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THE LAS VEGAS MONORAIL will take you from MGM resort hotel to the Sahara in about 20 minutes with several stops along the way. This particular monorail was promoting the NBC All-Star game in Las Vegas this month.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY BOB LINDSEY

When you stay in Vegas, you return to Vegas. Many go for weddings, honeymoons and most return to this every-changing place. Each time you return there are new condos, venues, casinos and entertainment.

A recent visit took us to the outskirts of the fastest growing city in the country to see where the people live, we took our usual side trips outside Las Vegas and discovered new shows and attractions on the famed Las Vegas strip.

Most of the growth in Las Vegas is in housing, condos and new high rise resort and vacation ventures. There is one new casino on the strip since our last visit, the Wynn which is another of those mega upscale casino hotels that have changed the city landscape so much in the past 10-15 years. Another new casino is the Red Rock Casino, located near residential and commercial development west of the strip near Red Rock Canyon.

NEW MONORAIL SYSTEM

The biggest and best news for tourists is the new transportation modes such as the Duece double-decker bus and the sleek Las Vegas Monorail that travels from MGM near the airport down to the Sahara, one of the last of the original Strip hotels. The Stardust closed Nov. 1 and the Frontier won’t be far behind. An enclosed mega mall is planned on the land that occupied these classic Vegas casinos.

The Monorail will zip you from MGM to seven stops along the back of the strip ending at the Sahara. It was great for our stops to Bally’s, the Venetian, the Las Vegas Hilton and the Sahara for shows. At the last stop, you can pick-up a bus downtown to the Fremont Street Experience. With the traffic more maddening than ever, why ever drive in Las Vegas? The new Monorail is $5 per ride, but there are one, two and three-day passes which offer good discounts.

A free monorail still runs from Excalibur (across from New York, New York) to Mandalay Bay which we used one night to see Mamma Mia! The other free monorail from Bellagio to New York- New York is gone as the land between them is the site for a future condo/vacation resort.

While there are fewer Las Vegas style revues on the strip, there are more cirque du Soleil extravaganzas. But we saw neither this time. Our entertainment included shows that we had seen in St. Louis, a popular live show of the oldest and best known TV game show, an entertainer that can only be described as The Mentalist, a visit to one of best wax museums in the world, a showed billed for women but men will also enjoy and a great off-the strip Memphis barbecue restaurant. Here’s a look at each.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT LIVE

I wasn’t sure what to expect at Bally’s The Price is Right Live, not being a daytime TV viewer. I learned that the show at Bally’s is just like the TV version, made so popular on the Bob Barker telecast.

At the Bally’s Price is Right Live everyone in the audience is given a keypad to answer multi-choice questions and the first ones selected with the correct answers get a chance to guess the retail prices of items. From there you can move on the other popular side games such as Plinko and Cliff Hanger. Just like the TV show, the live show has audience members shouting encouragement and offering answers.

While we didn’t get an on stage opportunity, the lady behind us did and won a trip to Mexico on a one-in-a-thousand hole-in-one shot. The best part was that she never golfed in her life and barely knew how to hold the putter.

The Price is Right Live is the new kind of family entertainment that’s becoming more popular in Las Vegas. For information: 1-877-374-7469 or visit www.ballyslasvegas.com. No age requirement for tickets and we saw lots of kids and teens in the audience.

THE MENTALIST

Gerry McCambridge has to be the most unusual act in Las Vegas or anywhere. We saw him during one of the last days of the Stardust playing in the large main showroom where he involved nearly half of the audience in the show by telling things about them they would only know.

It’s not easy to describe what the Mentalist does. You can say he’s part magician, comedian and mind reader, but that’s not the whole picture. One thing he says he’s not is a prognosticator. He won’t tell you who’s going to be the next president or what team will be in the Super Bowl. But he gets into your mind.

“Before the show, I walk around the room and observe people and their behavior,” he said at the show. But he’s doesn’t talk to anyone in the audience beforehand. He doesn’t want anyone thinking he has gathered information about them before the show. In fact, he has a standing offer of $25,000 to anyone who can prove any part of act is orchestrated. Putting is bluntly…he can read people’s minds.

You can talk to audience members he called on and they will attest to his mind-reading abilities. His show is not racy or risque and would fit fine in Branson

The Mentalist attributes some of his intuitive power to his dad who was a New York City Detective who always seem to get into the minds of suspects. Gerry observed and knew a young age he has acquired some of those mind-reading skills. He took it seriously and studied memory techniques, body language, Psychology, Hypnosis, Linguistics and statistic classes.

But Gerry uses his special skills only for entertainment purposes. He has credentials to make him seem 100 percent legitimate. He has appeared on “The Today Show,” Late Night With David Letterman and his own hour-long special in 2004. He recently signed a new deal with NBC for a show. On his first TV special he drove blindfolded down Broadway during rush-hour.

He has his own web site: www.mentalist.com and a DVD.

MULTIPLE MUSICALS

We had the opportunity to see two comedy-musicals: Mamma Mia and Menopause the Musical. We’ve seen Mamma Mia at the Fox Theater and it instantly became one of our favorites with the high-energy music of Abba and the plot from the movie Buena Sera Mrs, Campbell. The daughter of an innkeeper on a Greek isle plans to wed and wants to invite her father, but she’s not sure who he is until she narrows it down to three after reading her mother’s diary.

The three dad prospects and not the only out of-town guest, mom’s two closest friends also come to the isle to make for a complicated turn of events that also finds a way to bring in one of those crowd-pleasing Abba songs.

Mamma Mia has beern a fixture in an intimate theater at Mandalay Bay for the past four years. For information: (702) 632-7777.

Menopause the Musical is a show my wife and her closest 25 post-menopausal friends saw at Westport Plaza in St. Louis. At the Las Hilton show, Pat told me there were a lot more men present; obviously there with their significant others. And while the show is about “the change” women experience, the men I observed were just as entertained. You suspect they had lived with the “change” also.

The troupe of four middle-age gals sang their way through the songs of the Baby Boomer era with new laugh-wrenching lyrics in their renditions of the rock classics .

But if you can’t get to Vegas to see the show—it’s still playing at the Westport Playhouse. Menopause the Musical is one theater company that markets and plays at several locations around the country.

MADAM TUSSAUDS

La Vegas in the newest home for the famed Madam Tussands wax museum, one of only five in the world. Located in The Venetian hotel, this is an interactive wax museum set up so that you can take your personal photos with the rich and the famous.

Women can don a wedding dress for a photo with George Clooney, pose with Paul Newman is his NASCAR attire or stand on stage with Elvis or Stevie Wonder. Would be divas can star alongside Beyone, Britney or make J. Lo blush. Anyone can pose with American Idol’s Simon Cowell, Tiger Woods or shoot with Shaq. You can play poker with Ben Affleck and see Frank, Dean and Sammy in Old Vegas. For tours and tickets call 702-862-7800 or visit www.mtvegas.com.

MEMPHIS CHAMPIONSHIP BARBECUE

Rushing to shows and taking side trips out of the city limited our dining experiences. But we discovered an exceptional Memphis style barbecue restaurant just a few miles from the strip at 2250 E. Warm Springs. Actually, there are three Memphis Championship Barbecue restaurants in Las Vegas.

The restaurant’s roots trace back to Cape Girardeau, MO. in the 1930s when Leon Miles would dig a hole and place a metal grate over it to form a grilling pit. He would grill meats for school PTA and other city holidays and his mother created their own vinegar-based sauce to put on their “magic dusted” meats with 18 different spices.

The Mills family moved to Murphysboro, IL., and opened their first restaurant and bottled their famous sauce. Since then the sauce has won many awards including the 1992 Jack Daniels Best Sauce award. The name Memphis Championship Barbecue came from the slow-cooked pit process from southern cooking and the fact that they family won several world and grand world championships in Memphis area barbecue cook-offs.

The menu today is quite extensive with fish, shrimp, steak, barbecue, ribs, brisket entrees and all the sides imaginable. Their specialties include brisket, baby back and St. Louis ribs and reasonable prices especially when you consider all the great sides they offer. They have several appetizers you won’t find at most barbecue places such as onion straws, Memphis potato skins and sliders, crawfish tails and southern friend dill pickles. Ice tea is served in large mason jars, of course. They also sell beer and wine.

The best news is Memphis Championship Barbecue, now under son Mike Mills, will be opening a St. Louis area restaurant soon in O’Fallon, Ill. near St. Clair Square. Visit www.memphis.BBQ.com for information.

Out of Las Vegas trips included a trip atop Mt. Charleston, a half-hour away from the city and 6,000 feet higher, plus a journey to one of the newest and grandest western destinations. Grand Canyon West and the future hope of Skywalk. (more on this in a future story)

One of the best Las Vegas web sites for shows and attractions is www.vegasfreedom.com. All the shows in this story and others are listed here with show times, prices and reservation information.
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