A seat! A seat! My kingdom for a seat! . . .

The vacation is winding down. Tomorrow we go home from Las Vegas (we hit Vegas at the right time: after the torrential downpours and heavy winds of a couple of days ago but before it really heats up again tomorrow and for the rest of the week [107 on Wednesday]. Are we smart or what!?).

I made a reservation for two nights at the JW Marriott Resort and Spa (technically in Summerlin but any normal person would say Las Vegas) about two or three months ago (real bargain for a JWM resort, $104/night) aond a couple of days ago we emailed them to ask for a recommendation for a restaurant for our anniversary. We made a reservation at their recommended restaurant and didn’t think any more about it until we got to our room. ROOM? Palatial suite is a more appropriate term. It has double doors into a large—VERY large—living/bedroom area with a bar. The is a very large walk-in closet, two bathrooms (including a bidet), a dining table, sofa, two comfortable chairs, and a patio that could hold 100 people with a table, two chairs, and two chaises. Wow!

So of course we had to order a room-service breakfast this morning. Nice way to end our vacation!

Our excursion for the day—after we finished our breakfast on the terrace and read the paper, of course—was to the Springs Preserve (http://www.springspreserve.org/). It looked really good on paper and online, but the reality was a bit less. Those of you a bit less long in the tooth than Randy and I are might not have the same appreciation for seating that we do. We wandered through their Origen (yes, that is how they spell it) for over an hour trying out their interactive exhibits and watching their videos and reading their posters and admiring their statues. There was not a seat to be found in the whole bloody place! We had to watch a 15 minute movie STANDING UP!  

I know, I know, nobody was forcing us to watch the movie at all. But when you hype something, your visitors will want to see it! And they hyped the movie about the building of Boulder/Hoover Dam, so we wanted to watch it! But my feet were really complaining by now. Anyway we survived, but Springs Preserve? Put in some chairs! Please?

Springs Preserve is definitely aimed toward children and Randy and I felt a bit out of place without a small hand in ours! The most interesting exhibit was the demonstration of a flash flood, complete with a real roaring stream! There is a video (no seats!) and then thousands of gallons of water start rushing down a rocky ravine complete with lightning and thunder sound effects. Quite impressive!

Their version of what the Desert Museum calls Running Wild was a disappointment. The presenter had his heart in the right place but the program he put on was a bit understated. He was trying to show desert animal adaptations by putting several (live) animals in a reality-TV show-type presentation and for Randy and me, it didn’t quite make it. But for the kids in the audience (I think we were the only adults who didn’t have an ankle-biter in tow) is appeared to be mildly interesting. He did use a video camera enlargement of each animal so even those in the back row could see exactly what was going on up front.

Tonight we have dinner in Carmel restaurant and then home to Tucson tomorrow.