There are large parts of the town that have no odor of the gambling hell about them, with very pleasant homes and a whole economy based on other things than gambling. But understandably the thing that sticks in memory is the gigantic monuments to human avarice and whacky tatse. We had breakfast in an outlying casino called Whiskey Pete's which for reasons known only to the designers is builot to look like a large castle, with masonry turrets and crenellations all over; but the theme is the hard-wock miner, who probably never saw a castle. The attached hotel is excellent in the high-volume all American 20th century sense, but the giant hall, like so may others is a bizarre snakepit of flasing and gonging and tired croupiers and dealers, mirrors and blinking lights and row after row of the electronic equivalent of the one-armed bandit. And everywhere, at every hour, the sorry, hypnotic souls drift from machine to machine, dreaming of jackpots. Most bizarre.

The big ones on the Strip itself are even worse. But, as I say, we weree visiting real folks away to the north end of town, and had a lovelyy time far outside the miasma of avarice and megabling.

A