We originally booked at the Bellagio for our family vacation in Vegas, but the festivities moved to Caeser’s Palace and we followed.

Since the Bellagio was right next door we wandered around there a fair bit anyway.

An elaborate Fall-themed display replete with gigantic fabricated cornucopia, gourds, leaves, and pumpkins dominated the public spaces of the resort and casino. The Bellagio is famous for it’s celebration of each of the four seasons. Apparently the trees appear each year during the Fall display, while the elements around them change from year to year.

This fellow had lights that subtly changed color, which I thought dramatically changed his demeanor.

I didn’t find his friend as visually interesting. I’ve read that in years past his eyes opened and closed and he spoke, welcoming visitors to the Bellagio. He was silent this weekend, at least when we had occasion to stop and visit him. Since they dismantled the entire exhibit Saturday night/Sunday morning and began installing the Winter display, it’s possible he’d been disconnected by the time we visited. The other parts of the display were still animated though, so I’m not sure.

What’s Fall without large animatronic venus flytraps that periodically spring to life and gobble up cheerfully singing little birdies? I couldn’t figure out what they had to do with Fall, either. Happy hour does start at daybreak in Vegas, after all, so we decided thinking too much about this would be a bad idea. My brother suggested they symbolized death, so we went with that.

I think it’s required by law that any post about the Bellagio include mention of Dale Chihuly’s remarkable blown-glass lobby installation, Fiori di Como, so here’s a picture:

We had little outings to the Venetian, the Flamingo, Treasure Island, and some other places I’ve forgotten, but Vegas kind of hurts my brain so I can only post about small bits of it at a time.