Vegas, on belay!!

We were looking to kick our trip off with a tour of our coast, and thus we took off for a three week California / Nevada romp hitting some of our favorite places; Joshua Tree, Red Rock, and of course... Las Vegas. Neither of us had ever been to the Red Rocks National Preservation Area and were very pleasantly surprised to find an oasis of ochre sandstone formations towering thousands of feet high above the desert. The climbing was great, although it did take a while to get used to the somewhat crumbly sandstone, and after a few days we were ready for some time off the rock.

While you can't directly see Vegas from the campground at Red Rock (thanks to a well-positioned strip mine) you cannot deny its presence, as evidenced by myriad searchlights and neon pollution every night centered around the giant SETI-inspired floodlight of the Luxor pyramid. Like moths into a flame, we too followed our primal urges and headed toward the lights.

In an effort to find the location of the Hard Rock Cafe, where we had "plans" to see a 1 AM show with Michael Franti, we got sidetracked and soon found ourselves in the middle of a high pressure 3 hour timeshare presentation at the Planet Hollywood hotel, tempted by the lure of a free buffet and tickets to a show. Dave Lemoureau (a fine French name, he assured us) helped us calculate our "yearly vacation investment"... to be fair, our visit was accompanied by some white lies... let's just say that we didn't exactly disclose our campsite number or the amount of free camping food we had inherited from our neighbors who left the day before. Predictably, after some number crunching and some stories about his special needs aunt at Mardis Gras, Dave arrived at the conclusion that it made financial sense for us to "own a piece of the strip" at the mere cost of $40,000!!! Pocket change, especially when you consider the pre-approved financing at 18.99% APR!!!

The kicker hadn't even come yet, because we had yet to see the building!! Oh wait!! The building isn't actually built yet... but Dave provided us with a brilliant artist's rendering of the Planet Hollywood Towers, and escorted us into a beautiful model room. There was no doubt that this room was incredible, down to the plasma TVs in the bathrooms and the convenience of a full-fledged mall downstairs (Mo happened to mention that she hates both shopping and watching TV). We followed Dave back to the final negotiating table, where we found it quite easy to say no. It was, however, much harder for him to hear our answer - this could possibly be due to the multiple couples around us screaming in exhilaration as they signed up for their new place in the PH towers. Yes, people were buying all around us, buying shares of a building not yet built - we took our tickets and got out of there as quickly as we could (after one more visit to the complimentary juice bar).

The buffet was mediocre, Stomp was fabulous, and wandering around Vegas amidst a crowd of Parrotheads there for the Buffet show made us strangely nostalgic for the days of Phish. All in all, we learned a few important lessons - we spend way too money much on vacations, there's a sucker born every minute, and a rest day in Vegas is not really a rest day.

P.S. A 1AM show? Our bed time is like 8 PM!!!!!