun. .

At 1 pm, our guide admitted he had his timing wrong.  The shootout had been at noon, and the next fight wouldn't be until 2.15pm. 

Another hour to hang around in that 114 degree heat?  None of us could take it, we all put up our hands voting to leave.  What a disappointment but, oh, such heaven to be in the air-conditioned van!

When I got back to Vegas, dripping in sweat, I called in to Serendipity3 and had the biggest ice cream sundae I could find on the menu:

But I truly wanted to see a cowboy gunfight....
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Below:  temperature clock outside a general store in the El Dorado mine area.

ps: tomorrow i'll tell you the sad tale (tail, hehehe) about my Maverick Morning Horseback Ride. Same bat blog, same bat temperature.

I'M BACK FROM VEGAS!!!

Hi there

Did you miss me?  Did ya?

Well, I did everything I wanted to do, and saw all the sights I wanted to see.  In and out of all the sightseeing and the doings, there were plenty of traumatic happenings.

I got jet lag for the first time ever, and for five and a half days, I walked around in a state of full zombie-ness. And, also, from the second I stepped off the plane in Los Angeles, I was on-and-off deaf in one ear.

On my last morning in Vegas, I woke up to complete deafness in that ear.  The deafness still hasn't let up.  I am going to see the pharmacist today.  But everyone in Vegas was nice about it.  I had so many suggestions from strangers as to what to do to hear properly.  A bus driver handed me his smart phone (while he was driving) - he had found a list of how to get rid of temporary deafness and wanted me to read it.  First on the bullet-list was "jump up and down".

Then I had a blocked nose and a sore throat for four days until I turned my hotel room's air conditioning off at night.

I got bitten by a donkey......   (Bet you weren't expecting that??)  :

I was in the small western town street of Oatman, out of the Las Vegas area.  The town has loads of wild donkeys roaming the street, only we are not allowed to call them donkeys - they are burros.

"They're perfectly safe," said our group's guide.  "You can pet them, and love them, and feed them."  Blocks of alphalpha could be bought.  We were not to feed them carrots.  Carrots brought out large cancer lumps on the donkeys'-sorry-burros' necks.

I petted a few donkey-burros, then looked for a rubbish bin to throw away the remnants of the picnic lunch provided by the tour company.  A donkey stalked up to me, staring intently at the square plastic container of left-overs in my hand.

"Shoo!  Shoo!"  I backed away, scared.

That donkey-burro stalked me.  I turned left.  He turned left.  I turned right.  He turned right.  He began to nudge me.  There was a vicious look in his eyes.

I was standing beside a car and the occupants hurriedly opened a door, trying to put the door up between me and the donkey-burro.  The donkey just swerved around it.

I stumbled backward up onto the boardwalk.  It followed.  I was backed up against a shop window.

And the burro bit my arm!!!  With both sets of teeth.  Blood was drawn.

I dropped the lunch box and ran away, crying like a seven year old.

I hope I don't get rabies.  Or tetanus.  Or burro-breath.  If I turn into a a were-burro at the next full moon, I will be so distressed.....

 above: the Oatman street.  Donkeys (I mean burros) roam on shop verandas.

above: a baby.

Above:  approaching Oatman, a friendly donkey (I didn't know about them being burros then), happy to see us, put his head in the car window, in greeting..  I should have paid more attention for future reference. 

 above:  me, five minutes before The Episode.

above.  a happy stranger surrounded by friendly burros.  I don't know what happened to her later.  I fled the scene after taking this photograph.  (Oh, and quite a few burros were pregnant.)
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Another thrilling What I Did On My Vegas Holiday coming up soon.  I promise no more donkeys-er-I-mean-burros.  This time the horrifying story will be about ... horses!