World Labyrinth Day

So, lately I have become interested in Labyrinths.I suppose, to the extent that I ever knew anything about them (not much), I always thought that they were interesting. When I was a kid, I LOVED maze books. I even made some of my own on paper, just simple mazes to draw a line through. At one point, in high school, just before I started considering architecture as a possible major, I liked to sketch and draft various things. I sketched out a possible LaserTag maze once. Also, once when I was about 10 I saw the movie Labyrinth (David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly and Jim Henson), and loved it - especially the Escher castle, but also the whole labyrinth itself.

I now have a relatively large, and empty, yard that I am trying to figure out what to do with. I keep getting gardening books from the library, hoping for inspiration. Right now I'm in the middle of a book on Labyrinths. First of all, it's interesting that labyrinths and mazes are actually different: labyrinths consist of a single path, and mazes have choices. So, I think I actually like mazes better (and the "labyrinth" in Labyrinth was actually a maze). Still, the book is more about labyrinths, and it is interesting to know the history. The first historical reference to a labyrinth seems to be with King Minos of Crete, who supposedly had a Labyrinth with a Minotaur at the center (the story reminds me of Hunger Games). Later, the the labyrinth was adopted by many medieval Christians, who took it as symbol of one's spiritual walk: you many not know where you are right now, but your path invariably leads to the center (these early labyrinths were usually made with the paths forming a cross in the center). Supposedly, walking one of several official labyrinths setup in churches throughout Europe could substitute for making a required pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the 1600s-1800s, the labyrinth somehow morphed into hedge mazes, which were popular in public spaces and on wealthy estates. Recently, there seems to be a renewed interest in Labyrinths, both by Christians of more traditional denominations, as well as people seeking general spiritual and meditative experiences. There also seems to be more interest in mazes, as a form of novelty and entertainment - but I haven't gotten around to any books on mazes yet (still need to finish the one I have on labyrinths).

The is now a World-Wide Labyrinth Locator, and a World Labyrinth Day (today!). So, I found some labyrinths in our state and Adrian and I went to check them out. There wasn't really much variation in the design, but it was interesting to see some actual labyrinths. The denominations most likely to have labyrinths seem to be: United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and a few non-denominational sounding churches, often with "Unity" in their names. Also, several hospitals and health centers seem to have labyrinths. Which makes sense, both walking and mediation have known health benefits.

So here are the some labyrinths I walked, and I decided to put them together in a post today:

Las Vegas

Yes. We did go to Vegas. My parents were gone to Mississippi this Thanksgiving, and Adrian's parents, being Romanian, aren't too traditional about Thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving, they went to Vegas and brought back some cool pictures, and ever since Adrian has wanted to go. This Thanksgiving, we both had some time off work, we hadn't had a real vacation yet this year, and gas was cheap, and there was nothing keeping us here.... so we took off!

We drove. Let me rephrase that. Adrian drove. I slept alot, and sang alot. First we went to the Arches National Park in Utah. The arches were supposedly formed by gradual erosion of different sediments at different rates. So, a long time ago, Utah was probably more-or-less flat, or at least a simple series of rectangularish ridges. A longer time ago, all kinds of different rocks and materials piled up to make this landscape. Then, time, wind and water slowly eroded the landscape. Some materials eroded faster than others. Where there were pockets of weaker material underneath stronger material, arches were formed. In some cases, you have huge boulders balanced on top of skinny spires. It's kinda cool. It almost looks intentional, like modern artwork or something. Or maybe like a Martian surface. We spent our first night at a motel there in Moab, and spent about 4 hours hiking the first day, and about 4 hours hiking the 2nd day. I brought my coat because I get cold pretty easily, but most of the time I was comfortable in a T-shirt. That's was a change from November in Colorado.

When we left Moab for Vegas, there was a long stretch of highway that said "No Services for 100 miles," so you had to make sure you had gas, went to the bathroom, etc, first. It's really amazing to think that there are such large spaces in modern America that are truly desolate. Not only were there no services, but there was hardly any vegetation. Just red cliffs. What's even more amazing, is that about a century and half ago, pioneers crossed this region with much more primitive equipment, supplies, etc than what we have today. I'm suddenly envisioning A Study in Scarlet. Anyway, we got into Vegas late Sunday night, checked into our hotel, ate Mongolian Beef at a Thai restaurant, and went to bed.

Now, for those of you who are curious, there is more to Vegas than gambling and girls. Namely, the hotels. Our hotel was the Riviera - right on the strip. I later found out it was one of the first hotels built in Vegas. Anyway, it was only $30/night (and we had a flat panel TV in our room, and they gave us free Bath & Body Works soap/shampoo/lotion - coconut and lime scented, mmm), which was another reason we chose to go to Vegas. The main casinos are in the hotels, and that is how they made enough money to become the wonders that they are. Most of them are themed, and have the equivalent of a small shopping mall inside of them, in addition to hundreds (thousands?) of rooms, and always a buffet. Some have special attractions as well. Ours had a Russian ice skating show, but since the tickets ran $90 a head, we decided to pass. We were also interested in Blue Man Group, which turned out to be $80-$150 per person. I think Cirque du Soleil was also having some shows, but I never saw any prices. We did consider going to a Magic show with big cats (only $20/person), but we ran out of time. MGM had a few resident lions, and I think they had a free show with them, but we got there too early. A couple of the hotels had cheap(er) shows with dolphins and sharks, but we didn't see any of those. We did see a few free shows with synchronized fountains and music at the Bellagio Hotel. They have these shows every half hour, and we heard/saw Lady Luck by Frank Sinatra, a duet with Sarah Brightman and Adrea Boccelli (I think it was I Hate You Then I Love You, and also there was Time to Say Goodbye), and one that I didn't recognize which Adrian got on film.



We also saw a pirate show at Treasure Island complete with a firework canon fight. There was also supposed to be a free show with a volcano at night, but that was down for construction while we were there. The main themed hotels that we saw that I remember are: Treasure Island (complete with moving, sinking, fighting ships), Paris (shaped like the Eiffel Tower), New York, New York (with a statue of Liberty, small moat with tug boat, NY skyline towers, and a roller coaster), Luxor (shaped like the Great Pyramid, with indoor and outdoor Sphinxes and lots of hieroglyphs),The Ventian (with an indoor canal and boatmen singing Italian songs, and a ceiling painted skyblue with clouds and lights that gave a realistic sky atmosphere if you didn't look straight up - Rachel, I kept thinking you could get a job being a boatwoman. If I were one of the boatwomen, I would just sing L'Italiano), Excalibur (like a fairytale castle), and others that I am sure I am forgetting.

As to gambling, we didn't win anything; for the very simple reason that you can't win if you don't play. Of course, you also cannot lose. Us both being statistics minors, we knew better. However, I was tempted to play the penny slot machines just to see if they would really work on only a penny. It was interesting that mostly, I only saw old people gambling at the slot machines - I don't know if it's always that way or only on Thanksgiving week.

Anyway, quite simply, we went to Vegas just to walk and to eat. The first day there, we probably spent at least 10 hours on our feet. The hotels are so huge, and to see all parts of them, and go back and forth a few times and get lost and cross over to the next hotel... it just takes alot of walking. The first morning we had pastries at some small coffee shop, then for lunch when to the best rated buffet (I think it was called the Carnival Buffet), and then for dinner (we weren't very hungry) we had some soup at fancy Mexican beside the canal in the Venetian (only in Vegas could you have a fancy Mexican meal in Venice). The next morning, we had chocolate filled croissants in Paris, and then went to the Round Table Buffet for lunch (Excalibur - not nearly as good at the Carnival Buffet), and then split a smoked salmon sandwich for dinner (back in Paris). That night, we went up in the Stratosphere, and Adrian took a bunch of night pictures from the observation decks. It's fairly hard to take pictures at night, because if you move even a little the lights will blur, but Adrian enjoys this challenge.

The hotels are always annoying when you first go in, because you have to run a gauntlet of about 2-6 "greeters" trying to entice you with various "free" offers. We left very early the next morning, after two days in Vegas, because Adrian heard the weather was getting bad and worried about the pass being closed and us being able to get back home. It was about a 12 hour drive. I slept most of the way, and when we got home Adrian was tired and I wasn't. The next day, we had a Romanian Thanksgiving with Adrian's parents, then got in some shopping on black Friday (which actually turned out to be white Friday here).

Oh, and last night there was a huge windstorm here, and it knocked a limb off of one of our trees.