leaving las vegas

a tub of hotdog relish.

howdy cowboys

today's blog is called leaving las vegas, which is artistic licence, which i use a lot - we actually left las vegas on sunday. we spent saturday night there, camped illegally in a casino circus circus's overflow oversized vehicle parking lot.

it was that or pay $46 for the cheapest actual rv park in the city - you can get a hotel room for cheaper, even the lady at the desk at the rv place said that. anyway we parked monty and walked down las vegas avenue, which is the main street in las vegas. they have a reconstruction of the eiffel tower, a venetian palace, that one at st mark's square and the bell tower there, there's a treasure island pirate ship place, a disney castle and lots more - it's kind of bonkers but fun. that is it's fun if you don't look past the bonkers-ness and get swirled up in what it all means and is humanity really that inane that all it wants is to spend money money money and have fun fun fun all the time time time. as you can imagine i did get a bit too over analytical about all this, as that is what happens with me. like i said, and in order to keep the first paragraph light-hearted, it was fun, and here is what we saw on our free night out: an elvis and a marilyn monroe lookalike; a whole bunch of people dressed up as jacobeans/edwardians/victorians; a water and light show outside bellagio's - like that bit in ocean's 11; some girls dancing in a cage, looking pretty bored; a really good pianist inside bellagio's; lots of people gambling; a volcano show (not very impressive, just water with orange and red lights behind it) at mirage (another casino/hotel); a sign for the cirque de soleil show love, about the beatles; a few newly wed couples; lots of people of lots of nationalities all having fun.


we were going to go and gamble $10 each on the one-arm bandits, but figured most likely we'd only lose it and we could live without the experience. we used our money to buy some sushi instead which was an interesting taste experience after our normal diet of pasta/sandwiches/chips and salsa.

it wouldn't seem that there is any kind of economic crisis going on anywhere in this country. i'm not saying there isn't as everybody knows there is, but people are out there spending money and going to shows and drinking and partying and gambling in their thousands, and that's only on one street in one city on one evening. i have never seen such wealth as i have seen these last few months in america - i was overcome with a need to close my eyes on the highway on saturday (don't worry i wasn't driving at the time) to block out the luxury boats and hummers and ferraris and houses and gleaming motorbikes and adverts for where you can spend your money next, as it was literally making me feel sick. yes i am aware that makes me sound like a self righteous wally, but i'm just not used to it and it there is something not quite right about people having so much money that they buy another house just to store their overflow cars/boats/shoes in round the corner, when on the same planet and in the same country in fact, but maybe not on the same street, there are people with absolutely nothing, not even a bed, let alone a house or second house to put it in. i know none of what i'm saying is particularly new or fresh or inspired, and who doesn't know about the inequalities of the world, but i suppose i've never felt it quite so strongly, having come from belize/central america to north america. there is something strangely paradoxical about the huge wealth of nature and wildlife in this country, and the huge and literal wealth of materialism. you'd think the former would somehow lead to a realisation that the latter is not so important. anyway such is the nature of the mysterious existence of human beings on planet earth and i am not qualified to expound any more nonsense about what it all means because i literally have no idea.

bert and i are currently in bakersfield in california. we are working this month - hooray - selling tree wraps to nurseries and vineyards out here. you may remember i talked about bert's friend jim in an earlier blog - we stayed at jim and amy's place in colorado and jim has a plant band/tree wrap manufacturing company. well, he wants to get new business out here in california but is too busy to leave colorado at the moment to do it, so he asked bert if he could do it. bert is quite the salesman - in his 20s he was a porsche salesman in california and was the top salesman of the whole company, and got to drive the demo porsche. so we are hopeful we will do well. today was our first day of work - i take notes and keep jim informed of what we are doing and how it is going etc. it's interesting - there are fields upon fields of grapes growing, and citrus fruits, and almonds and pistachios. one thing i wonder/worry about it that they grow them directly by the highways here, which must be slightly problematic in terms of dust and pollution i would think.

last night we watched the film elizabeth with cate blanchett, which i thought was brilliant - she is great, and the story was great, and i really have a hugely limited knowledge of english history and am determined to learn more about it. tonight we are going to watch a western film that bert chose, i can't remember its name.

bert petting a dinosaur.

since the last huge blog update we spent the week driving down from colorado to california - via the grand canyon, new mexico to visit bert's son timothy, lake havasu in arizona, las vegas in nevada and now california. i have to go and watch the western now but will write about last week's adventures soon. i am currently reading milan kundera's immortality, which is interesting/challenging/philosophical. i realised the other day that there are 4 words that i always spell incorrectly, and i made myself learn them properly - they are: opposite, separate, desperate, and recommend. i didn't have to cheat by looking at my notes that time. i came up with a ground breaking equation, which is as follows:

proximity to fridge + inactivity/boredom factor = likelihood to become fat potentiality

i came up with this after my 100th visit to the fridge whilst driving along somewhere that had particularly boring scenery and realised i was becoming fatter and fatter. tonight we're having soup for dinner in an attempt to feel thinner.