Spring Break Vacation, Day 3 – A Few Complaints

At the conclusion of Day 2, my wife and I had marveled at how Kai had gone that whole busy day with nary a complaint, even with all the walking we did, which was quite a contrast to some other vacation moments we’ve had in the past.

But by our third day in Las Vegas, some complaints started bubbling to the surface.

We do not smoke or drink alcohol in our house, and rarely take Kai to places where that is allowed. But in Vegas, that is unavoidable.

Cigarette smoke really bothers Kai, and casinos, particularly, are full of people who are smoking and drinking. And while we did not make it a point to go to casinos, you can’t help but walk through them to get to many of the attractions we visited. Kai’s grumblings got louder with every casino we walked through.

Casinos were not the only area of difficulty, though, as in Vegas, people are smoking and drinking everywhere including on the sidewalks.

“There’s another man smoking! Hurry, let’s get out of here!”

“That woman is smoking, too! She’s going to get black lung.”

“That person is drinking. That is bad for your health!”

I am really glad he is so anti-smoking and drinking. Hopefully he will stay that way when he grows up. But the public admonishments were a bit embarrassing, and I had to ask him to speak more quietly lest all these people hear him.

While Kai noticed every smoker and drinker, I was thankful that he did not notice the little cards littered on the sidewalk that had photos of a nude woman. I did not stop to pick up the card either, but I’m pretty sure they were advertising one of the prostitute services that are legal there. I don’t know how I would have responded had Kai picked up a card and asked about that.

We had fewer planned activities for our third day in Vegas.

In the morning, we headed over to the Mirage where we would see Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. Siegfried and Roy are the duo that had the most-visited show in Vegas until one of their white tigers seriously injured Roy during a show and ended their careers. They now have a mini zoo of sorts that houses their famed white tigers and lions, as well as dolphins.

We first went to the dolphin portion of the attraction. For a while, Kai enjoyed watching the dolphins swim.

We had seen the dolphin show at SeaWorld last spring and this paled in comparison. While they have “training sessions” throughout the day with the dolphins, it is really nothing like the spectacular shows at SeaWorld.

And on this, our warmest day in Vegas, Kai started getting agitated after we had been in the 80-degree sun for a while. The day before we had carried a bottle of water with us, but when Kai found out that we had finished off that water, he moaned and complained until we were able to get more water.

The Secret Garden portion houses the white tigers and lions. It was interesting to see the rare white cats, but they were all laying around sleeping so it wasn’t terribly exciting.

Over all, the attraction was okay, but perhaps a bit overpriced and not a place where we’d stay for much more than an hour.

After that, we decided to head back to our hotel and use the swimming pool. Our hotel is very nice, but the pool is surrounded by tall structures on all sides. Even in the middle of the day, no sunlight shone on the pool itself. And even with the 80-degree air temperature, the water was very cold.

But Kai loved it. When he wasn’t swimming, he was picking up leaves and placing them around his head with the headband of his swimming goggles. I didn’t have my camera at the pool, but he wanted me to take his picture so he brought a few leaves back up to our room and re-created his Caesar-like headdress.

After swimming, we relaxed back at our hotel room, and then headed back to the faux outdoor mall for an early Mexican dinner.

Kai particularly enjoyed his mushroom tacos. My pork barbacoa (in the foreground of the photo) was excellent.

We wrapped up our day with another show. This time we saw the Cirque du Soleil show, Love, featuring music of The Beatles.

On the way to the show, we passed the Mirage volcano that we enjoyed the other day. But this time Kai said he was scared and wanted to hurry along before it erupted.

This was my first Cirque du Soleil show. For those who have never seen one, it is an eclectic mixture of acrobatics, artistic dance, and music along with video screens and interesting costumes and backdrops.

It is, perhaps, a bit too artsy for my taste and for Kai, but we both still enjoyed it. Kai said that the music was his favorite part, and he said that he knew “70%” of the songs. My wife really loved all of it.

I really liked that Kai sat through the entire show (about an hour and a half) even though it did not have a real storyline or plot. He smiled at the whimsical parts and recognized the sad moment when a mother died leading into the song “Hey Jude.”

It was a good way to conclude our time in Vegas. But I think Kai was ready to move on to the Grand Canyon.