Vegas 2019

The Pac-12 Women's Basketball Tournament moved this year to Las Vegas so we flew there, arriving after dark.  McCarran International Airport is just two miles from the Strip so we had a nice view as we came down.

We settled into New York New York hotel and casino and looked around.  My first impression?  Wretched, wretched excess, everywhere.  The casino, in the center of the ground floor, took up an acre to perhaps an acre and a half, and around it, spread in all directions on the first two floors, shops of all kinds, sidewalk cafés, fast food outlets, restaurants, and bars.  It was perhaps a half mile hike from one end to the other, all within the hotel.

At NY NY, at least, one-armed bandits no longer exist, replaced by devices that still take your money, but with flashes of entertaining electronic wizardry.  The screen on one Deb played displayed figures in apparent 3-D, and when certain elements were achieved (no way to figure out how or why), the bench she sat on vibrated, simulating a fourth dimention. 

Although there were traditional tables of blackjack, craps, and roulette, there were also electronic tables where all action took place under glass.  We were there for basketball so before the first OSU game, we gathered at a NY NY venue with an outdoor pavilion for Beaver fan warmup.

  The game went down to the wire.  As G-T's sports editor Steve Gress later wrote:

 "...a wild and crazy finish Friday night that saw seven points scored in the final 4.9 seconds...."  Alas, the Beavs lost to Washington 68-67.

We went exploring.  We took an open-top bus tour of downtown and among the many outrageous architectural monstrosities, perhaps the most appropriate was the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Frank Gehry, Architect.

We visited the Neon Museum, which is more junk yard than museum and most of the signs displayed are lit with incandescent bulbs, not neon, but it was still a fun tour of the detritus of old Las Vegas.

We walked the pedestrian bridge across Tropicana Avenue to Excalibur and found people crowded around two hustlers, one playing Three Card Monte, the other running a shell game.

  We watched the shell game for a few minutes because, as we found, the minimum bet was a hundred-dollar bill.  A shill won a hundred, which the hustler peeled off a wad in his hand, then took five hundreds from another player who picked the wrong shell.  I felt all the players might object if I focused my camera, so─no photos.

We took the free elevated tram from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay to see Cirque du Soleil's "Michael Jackson ONE."  Deb liked it.  I thought it not as interesting as other Cirques we've seen, but lots of MJ music and holographic projection of MJ that dissolved into sparks and reappeared elsewhere on the stage, and too, a holographic white glove that danced around the stage.  (Again, no photos.

Walking back─Mandalay Bay is as large and convoluted as NY NY─we missed the terminal and walked through Luxor, which was another adventure, before we managed to board the tram.

We spent several hours at Shark Reef Aquarium, the only accredited facility dedicated primarily to predatory sea creatures, although the Komodo dragon might not qualify.

It was very like the Newport Aquarium, including a tunnel through a tank with sharks, and a touch pool, although the creatures in the pool differed considerably from those in Newport.

We wandered through the Venetian on our way to Wolfgang Puck's "Cut" restaurant.

The grand hall might have come out of a Venetian palazzo, but Puck's "Cut" could only be in Vegas.

We went to Emeril Lagasse's "New Orleans Fish House," at least as much excess as Puck's,

but everywhere we ate, the food was yummy.

Our last evening in Vegas we went to the Stratosphere where the restaurant rotates and the view is as much a draw as the food.

When we were in Vegas some years ago, Deb rode every roller coaster in the city, including three at the top of the Stratosphere but this trip there was a new one: for about $120, one can strap on a harness and leap from the top of the restaurant 829 feet to the Strip below (a Guinness World Record for the highest commercial decelerator descent facility).  For some reason, Deb decided against it, but while we ate, several tourists with too much money screamed past our window.

We took an Uber to "Antique Mall of America" but the driver typed "Mall of America" into her GPS guide and got directions to Minnesota, and then could not reprogram it.  Fortunately, we knew how to get there, some 1500 fewer miles away.

In the end, I changed my mind a bit about Vegas.  Still wretched excess and questionable taste everywhere, but the casinos allow the mathematically challenged to voluntarily pay taxes so that a hermetically sealed world can be created.

One never has to go outside, the indoor streets are clean, there is little crime, rain never falls, and the temperature is always balmy.

Vancouver BC 2018

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we took train and bus to Vancouver BC to watch the OSU women's basketball team play in the "Vancouver Showcase" tournament, and to see the city again.  I’m not sure how many years have passed, but I still had about Can$30 in bills and Can$20 or so in change, “loonies” and such, including some number of pennies.  To give an idea of how long it had been, when I paid a taxi with the paper, the driver looked at the bills and asked if they were American—he had never seen any like them; when I tried to pay for coffee with pennies, I was told they no longer accepted pennies, that I could get them changed at a bank.  I left them as part of the tip.

Deb got us an Airbnb on the tenth floor of a high-rise in the high rent Coal Harbor district of downtown Vancouver around the corner from a Trump tower that was impressive by day and lit at night.

Many of the structures downtown were interesting architecturally, like the twist of the Trump tower or another that expanded over the street as it rose. 

Between games, we had a lot of time to explore.  On our way to the Bill Reid Gallery, a pair of outrageous sneakers in a Gucci window display caught Deb’s eye, so we went in to try them out.  With the bling, they were a bit over Can$2000, without, about Can$1000.  The clerk, well-dressed and proper, lived up to Canadian reputation: she spent her time telling us how impractical they were, how limited their usefulness would be.  Deb said she’d have to think about it. 

When we arrived at the Gallery, we were told it was closed for a private party but we could return tomorrow.  Deb told the clerk we would not be in town then, so the lady said we could go in and look around.  More Canadian graciousness.  Lovely carvings, sculpture, photographs.  According to their website, the Bill Reid Gallery is Canada's only public gallery dedicated to contemporary indigenous art of the Northwest.  

When we left, rain was pouring down so we popped in next door to Hy’s Steakhouse, a lovely restaurant and bar, wood paneling throughout, 

drank a fine martini and when dining opened, moved to a darkwood paneled dining room, shared soup of the day and chowed down on a Beef Wellington for me and for Deb a Filet Neptune, finished with a Bananas Foster, which, unfortunately, showed up blurred on my camera, flames and all.

When the Beavers played, we went to the Convention Center to cheer them on.

The first games were thrillers, but in the championship game, Notre Dame proved too much once again.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves.

We went again to the UBC Museum of Anthropology, which has probably the finest collection of Northwest First Nation art in the world and has one of the best ethnographic collections I've ever seen.  The Bill Reid bear is about four foot tall and eight foot long, 

 the Diam housepost is about 12 foot tall, 

Cedar Man, 23 foot tall.

One of the more spectacular displays in the museum is the “Raven and the First Men” monumental sculpture, based on the Haida story of how mankind arrived on earth, carved from an 11.5-foot cube of laminated yellow cedar, started in 1978 by Bill Reid and others.

Smaller pieces are just as captivating, such as the four-inch gold box topped by an eagle 

or the Great Raven mask, Walas Gwaxwiwe, made and danced during the years potlatching was illegal (1884-1951) by Canadian law. 

Outside the museum, we walked by totem poles and examples of First Nation houses. 

I could go on (I have many more photos) but I suggest going to the museum or, second best, visiting the museum web site: http://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/

We ate one dinner at Kobe Steak house, a traditional Japanese tourist attraction just down Alberni from our Airbnb,

where the food is prepared on a grill at the table by a chef who starts off juggling his spatulas and tongs and moves on to creating a volcano

 with a sliced onion.

We visited the Vancouver Art Gallery which featured the production of Guo Pei,

the only Chinese National designer invited to present at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, some 40 ensembles—

costumes, shoes, hats, jewelry—produced from 2006 to 2017, 

“conceptual wares,” according to the Gallery,

designed “without concern for wearability.” 

Amazing stuff.

Upstairs, the Gallery’s permanent collection had fascinating works as well.  Two I especially liked were a modern button blanket 

and a soap stone carving of a musk ox with a human face.

We went to Gastown and purchased croissants and lattes at Smart Mouth Coffee (Gastown is the old-town, Hippie, tourist area).  

Deb bought a pair of purple Mad Max boots (she’s wearing them in the steam clock photo where we spent a few minutes).  

We ate a scrumptious dinner at Coast, another upscale restaurant down the street from our Airbnb, where Deb admired a dish served at the table of big spenders behind us so our waiter compted her one: one goose berry on a   seared abalone on lamb steak with squash and currant sauce.  Double yum, she reported.  (I think: wretched excess.)

We visited Lattimer Gallery where Deb tried to find out more about a Tlingit artist, J. Lyn, who created a lovely bracelet we stumbled on years ago in a Grants Pass junk shop.  We found fine items but not much information.

Down the street, however, we found Three Centuries Antique Shop, in which we found a fine Christophe Fratin small bronze, circa 1850, of a monkey barber lathering a bear’s chin.

We took Amtrak back to Portland where we laid over for three hours, giving us time to preview an O’Gallerie auction and buy enough Voodoo donuts to keep a sugar rush going for days.  The only item at the auction that jumped out at me was a full mount of a musk ox, estimated to sell at $500-700 (it went for $1000 plus 17% buyer's premium).

Deb said NO.

We returned home about 9 p.m.   A few more photos.

 

A mask at Lattimore,

 

and a mask at MOA.

Deb behind MOA.  

A bentwood box in MOA.

Robson Street.

Dale Chihuly display on our Airbnb, lit at night.

  A good trip.