Crowded Mandalay Bay

17^th June 2012 Las Vegas again

The aircon in the RV is very LOUD so you can be cool and deaf or hot and calm. We survived the night, checked out of the Lake Mead park and headed into Vegas, 50km away.

We turned up at the Atomic Testing Museum only to discover that it didn't open until midday, as did many other things. Sunday. The churches were full, the roads were quieter. It's American Father's Day as well, so Happy Father's Day Dad.

Instead of the museum we opted for Walmart to find more supplies (tongs! A potato masher! Why aren't these considered standard kitchen items anywhere?) and wasted more time wandering the massive warehouse shelves.

Finally got to Mandalay Bay hotel and put the RV in the massive convention centre carpark. I hope it's still there. Very hot 300m walk to the hotel. There was a long queue to check in and that set the scene for the rest of the day. We are on level 17 at the end of a long corridor that looks disarmingly like it belonged in The Shining. Nice big room and bathroom, nuclear powered toilet (this thing creates a vacuum of air when you flush it).

Had a late lunch, I went back up to the room while Luke bought coffee and got caught in a 100-person queue for the elevators. Then finally made it down to the pools.

What a nightmare.

The place was absolutely teeming with people. The hotel has a “beach” complex with 5 pools including a wave pool and a “river” which is essentially a loop with a self-sustaining whirlpool (whirlpool! Whirlpool!) Brilliant fun except that it was chock full of bodies, screaming kids keen to kick you and fat adults clinging to inflatable donuts. Zealous lifeguards blew whistles, thumping music blared, the concrete was too hot to walk on and the heat was almost unbearable out of the water. I'd had this foolish idea that I could spend an afternoon lazing by the pool here but it was utterly out of the question. Every single lounge chair (of which there were thousands) was taken. All of them were in full sun anyway. It was loud and crowded and unpleasant and it made me squint.

We had a go in the wave pool, did four laps of the lazy river and gave up. In theory we could have gone into the topless pool as I got it free with the room but the ads in the lift suggested it was a great place for guys to perve on women... not the vibe we wanted.

So we bailed.

By then it was 5pm and time to find a happy hour drink. Ended up at the House Of Blues which was neither house-y or blues-y. More just boring bar-y, with sport on the television and an uninspired booze list.

After a few drinks we went through to the Luxor which is a giant hollow pyramid hotel (very impressive architecture) and went into the Bodies exhibition. This is where they have preserved real human bodies with chemicals and plastic so you can look at bones, nerves, muscles and arteries. Amazing stuff. All the specimens were from China and they all had black lungs, either from smoking or from the smog over there.

We had planned to ride our bikes up and down the strip but got too lazy and opted for a late dinner and then some net surfing. And now it's midnight and time to sleep.