Saturday, September 19, 2009

LAS VEGAS

We had never been to Vegas before last weekend. Our niece was getting married, between her and her husband they have 7 parents, so I think going to Vegas was the best way for them to handle that situation. I was glad they decided on Vegas, I'm always up for exploring a new city. We tried like hell to get there on Saturday and for the first time in our 21 years traveling standby on Delta we could not get a seat on one damn plane. All day long, no extra seats available. Sunday was different and we got out on the first flight.

We met up with my Ma and my Pa and my sister right away and headed for the Bellagio. Once there we had a couple Bloody Marys and listened to this really strange looking man play piano. He would be playing piano, someone would be sitting on his bench talking to him and he would stare right at you and smile like a crazy man. He played the hell out of this piano, never missed a lick.

But never mind this freak, we were there to see the Richard MacDonald sculptures. This is a permanent show at the Bellagio. This artist, MacDonald, worked with some of the acrobats/contortionist of Cirque du Soleil to create these amazing sculptures. "O" is the Cirque show this group performs in. Go to this page and just see the way this guy works. He's right in the middle of his studio surrounded by a live model, a Cirque artist no doubt and his current works. He works in clay and wax to start with and cast his finished product using the traditional lost wax method. Go here to see the different sculptures.

These were extraordinary sculptures, some were full size some table top size. This was a nice start to Vegas. Good thing we had this down time before my Sister got the schedule all screwed up and we almost missed the wedding.