“Viva, Las KOA”

Monday, July 21, 2008, 3:00 pm

The end of the Grand Circle tour also marks the end of the canyon lands camping portion of our trip (mostly - we still have some scenic beauty to come in Sedona, and we’ll still be spending most nights in campgrounds and RV parks, but we’ve finished the areas that most people think of when they’re thinking of renting or buying (or trading up) an RV in order to head west and see America.

It’s worth noting that the high gas prices have changed the demographics of the sightseeing crowds this year significantly. First, the Americans are far fewer in number. This was expected, though the impact was far greater than I anticipated. The surprising difference has been the number of Europeans we’ve seen. The cheap American dollar has made a touring RV vacation affordable for many foreigners, and they’ve come in droves. I’d say fully half to two thirds of the tourists we’ve seen in the Parks and campgrounds have been European or Australian. Runners up would be Asians, followed by domestic Americans in a distant third. Most of the RVs out here are either Cruise America or RV4-RENT coaches, and most of the folks in them don’t speak English. There have also been several European high school/college groups traveling in packs, tent camping and brown bagging their way across the canyons. Foreign campers seem to hold to the traditional camping standards (in my experience, campers are a nicer bunch of people than other travelers), as most are friendly and courteous, even if you aren’t able to communicate very well. It makes you feel proud of your country to have so many come from so far to see America.

I remember at the Bryce campground there were several French RV campers near us. As some of them walked by, Scott, who speaks passable French, gave them a polite “Bonjour”. They quickly surrounded him and started peppering him with questions. Scott’s eyes grew big as the speedy French talkers overwhelmed him. He disappeared for about an hour with them. When he returned, he explained that the RV rental companies don’t have a lot of translators on staff. Most will happily rent the first-timers an RV and send them on their way, with no instruction or overview. They had managed to drive the thing, but Scott was able to give them some RV street smarts – how to run the generator, use the propane, attach the hookups, and (of course) dump the tanks. This is what campers do.

But I’ve gotten side-tracked. We left Zion National Park and arrived in Vegas. I don’t think a bigger contrast between God’s Beauty and man’s tacky could possibly be found. Vegas does have its charms, but coming off of the Grand Canyon, Bryce, and Zion, Vegas seems rather cheap and tawdry. And I mean ‘cheap’ (loose), not ‘cheap’ (inexpensive). We pulled into the Circus Circus KOA campground, which is the only RV park on the strip. It is the largest, hottest, and most expensive KOA I’ve ever stayed at, more than twice the cost of any other campground on this trip. I can easily draw you a picture. Go to your favorite Wal-Mart, look at the massive parking lot, remove all the cars, and replace them with RVs. That’s the KOA Las Vegas. It is literally nothing more than a huge asphalt parking lot with hookups. The ends of 1/3 of the aisles have a small grass median with one or two trees, but that’s it. We managed to snag one of the coveted sites right next to a tree island, and that’s about all I can say that was good about it.

Our two nights in Vegas were Friday and Saturday, the two busiest nights of the week for the city. All the prices were up, and even the reasonably priced casinos were exorbitant, making the KOA our best option despite its price tag. And it was *hot*, 109 hot, with refreshing overnight lows in the high 80s. Forest’s A/C was in overdrive, and it did what it could, but it was no match for the Vegas sun. Relief was found in the many casinos, which we toured Friday night.

We saw Treasure Island (the closest to Circus Circus because both the Stardust and the Frontier have been torn down and new resorts are under construction. The Riviera, across the street, was looking very sparse for the weekend, and it may be the next to get replaced.), the Mirage, and the Venetian, which was everyone’s choice as winner for the night.

Saturday morning we split up. I learned of a small poker tournament held on Saturday mornings at Circus Circus, so I headed there. The rest of the crew wanted to do some restocking, and Scott wanted to give Forest an oil change. Both birds could be handled at the Las Vegas Wal-Mart super store a couple miles away, so they headed there (that reminds me - Kathy, we need sunblock).

Apparently, my poker prowess is legendary in Vegas, as the Circus Circus cancelled the tournament for fear of my abilities (that, or for lack of interest, only two other people showed up to play). As a casino, the Circus Circus is not doing well. The casino floor was not very populated, and a cancelled Saturday poker tourney does not bode well. However, as a resort, it is flourishing. Circus Circus shows its age and is rather shabby and run down, but it is the only strip property that markets to families with small children, and the hotel and family attractions were absolutely packed. It is also one of the most affordable places to stay on the strip.

With nothing else to do, I headed down the strip to pick up the tickets for our show, Cirque Du Soleil’s KA at the MGM Grand. This is how big/crowded Las Vegas is on the weekend – I walked/rode the bus down the strip to the MGM, walked to the theater, got the tickets, walked back outside and down the strip to grab some lunch, and walked/rode the bus back down to the KOA – and by then it was almost 4 in the afternoon (5 hours or so). The Sommerfelds hadn’t fared much better; they were just back from their shopping trip and were ready to head out for the evening. Back out for more walking and bus riding with the throng. Just the walk from our campsite (parking space) through the Circus Circus to Las Vegas Blvd must be ¾ mile or more.

By the time we made it back down to MGM, we only had time to take a quick peek in Excalibur and Luxor before heading to the show – which was the highlight of Vegas for this trip. I’d seen the show once before, but it was the first time for the Sommerfelds, as well as being their first introduction to Cirque in general. Needless to say, they were blown away. KA is the best Cirque show of the 4 or 5 I’ve seen. It’s an acrobatic and mechanical marvel. It’s nearly impossible to describe accurately, but I’ll do my best. There’s no set stage, just a pit and moveable platforms, which can be fully rotated and manipulated into any angle from flat to vertical. At times the performers are using it as a stage, at others they are climbing it like a rock wall, and the surface of this platform is a functional LCD screen that the performers interact with. It is also the only Cirque show I know that tells a story – Imperial twins are kidnapped and the show follows their struggle to escape and reunite. Each set piece focuses on one of the elements or its forms (fire, water, air, earth, ice, and jungle) and one acrobatic or dance form. The highlight of the show is a battle between the two warrior factions – but the stage is vertical, giving the audience a top-down perspective of the action. The whole thing is an amazing feat of engineering, not to mention what the acrobats have to do.

We headed back to the Venetian after the show for a late dinner at a cozy Italian place just off the resort’s indoor canal. A few more miles of walking later, we were back home at Circus Circus. On our final pass through the casino, lady luck smiled on Kate, who managed to tap one of Circus Circus’ slots for a net profit of just over $100, a recoup of some of her losses when her purse was snatched back at the Junction.

We were all pretty wiped and slept late Sunday morning, except for Scott who took another crack at the sunblock blockage. He was able to drain the contents and hopefully depressurize the can, but even without the lid and nozzle the can was still too long, and Forest remains constipated.

The rest of the day was another hot drive, but there were two nice interruptions. First, a quick stop at the Hoover Dam, where our RV status garnered us a much closer inspection by the local rent-a-cops (or as Kathy calls them, Homeland Security). The second was the drive down 89-A from Flagstaff to Sedona, our destination for the next two nights. This is another beautiful scenic road as you descend through the forest into Oak Creek. I’ll touch on this more in my next post.