We saw dead people

dolphin at The Mirage

The day started annoyingly when we went to meet Neen, who was having breakfast with her parents, thinking they were in the MGM Grand. They weren’t. And we’d forgotten stuff from our room so had to return to the Excalibur. Except it’s illegal to cross the streets on the Strip – you have to use the walkways, or further down, crossings. We find this really weird. And frustrating! Especially as the walkways are all up high, which involves a lot of stairs. Or escalators if we were feeling lazy. By the time we got to the Hard Rock Café, we were hot and tired. A guy said “I think you dropped something.” We looked back. Him “your smile.” Cat “Well I’m not picking that up.” He’s lucky we didn’t drop him with a kick to the balls.

We headed out to get a bus. A guy who worked in a ticket stand next to the bus stop wanted a photo with us. We really should start charging. We got the bus to Circus Circus and wandered around there for a while. Fortunately, it’s not circus themed on the inside. We half expected the place to be filled with clowns and readied ourselves to kick them in the juggling balls. A security guard devil horned us as he passed. We failed to find the haunted room, as they appear to have renamed them. We got the bus to Treasure Island for a look around. The heat coming off the wooden boardwalk was immense! We could feel our toes burning in our boots. Vegas heat is weird in that it’s not like British heat, which is the blazing sun (when it bothers to show up), but more like standing under a heater.

Us outside Treasure Island

Treasure Island at night

Treasure Island had the coolest gift shop. Inside wasn’t very pirate. Most of the hotels only seem themed on the outside. New York New York has some fake streets and the Venetian has the canal with streets. We stopped at a bar on route to the Mirage and the bartender said he’d been to Alcatraz about 25 years ago and told us haunted places in San Francisco to check out. His cousin and his wife have a ghost hunting show on YouTube. He was bored. We told him to leave the bar in our capable hands while he went for a wander. He reckoned his boss wouldn’t be too pleased. It would’ve been fine! Neen’s done bartending before. And things never go wrong when we’re around…

Lynx and Neen on the tram

Cat on the tram

We got on the tram, which is a monorail, to the Mirage. They have dolphins! And lions and tigers. We went into the Siegfried and Roy secret garden. There were about eight dolphins in three different pools. They looked so cute playing with balls then they did a training session with four females. Two of them jumped out of the water. They’re not performing dolphins, but they are taught a few tricks. The dolphins were born there in the research centre. It was so hot there, we had to stop ourselves from jumping in with the dolphins. We can do tricks with balls too! And we’d enjoy splashing tourists. There were four tiger cubs that were so adorable. They were asleep when we first got there and there was a guy sitting in the room with them. He has the best job ever. We had to restrain ourselves from dragging him out by the ankles and taking over his role. This could’ve been our only chance to tickle tiger tummies. Then they woke with a vengeance and were gnawing on another guy that was trying to feed them. There were two lionesses, a black leopard, a white and normal tiger, two lions and a leopard. We felt sorry for the leopard – it was in a smaller pen and was pacing, which is a sign of boredom and being in captivity for too long.

We got another bus ticket and returned to the Excalibur for a quick freshen up before heading out to the Luxor. We were going to do the Bodies exhibition and the Titanic artefacts exhibition at the same time, but Neen was going out with her brother and dad for her brother’s stag do, so we only had time to do the Bodies exhibition. A guy stopped us and offered us a free massage in one of these machines they have. ‘Cos that’s not at all creepy. There’s only one way to combat creepiness – be even creepier! Us “No thanks, we’re going to look at corpses.” We know how to charm people! The Bodies exhibition was incredible. They have skeletons, and bodies showing the muscles, or organs, some showing the nerves. They were donated by executed prisoners. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos. There were also dissected bits on slides, organs, bones, and organs showing the veins and arteries. They even had foetuses in different stages of bone development, which was fascinating. They gave you the option of bypassing the exhibition with the foetuses, which was very sensitive of them. It’s well worth a visit. They had the knee meniscus (cartilage) and said tearing it could cause debilitating pain. This is what Cat did (thought hers ripped right off. Her knee is affectionately named Linus), so it was cool to see what Linus looked like before her cartilage got removed. Linus was wearing an ice patch due to all the walking and spasmed slightly in sympathy for the meniscus in the glass case. Lynx’s left knee decided to click its way all around the exhibition. It hadn’t clicked before entering the exhibition and stopped clicking afterwards. Obviously the quiet of the exhibition reminded it of when we do EVPs and it wanted to contribute.

Neen headed out for seven p.m. but we were knackered to decided to stay in and catch up on our blog entries. Yep, our laptop joined us in America so we wouldn’t have to remember everything from our time there, we could write it up daily.

It’s really weird, so many people compliment us. Almost every shop worker we encounter loves our look, and people keep taking photos of us. Not like in the UK, where we just get abused. We’re not used to being popular.

Inside the Luxor