Just trying out theme variations. This is a nice simple one.
Mesklin
| ||||||||
The Innerleven Boolin Club Life in the fast rink. | Just trying out theme variations. This is a nice simple one. Mesklin Been a while –but I’m back. I’ve done the update from 3.0 to 3.1. You think you’ve saved all the bits,but the sneaky prog deletes the old images. Thank you guys! Bit dumb. eh? I’ve been writing,fighting wars with Bhangra Telecom (or BT as they refer to themselves),enjoying the benefits of “Hot VP”(look it up! You may be a fellow sufferer. And NO! Nowt to do with Sarah Palin!),and a sundry other crises. So,hello again. Mesklin
The day has finally arrived. We have booked our helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon (months in advance,all paid for and confirmed earlier in the week). I have my camera –all charged up –and a spare memory card. We’ve had breakfast. We are both sitting at the entrance of our timeshare office. After the compulsory safety lecture,the weigh-in (anyone over 250 pounds pays 50% more) and the compulsory extra airport charge,we were escorted out to the flight line. No idea who Mr. McCarren was,but it’s a nice little airport. There were five passengers in our helicopter. Me,the wife,a brainless bimbo and boyfriend (or husband,if his luck had deserted him) and their tag-along female friend. I was the only one with a professional camera,so,naturally,I was stuck in the middle in the back,with the wife on my left and tag-along on my right. The bimbo sat in the middle,at the front with boyfriend on her left. I presume that the pilot reckoned on getting a bigger tip from bimbo and boy. Soon,we were up,up and away. We soared over the Luxor and headed for Lake Meade. Las Vegas,from the air,consists of The Strip and a flat nothing filled with look-alike homes made of tickey-tacky. (No fears! You’ll get to see the ORIGINAL boxes made of tickey-tackey later). First noteable sight was Lake Las Vegas. Not much of a lake,but the money down there was incredible! Did they really need to build a life-size bridge like the one in Venice,just to cross the creek? More pounds per square inch than the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The thing that nobody mentioned at the time,was that,as we were soaring up,Lake Las Vegas was crashing down. Bust. Skint. Bankrupt. The pilot mentioned Celine Dion. Celebrities and extravagance. I guess that stoney broke doesn’t fit the image. On we headed,out over Hoover Dam. Despite the totally opaque head of the bimbo getting repeatedly in the way,I still managed to get some usable pictures. The new bridge they are building looks impressive,but at the rate that the water in Lake Meade is dropping,they could have waited and driven over the lake bed in a year or two. It’s gonna get thirsty in Las Vegas soon. The Grand Canyon is big. It is spectacular and a site to behold. Looking back,I wished that I had driven there to be in the Grand Canyon. The helicopter trip was worth the money,but we came away feeling that watching it all on television would have been very much the same. The Valley of Fire looked much the same –but redder. The pilot waffled the biggest load of nonsense and the bimbo took it all in. Plenty of space to put it all in,I suppose … On the way back,we flew straight along the strip. Lots of great photos of Las Vegas. After the trip,the boyfriend gave the pilot a tip. So did we. But not as much as we might have. If you know all about this blog,then you will know all about tachras. To improve things,you will note that a few books have appeared on the Blog header. Only 5 to start with,but more will appear soon. They take you to Volumes 1 to 5 of the Book of Scotland. Lots of good stories. Feel free to comment. If nobody notices that the layouts on some stories are ‘a bit broken’,then there is little incentive to correct the situation. Have a read,anyway. Mesklin If you care to have a re-look at ‘Heroes and Villains,you will see the first gallery of pictures from the Mojave Desert and Calico Ghost Town. Just click on the thumbnails to see the bigger picture. Las Vegas to come next! Mesklin The blog has just been updated to V3.0 and the theme has also been updated. As a result,the header graphics have been returned to the default pics. Annoying … Will soon bring back the proper pics and do the long-needed changes to makeit easier to access the main tachras site and the Dave Book library. Will need to do a read of what has changed. Mesklin  The Luxor at Las Vegas I am working at it. Honest! Between the hell of return to work and trying to catch up on three weeks work left in the hands of others ( less inclined,shall we say …),and a whole mess of other things,I’ve not managed to do a lot. I’ve gradually managed to catalogue the pictures,and they will appear soon. And I hope to continue the narrative. Unless the less inclined screw up again. Trying times. In the meantime,I leave you with this snapshot taken from a helicopter. Click on it if you want the Big Picture. Good taste? Vegas style! Back in the UK again. Was unable to find decent Internet facilities in Lake Tahoe ( journalism tends to falter at $1 a minute –$10 minimum –when using the business facilities in Harrah’s Casino! ),so the rest of the Nevada series had to wait till I got home ( and recovered from the time difference ). At least,it gives me a chance to add some photos. We took about 1,200 or so! Don’t panic! We will only put in the best ones. Mesklin During the journey on the Metro,I had imagined the warm welcome awaiting me when I reached the home of the friends who were to give me hospitality. An hour later,I stood in a Paris street with my huge suitcase wondering what on earth to do next. The house was dark,there was no answer to my repeated ringing of the door bell. Even thumps on the door made no impression on the silent house. My mobile phone had abandoned me. And it was 11pm. Help! Something stirred behind a high wall,a few doors along the street. I hammered on the wall door. A lady answered,listened to my tale of woe,offered me the use of a phone and a choice of tea or coffee. Three phone calls later,I had the answer to the question ‘Where will I spend the night?’ A Congolese family had offered me a mattress on the floor of their living room. My ‘adventure’ was over but had left me full of gratitude that in spite of what the media might try to persuade us,Good Samaritans are not extinct.
Well,here we are,back again. By now,we’ve driven down The Strip in Las Vegas so many times,that we probably count as ‘locals’. Or is that ‘strippers’? (We know where to get pole-dancing lessons. And one or two other dubious delights. We tried the Monorail. Parked at the Sahara and bought a day ticket. It is clean,efficient,driven by computer –and very bumpy and rattly. And the non-stop high-speed adverts over the tannoy are an irritation until the mind automatically edits them out. But the coaches were always nearly empty. And we found out why. To get to any Monorail station from The Strip (or the reverse),you have to trundle your way through a Casino. A winding path through slot machines,gambling tables,shops and more glitter than anyone could possibly absorb in a day. Usually about a half-mile walk before you see daylight. We got off at Bally’s/Paris. A long,long road a-winding through Bally’s just to get to Paris –which is entirely indoors. A huge span of ceiling which tries (unsuccessfully) to duplicate the sky. The supports of the half-size Eiffel Tower appear out of the blue. Literally. The Strip is hot,glitzy and a tribute to the Big Sell. Along with a flock of coupon touts,drink sellers and outright beggars. The little sell. The peak and trough of Capitalism. Looking for a particular shop –Swarovski Crystal –We headeded into the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. And another Frankenstein shopping experience. Like Paris,the place has an artificial ceiling that goes (so they boast!) from dawn to dusk in an hour. For us,it stayed as a depressing twilight during our prolonged visit. The wife was unable to look up without feeling queasy,and she has happily visited a cave system in North Carolina! To me,it was just uncomfortably depressing. And I’m an ex-miner. I know it is cool and a relief from the desert heat –but we hated it. The guide maps were confusing. The stairs and escalators were designed with one object in mind. To ensure that everyone was forced to walk past EVERY shop,on every floor. No short-cuts. No quick routes. Just follow the snake past all the high class ‘shoppes’,featuring anorexic models making their court to tourists who were universally 10 clothing sizes bigger. If Breughel had painted a shopping mall,this would be it! Tired,hungry,thirsty. We headed into the nearest eating place. Planet Hollywood. We weren’t remotely interested in the authentic Hollywood movie props. We needed to sit,drink and eat. Eventually,we found Swarovski –remember,you have to pass EVERY shop in the place –and used the bouncing gift card (from the previous letter) to buy the wife a nice crystal necklace. As the price (with tax) came to slightly more than the value of the card,the saleswoman had to do a little bit of (legitimate) finagling. She’d had one herself,previously,and knew what a troublesome gift they were. Well done,Swarovski! That was enough for the day. We made our way out again,and passed ALL the shops that we had seen on the way in. THe took a quick short-cut through Harrah’s Casino (well,another half mile of winding paths through golden glitz,slots and shops) to the Monorail,and escape! At least,Harrah’s had the ceiling done in a tasteful golden balls theme,and no artificial sky. When we picked up our car again,it was top down and another run down The Strip. That part,we agreed,was always worth the effort. Back to the resort. The next day was helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon. On my birthday. | |||||||
| Copyright ©2012 The tachras Blog … - All Rights Reserved | ||||||||
