I should have remembered, from when the darkening clouds threatened rain in Pembroke Pines, Florida on the day that we set out to move cross-country to Valencia, California in 2003, which took five days with two dogs and two birds and therefore, sadly, no time for New Orleans, even though we did pass through Louisiana and were most likely close enough in our route.
I should have also remembered when we moved from Saugus, California, also in the Santa Clarita Valley, and that early morning, there were those same clouds, before we moved to Las Vegas.
When we do move from Las Vegas in the coming months, back to Southern California, I don't think those same clouds will be there, because we'll be reaching the extreme heat of summer by then, and there are generally no clouds in sight during that immense hell. Yet, the city we're moving from, and really any city or town we've moved from, seems to sense that we're on our way out, that our daily attention is on what we have to do in errands and eating and working, but in the back of our minds, we're already driving out of here, to where the weather's more reasonable, to where we hope our lives will be more reasonable.
Yesterday, we did go to Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage. Locals are also being charged for parking now. At the end, it was $10 for four hours, but that hardly mattered. This was for Meridith, who loves dolphins, and has loved all the times we've gone there, especially when she had the chance to paint with dolphins for her birthday and has never forgotten Maverick, the dolphin she painted with, even going so far on this likely final visit to ask where he was. While the trainer gamely tried to say that he was isolated for the time being, she and my mom could read between the lines that it was breeding time, and so Maverick would likely find it more fun than performing for the tourists.
This time, however, a little over 60 degrees of cold met us and despite not finding anything on the weather websites I visit, or hearing about it on the news, it did rain. It drizzled at first, and then later on, when Mom and Dad decided to go back inside the Mirage, it was raining steadily. I thought I could get away with my Jungle Book t-shirt and my heaviest blue jacket, but no luck. Even in the stands at one of those tables, the wind blew some of the rain in and it was impossible for me to finish out my tradition of reading Paper Towns by John Green while there. I only made it to page 68. A valiant effort in the cold, but still too cold to read.
I'm not disappointed that this likely final visit was shorter than the others. We began at the Mirage as tourists in 2007. It was the first casino we went to after we checked into America's Best Value Inn on Tropicana and headed out to the Strip. The Carnegie Deli there was the first time we ate on the Strip. After we moved to Las Vegas, trailers in the back of the Mirage was where we first voted in Nevada. When American Idol had a live broadcast in the Beatles Love theater at the Mirage, we were there. And the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat has always been there in between. So it's appropriate that the Mirage was the final casino we visited before we moved. We've come full circle at our home casino. I'm glad for that.
I'm also not disappointed that I didn't finish my tradition. I don't know if by the weather the city was objecting to our leaving, that, to Meridith, it was showing that the dolphins were sad that she's leaving, because the city doesn't really care like that. But maybe it was getting the rain aspect of our moving out of the way nonchalantly, dismissively. "Oh, here you go. Here's what you've been through every time. Now you can leave and someone else will replace you where you're living and we'll be none the wiser and it won't matter." It doesn't seem to anyway.
It appears, though, that MGM Resorts charging for parking is not a positive move for them. There were far less trainers there yesterday than there had been during past visits, and sure, it might have been because of the rain, but I shouldn't think that would matter. Even at Bellagio, before the corporation began charging for parking, people were aware of the plan to the extent that Bellagio cut down the budget for the gardens and conservatory that people walk through to see the Christmas decorations or the Chinese New Year decorations and the last time we went, before paid parking began, it was clear that they had to scale back that budget because the profits just weren't there like they had been before.
I think that if you charge for parking, people have heightened expectations of why they're there. They want to have a good time with what they're paying, and the casino had better deliver. I suspect they're not delivering like they once did because they don't have the profit to back it up now, and so people are probably leaving disappointed at having paid however much they did for parking and whatever else they paid for, and getting a ho-hum experience. So they've either gone to other casinos that do charge for parking but might hold up their end of the bargain (ironic word, I know), or they're avoiding Las Vegas entirely and traveling throughout other cities, like Orlando maybe. They want to be tourists in cities where those cities appreciate tourists, not try to drain them dry and leave them wondering just why the hell they came there in the first place. That's for the residents, like us, though in our defense, Santa Clarita was no longer feasible, and we couldn't go back to Florida, because of the hurricane insurance and the hurricanes, in that order. We were trying to make a home here, even putting to the side for a time what bothered us about the place, although those problems gradually came as the years went on, and then they hit full-force later on.
The one highlight of our visit, however, was being in the underground viewing area, and seeing the rain from underneath the surface of the water in the pools. After Mom and Dad went back to the Mirage, Meridith and I went down there, and spent a little while watching the dolphins, especially hoping to capture video of a dolphin leaping out of the water and diving back in, creating a vortex in the water so Mom could see it (we did). Only after we could see the rain subsiding by less drops on the surface did we go back up and back to the Mirage. I'm glad to have at least seen the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat one more time. To me, it was the most relaxing place in Las Vegas and I appreciate it for having done that every time. Not so much this time, I know, but it was worth it all the other times. It was a sanctuary, an escape from the difficulty of living here, and it sought to remind you of that at every moment. I appreciate that. And it sends me back to Southern California a little gentler than I have been here, but not by much. I'll leave it to Southern California to smooth out the rest.
