Nevada to San Diego

April 10-17, 2003

The Blue Men, The Dam Tour, and the Man in the Panda Suit



    Our destination in Nevada was Hoover Dam, but when we arrived at Lake Mead and saw a sign that said "Las Vegas--26 miles"--well, what would you do? So we took off for a Saturday night on The Strip and drove from one end to the other, just taking it all in--the giant, gaudy casinos, the people of all ages, shapes, and sizes, the colors, the (no kidding) drive-through wedding chapels. If there is a world capitol of neon, this is it.

    We finally parked at the Luxor (naturally, a giant pyramid) and, on a whim, got some cancellation tickets for the late show of The Blue Man Group.

    Then we cruised just one end of The Strip--the Luxor, Excaliber, and New York, New York. No gambling--you can walk through the casinos with kids as long as you don't stop at the machines. (We may be the first people to spend an entire evening in Vegas without losing a dime). The kids did arcade games and Mary and I just watched the action. After a while it gets a little depressing, but for sheer spectacle, this is the place.
   Then, back to the Luxor and the fantastic Blue Man show; we'd seen them in short pieces--remember the Intel ads?--but never really saw what they do until this memorable night. Their show is a combination of mime, incredible drumming, high-tech theater wizardry, all with an underlying layer of dry humor. If you're ever in a town where the Blue Men are playing, don't miss the show.

    Notice that The Blue Man doesn't break character, even for a post-show picture with a young fan. These guys are cool.


Meanwhile, back at Hoover Dam (the next day). Definitely worth the trip, Hoover Dam is a true engineering wonder, and the tour is fun, especially the trip down into the power house at the base of the dam. Conceived by Herbert Hoover when he was Secretary of Commerce and begun during his presidency, it was completed in 1935 both for flood control of the Colorado and the production of electricity. Incidentally, it created Lake Mead, the largest artificial lake in North America which is a major recreational amenity for the Las Vegas region.



    And who should we meet 500 feet into the dam? Martha Muldoon and Denise Butler of Kennebunk, Maine. They both work for Joel Stevens at Kennebunk Savings and were in Las Vegas for a bankers' convention. Martha' greeting to me in the elevator was something along the lines of "Gone a little native, Angus?"

Hope Joel knew they were going to Vegas;  guess he does now.





Ben contemplates the Colorado from near the top of the dam. In the recording of President Roosevelt's dedication speech, he kept referring to it as "Boulder Dam", even though Congress had already voted to name it for Hoover (Roosevelt's opponent in 1932). Even the greatest can be petty sometimes, I guess.






    Lake Mead--notice the incredibly low water level. The locals said they had never seen it so low (about 80 feet down); unfortunately, the huge snow in Denver this winter won't help--wrong side of the continental divide. The politics of water in the Southwest is something we in the East can only dimly understand, but as the drought continues, the tensions are rising in proportion to the fall in the water levels. They really don't like it that most of the water ends up in California. And the next day, we ended up there, as well.
   

    Scene about 40 miles south of Las Vegas. Can anybody seriously argue that we should want this in Maine?







The plan was to drive from Las Vegas to San Diego in one day, which looked doable on the map. Only the map failed to note the phenomenon of all the Los Angelenos heading back home from Vegas on Sunday afternoon. (If major casinos ever come to to southern California, Las Vegas is in trouble--about 75% of the cars we saw in the casino parking lots were from California).

    We never did see one of the "Welcome to [state]" signs in California we've seen everywhere else; instead, our greeting upon crossing the line was a 50 mile (no joke) traffic jam. The first of many, I might add.

   So we stopped for the night in Calico State Park just outside of Barstow--the first RV park we've encountered which is attached to a full-blown ghost town. (Quiz--where was the combination RV park and catfish farm?) The next morning we hung out for awhile (the RV park fee included admission to the ghost town) and enjoyed the attractions. The big disappointment, however, was that the rain caused the cancellation of the scheduled gun fight. Wouldn't want the gunslingers to slip and fall, I guess.

Then came the worst day of the trip, so far (and I hope for no more like it); eight hours of stop and go traffic, the last three in a driving rain on the freeway around Los Angeles and into San Diego. It appears that rain is to southern California drivers as snow is to Washingtonians. Cars were off the road, traffic absolutely crawled, and just changing lanes (especially in a forty foot bus trailing a car) was an undertaking of some daring. It was awful; never have I been so glad to see a KOA. In fact, I was ekstatic.





And where is the first place you go in San Diego? The zoo, if course, and here are Mom and Molly by the topiary elephant at the entrance. We split up and took different paths, meeting at the home of the wonderful giant pandas.







I know it's heresy, but I was underwhelmed by this famous zoo; the animals were often hard to see, or just plain absent. The biggest problem, however, became apparent as  I toured with Molly--many, if not most of the "cages" are separated from the walking paths by hedge-like shubbery (I can never hear that word without thinking of Monty Python) which are very hard (in many places impossible) for a kid to see over. This natural separation is a point of pride for this zoo and is no problem for adults, but really limit the visibility of the animals for a kid. Maybe the folks who run the place should do a walk-around with a six-year-old.


Horse, designed by a committee.


















Molly getting a shot of the giraffes; see what I mean about the shubbery? Where are The Knights Who Say Knee?


The pandas, on the other hand, were really cool. (What do you call it when visitors to this zoo run amok? Pandamonium, of course). My only problem was they looked too good; I tried to convince the kids that they were really zoo employees in panda suits; nobody was buying, but I'm not so sure--
    "Hey Frank, I don't mind all the hanging out or even the feeling of being watched all the time, but this eating bamboo all day thing is getting old."

    C'mon, does this guy look like a bear to you?

   







The next day, we visited San Diego's other major attraction, Sea World. Now this was more like it--you could see every animal and it was clearly designed with kids in mind. And the killer whale show was, well, a killer.

    Here is the famous Shamu, for example, and if you look closely, there's a man standing on his nose as he rockets out of the water. Wow.
 






    At the seal pool, you could buy little fish at feeding time (at four bucks a box--these guys are no fools); the only problem was if you held the fish out more than a few seconds, one of the aggressive seagulls would fly by and snatch it. This surprised the kids and irritated the seals no end.




    Since he was two, Ben has been a Lego whiz and our house has always been full of the little yellow, red, and blue blocks (have you ever stepped on a Lego in bare feet in the middle of the night? The very memory is painful). And ever since we bought our first box almost eleven years ago, Mary has wanted to go to Legoland. So, we went.



Notice Mary's backpack--she always has whatever we need--paper towels, ibuprofen, peanut butter crackers (a particular favorite of mine), guidebooks, maps, camera, water, apples, postcards, film, band-aids, sun screen, phone numbers, and maybe a change of clothes for the kids. She's the Best.




  Whoops, what's this zoo picture doing here?

    Because the elephants are actually made of Legos, by the thousands.









And what about this view of San Francisco? We're not due there for two weeks. More Legos, of course.

The heart of Legoland is a wonderful series of Lego models of familiar places--Times Square, Mount Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and even a New England seaport (looked a lot like Rockport, Maine to me). It was fun to try to line up the pictures so they'd look almost like the real thing.

Two more examples of the Lego modellers' art--the ubiquitous pandas and the San Francisco skyline, We could have done the whole trip right here.



                       

At San Diego, we make one of our three big turns at the corners of the country and are heading north for the first time. Next stop, Yosemite, but not before a stop at Bakersfield and a night with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. Hee Haw--