Vacation at Home

When I was a child we used to have operettas at school. We would all dress up in homemade finery and sing songs like the one I remember in my head right now “I just came back from a lovely trip along the Milky Way. I stopped off at the North Pole to spend a holiday.” I feel like I’ve just been on a trip to a place just that farfetched. I went to a convention in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas in my mind was the one left over from the sixties and seventies with modern architecture and lounge lizard singers. There was cheap food to get you to gamble. That world no longer exists. Now there are castles from Europe and pyramids from Egypt. The shows are Cirque de Soliel spectacles and Broadway productions. The hotels themselves are works of art. I stayed at Caesar’s Palace. It looked like a palace – the kind that they turn into museums in Italy. There are casinos in the hotel that you have to walk through to get to everything, but there are also upscale shops, dining and theaters. The food itself is now a centerpiece of the entertainment. Nothing is tawdry. Nothing is cheap. For example, there was no coffee maker in the room. I called down and was informed that to have one brought up would be $40.00. There was coffee for sale downstairs in a fancy French patisserie for $4.00 in a to go cup.

I enjoyed the shopping. The stores were famous designers. I know that I am a bargain shopper. I also know that all the clothes, whether designer or discount store, are all made in the same sweatshops in the Far East. Sometime the fabrics are nicer and the clerks are snobbier, but otherwise you are paying for a label. If you think a label makes a skirt worth $300, then go for it. I didn’t, but I enjoyed the looking for my education.

The food was wonderful, as it should be at those prices. In rural Southwest Alabama, we eat well for week on what one meal there costs.

I love to read. One thing I noticed was that there was only one book shop that I saw. I was about to go in until I realized that it was a bookie shop. The signs leading to it said Book with an arrow pointing the way. I go to it and realized that it wasn’t what I had in mind.

I would hate to be in Las Vegas this coming holiday weekend. It was crowded during the week, so I can imagine it on a holiday. Luckily, I don’t have to be there. I have been on the go so much lately that I will spend this weekend in my favorite place – on my porch. I am sitting here now writing this. I heard birds singing in all of the trees. My garden is in full bloom. The daylilies are dancing with the hydrangeas. I am drinking a glass of pomegranate iced tea and contemplating life. Two cats doze nearby. I will sit here this holiday weekend and read a good book. I’ll put some classical music on the CD player to mingle with the birdsong. My food will be just as good as that I ate in Las Vegas – just a different kind.

I love to see the world. Las Vegas is a world class destination. I’m glad I saw it. I’m equally glad that I can be here in rural Southwest Alabama today and not there. My real world is so much better than the fairy tale they have created for you to live in while you give them your money. There are plenty of one armed bandits in Las Vegas to take your money, but the whole world of $40.00 coffee pot rentals has figured out more than one way to fleece you.

I will just be here on the porch enjoying the birds and the flower gardens. I will read a book, not place a bet with a book maker. I’m betting that I will have a better time here this holiday weekend, than I did in Las Vegas. Where I am in rural Southwest Alabama is real, authentic, and relaxing. This is a place to restore your soul, not loose your shirt.