This is the account of our trip to Las Vegas during Christmas / New Year 2005. We flew to Vegas on the Friday morning before Christmas Day to stay at the MGM Grand, which is right on the strip in Vegas. The flight there took about 5½ hours direct from NYC, but since we crossed a time line in the process, we gained a few hours - the local time of arrival was only 2½ hours after we left - we were winning already!
The flight afforded us amazing views of the canyons and desert as we approached Las Vegas..
..as well as magnificent views of Lake Mead (the lake that sits behind the massive Hoover Dam).
The next two shots look almost like satellite images or topographic maps..
The different layers of land color near the edge of the lake on this shot are actually the result of the rise and fall of the lake water levels..
Once we landed in Vegas, a shuttle took us to our hotel. The MGM Grand is apparently the third largest hotel in the world, and I'd believe it - the place is huge - the corridors in the part where we stayed seemed a mile long. We checked out a number of the hotels around us during our stay - Tropicana, New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay - and the MGM seemed to be the nicest of them all. We stayed in the brand new West Wing of the hotel which was very comfortable - the bathroom mirror even had a flat screen television set seamlessly into it so you could watch the news while drying off.
This is the main lobby of the MGM Grand - it simply oozed gold, marble, and opulence..
The hotel included a large swimming pool area consisting of many different pools separated by paved walkways edged with shrubs and large palm trees. One of the 'pools' (pictured) snaked around and between other smaller and bigger pools like a river, and it even had a current flowing in it. There were also several jacuzzi (spa pools) scattered around, and of course all the pools were heated in winter.
The paved walkways were spotless and immaculately manicured..
Here's a few of the palm trees that were scattered liberally around the pool complex. The white line in the sky is a vapor trail from a passing jet.
Sitting in the shade of the palms: a weasel.
There were multiple restaurants, bars, clubs and theatres (for live shows) in the hotel, as well as shopping, food halls, a lion habitat (yes, lions), and of course the casino. The following photo is part of 'Centrifuge', one of the bars inside the MGM Grand.
The next shot is of a warm comfortable and somewhat secluded lounge bar in the West Wing of the MGM Grand - it was usually pretty quiet and proved to be a great place for us to sit and chill and take a break from the bright lights and crowds elsewhere.
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