House of Dioxin

One of the stranger parts of our LV trip was Tuesday morning. Driving out of the Mandalay Bay parking deck (btw, I should mention that there's a cross street near the hotel called Road to Mandalay -- no, I did not get a picture, nor did I see any flying fishes) I made a right turn, thinking that would drop me back at Tropicana. Which I think it might have except I missed my turn. Next thing I knew we were driving thru the mess of construction that is City Center. I kept assuming we'd hit a cross street but I never saw one I could ID as a street -- it all looked like service entrances into various casinos. I don't remember what cross-street we ended up on but it was a pretty seedy part of town. Highlights included at least one more wrong turn, the now-shuttered Elvis-A-Rama Museum, and some place claiming to be the world's largest gentlemen's club. Is there an organization that verifies claims like that? Anyway, we finally got ourselves onto Sahara heading back to the Strip and order was restored to the universe.

This picture is from the Bellagio Conservatory, decorated in celebration of the Year of the Rat. This topiary rat also generated the second best overheard comment of this trip -- someone oohing and ahhing and urging their friend to come look at the giant koala.