February,1995 |
Laurian
Grey Takes Basketball
Odyssey to Las Vegas
By Laurian Gray
During the summer, I had the chance to travel to Las Vegas with my AAU basketball team to participate in a week long tournament. Some people think Las Vegas is crass and commercial, but I think it's beautiful.
Every hotel has a big casino and at night the casinos are packed, but there are many other attractions in Las Vegas.
I stayed at the Flamingo Hilton, which has over 2,800 rooms and twenty-eight floors. The climate in Las Vegas is very hot, but our hotel had ten connecting pools with two waterfalls. Around the pool area were real flamingoes and penguins. Penguins look like they're flying under water when they swim.
What makes Las Vegas so pretty are the many different colored lights beaming from the hotels. At night our pools would even light up.
Two hotels from the Flamingo is the MGM Grand, a huge hotel which has a water park and an arena where Mike Tyson fought.
In the other direction, about three hotels from the Flamingo, is the Mirage, which has huge aquariums of beautiful, exotic fish. The best part is an area in the hotel where you see real white tigers. Outside the Mirage there was a show called The Fire Volcano. It's a volcano with water and fire running down it.
Caesar's Palace is beautiful. The Davis Cup between the U.S. and Sweden was just played there. A shopping mall with huge Roman statues is connected to Caesar's. We even ate at Planet Hollywood, a famous restaurant where movie stars have visited.
The tournaments were played at UNLV, which has a very pretty campus. We got to meet high school basketball players from Texas, New York City, and Buffalo. It was the best summer I ever had in my life. My thanks to all the Central teachers and students who helped sponsor my trip.
