Vegas at last

In all these years and all these trips to the USA, I have never been to Las Vegas.

Everyone I know who has done as much as a week’s quickie trip has included Vegas. But not me. Bruce has not considered it a cultural priority. He was there when he was eight, in 1956. It was enough.

So I have been grouching about it for years.

Now, at last, at last.

And best of all, my dear friend Rachel, my sister friend really since she also is a Harris, also is a Vegas virgin and has chosen to fly on down from Portland so we will have the experience together.

We arrive later than I’d hoped. It is a long drive from Sedona.

On arrival at the elegant Vdara, which is one of the few hotels in Vegas which has neither gambling nor smoking, I am crestfallen to learn that our assigned suite is not the fountain view I had requested but simply a city view. Serendipity leaps onto my shoulder. The receptionist is one of those golden souls who seeks to make people happy and to solve problems. After searching around the computer bookings she announces that there

are no fountain-views available but that she will pop me up in a 39th floor corner suite which offers a partial view. Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh magical receptionist. Oh, fabulous Vdara.

So it comes to pass that we have a lovely long living room with dining table, desk, kitchenette, full laundry and separate toilet with windows showing a glorious view of city and hills and streets and night lights and action on the famous Strip of glitter, glitter, neon wonderland Las Vegas casinos. Not only but also, we have another stretch of windows from our spacious bedroom and a large, gorgeous bathroom which features not only a massive free-standing bathtub but also the cited partial view. Hah. It might not be all of the Bellagio fountain but it is

three quarters of it. It is most of it. If I sit on the ledge in the bathroom I can just swoon over the fountain’s glorious choreography by night and day. Oh, and a whole lot of the rest of Vegas.

Actually, lying my bed, I can see Rachel’s Stratosphere hotel. And, er, the name Trump on top of the Trump casino. Less said the better.

The view is sensational.

For one who is not feeling 100 per cent, it brings Las Vegas right to me. It makes me so very, very happy. That is, if one refuses to think about the election.

Rachel is deeply traumatised by the election results. She wept most of the night and, as we rejoice in being reunited, she is also struggling to be the old good cheer girl which is so much a big part of who she is. She is one of the kindest and most loving

people in the world. Her mantra is spreading random (and deliberate) acts of kindness. Today she is a wounded soul, stubbornly wearing her Vote Hillary button and, indeed, she has come fresh from the Trump Casino where, amid all the security and glitter, she wandered in announcing she had come to pay her disrespects.

As we move around the town, I note how she makes connections with people on the Hillary front. Just from wearing her little Vote Hillary button. Suddenly, complete strangers come up and hug her. Tears are shared. People are afraid to speak out now that Trump is victor because Trump people are very aggressive and abusive, even in victory. So the Democrats have become nervous and secretive.

We encounter one sad but brave fellow sitting in a Las Vegas mall surrounded in cardboard signs, just lamenting the end of the world as he loved it, of the values he respected, of hope.

It is a dark time and a new spirit of fear and wariness is palpable.

I love Las Vegas. I am not a bit disappointed. I don’t find it tawdry. I find it a celebration of exuberant American excess, blase greed and effervescent vulgarity. I find it honest. It is what it

is. It makes no pretence at class or erudition. It is a playground for people who want a taste of glamour and hope. It is a great equaliser for a diversity of decent people who don't want to think about things too much. And that speaks for a lot of America.

To qualify that, I quote Noam Chomsky’s observations that ordinary Americans know a lot about things they want to know about. They are deeply schooled in football and baseball. Deeply. This is the great national knowledge. Popular music and television are knowledge subjects, too. And, the Bible. The Bible is the only book read by the majority of Americans and many know huge tracts of it by heart. But politics, economics, geography?

People flood to Las Vegas for fun. They come for a honeymoon, a wedding, a reunion, an anniversary. They come to play. It is the ritual place they come to spend money. There are happy people all around.

It is the most absurdly lavish place in the world. It is so far over the top it would be silly if it was not so beautiful. I look at the extravagant decorations within the hotels.

The mad beauty. In the Bellagio there is an entire courtyard of seasonal celebrations. It is like a Disneyland with real, fresh flowers and vegetables. It is not phoney. It is not plastic. As for the Bellagio fountain: the work that goes into keeping that technological and beautiful

celebration thrilling people night and day is awe-inspiring. There are thirty full-time employees devoted to its care, including scuba-diving engineers.

We three explore all over the place. We marvel at the lifts that go diagonally in the Luxor. The whole giant place with its Sphinx out the front. Like so many casino hotels, it goes on and on. It has thousands of rooms. People snake-queue to

check in. People are snake-queuing at glitzy hotels all over town.

We explore Caesar’s Palace, Planet Hollywood, and Paris. We also go to The D, in the old part of town, where we throw ourselves into the silly business of a corny interactive dinner theatre murder comedy. It is my choice for us as a Vegas night out because the concerts all seem a bit tired and Cirque du Soleil, which I long have considered to be a one-trick pony swamped in special effects, has no less than five of its tedious acrobatic shows on the go. The one thing of real interest, Penn

and Teller, is scheduled too late for my shingly stamina.

The D is a revelation. There is another whole Vegas over there in old town, another strip with people zip-lining aloft and partying beneath. Lots of brassy little ticky-tack shops. It seems to be the Native American side of the casino world and it is a celebration of carnival kitsch as opposed to MGM ritzy kitsch. The casino is populated by older people and it feels very friendly and laid-back. We have our little Vegas flutter there. I do in $20 on the one-armed bandits. Rachel wins money on the

slots and blackjack. There is an Indian gathering converging and the place is swarming with the most exotic Native American people, tattoos, long inky hair, flowing garments and leather gear.

We have a lovely laughing time at the show, Marriage Can Be Murder. Rachel is straight into the action which sets her in a position to wonder throughout the show if she may become a victim. Bruce also gets a role which involves him being pallbearer to countless victims. The cast has been doing this schtick for aeons and have the silly, zany, cheeky nonsense down pat. Humour is much elevated by the hapless policeman

wearing wildly undersized uniform shorts. A simple gag but it works well on a big, gruff actor. And, heavens above, the murderer is the girl sitting next to me and, yes, I tell her privately that I think she’s the killer. Darling girl. She acts as if she is so hurt I could dare suspect her. She is nearly in tears. How did I come to suspect her, she begs. I list the clues. I like your thinking, she says.

We take Rachel to the airport, a little sad our time was short with me ailing and us all grieving. We are glad, however, that we had each other and have shared Vegas in all its colour and movement.

We have eaten in the Bellagio and at the Vdara. The two hotels are connected which is a boon for me.

After Rachel has gone we have a couple more days and spend them going for walks, sunning on the deck beside the Vdara's fabulous outdoor pool, gorging ourselves on the Bellagio’s incomparable buffet and then making up for it from the Vdara's super healthy foyer cafe menu

and, generally, enjoying our fabulous suite.

Oh, what pleasure that vista gives me, day and night. I love it. I love it! And it is true, Vegas never sleeps. It is the only city I have found where the traffic is still humming full pelt at 3 and 4 am and where, pre-dawn, the city lights are still alive and the people out and about. I have loved seeing so many people so happy. This is the thing that Las Vegas

does so well. It gives good people a good time. It is Disneyland for oldies.

In itself, the people are a grand spectacle - gob-smacked, gasping, laughing, tottering about in wild overkills of selfies...

Not us, of course. Well, OK, don't tell anyone, but I do take a wee selfie with my luxury Vdara in-room laundry.

And I do insist on a photo in front of the most astonishing bedazzlement of them all - a flower-bedecked Hindu shrine in the middle of the casino bling opulence.

Other small observations include kindness and good gestures from staff members everywhere we go in this blingiest, swingiest, glitter-glitter city.

Gazing out over it in the depths of the analgesic night, I can only imagine the power bills.

I am so glad at last to have been.

Doubt I need to do it again.

Why we love Portland

One reason to love a place is because good people live there.

Rachel and I have been very dear friends since we met online in an IRC chat channel back in the 1990s.

We were among the pioneers of virtual community.

This is my third visit to her in Portland. She, with husband Bob and son Alden, have also visited us in Adelaide. And they were our wedding party when Bruce and I first married in Portland’s then-famous 24-Hour Church of Elvis in 1996. It is defunct now - but we ain’t.

Rachel and Bob have just opened an Airbnb in their marvellous Purple House here - and we are the lucky ones to be their guests.

The B&B is an entirely self-contained one-room apartment - full kitchen and bathroom, two queen beds, table and chairs, desk and telly, store annex for luggage, little private balcony and even a full drum kit and enough musical instruments to jam up a concert. Before he set off on his sensational touring career with the fabulous jazz band, The Rad Trads, this was Alden’s music studio.

In his absence and moving into retirement, Rachel and Bob have purpled up the place and transformed it into this very salubrious apartment. Now it is booking out wildly on the Airbnb site - not surprisingly since it can sleep six at a pinch.

There are external stairs up to the private security-coded entrance.

By night the stairs sparkle with purple pin lights. Against the skyline of a Portland sunset, they make a particularly pretty picture.

Rachel and Bob live downstairs with their darling dog, Sassy.

We are spending as much time together as we can. Greedily stocking up on long affection to keep us going until the next time we can get together.

Unlike us, they are “makers”. Bob makes everything from giant garden bells to cashew butter.

Rachel makes amazing cakes and can make candy sushi from dried fruits and tapioca, among so many things.

They make wine, beer and cider.

Bob also makes music with a mean 12-string guitar.

And the “makers” surely have made this the yummiest piece of accommodation. Beside the big window with its privacy screen of decorative music notations and beneath the patchwork quilt of green and purple (my fav colours, too), I’ve slept luxuriously well. There’s a memory foam layer on this futon bed. I’ve never tried the like. Deliriously comfy. Want.

We’ve cooked breakfast from the well-stocked kitchen and sat around the table drinking Rachel’s purple sparkly cocktails - and the odd Bloody Mary.

We’s sat on purple chairs on the porch and gazed contentedly at the leafy vista.

We’ve turned on the telly. We’ve listened to vinyls on a proper record player. The Rad Trads’ new LP has just come out.

If this is what Airbnbs are about, I am rapt.

I’m recommending this one to all travelling friends. That means you.