The next morning -- December 31st -- my brother Tim and his partner Mark arrived.  They took a shuttle from the airport to my hotel, because I was nervous about driving in my dizzy, groggy, feeble state, and Tim graciously agreed to do the driving (I guess I didn't give him much choice).   The wind was horrible; the waitress at the cafe where we finally found soup (you would not believe how hard it is to find soup at 10:00 a.m.) said she'd heard it was gusting at up to 80 mph, and that if it kept up, they'd cancel the fireworks tonight.

I'd shared my list with Tim before, and he'd made it pretty clear that he wasn't interested in much on it.  When I gave them the revised version (Elvis, Liberace, and whatever random things were in the casinos we'd be in), Tim and Mark reluctantly agreed to take me to the Liberace Museum -- but they flat-out refused all Elvis-related activities.

We all ended up liking the Liberace Museum more than we expected.  I enjoyed the mirror-covered Rolls Royce, the costumes that rival Elvis' jumpsuits for sequins per square inch, the cartoonishly large jewelry, the world's largest rhinestone, and the other sparklingly kitschy trinkets.  The wall of certificates and citations is also impressive; I wish I could have taken a picture of the one from some county in Kentucky that celebrated Liberace only after ascertaining that he had never issued nor accepted a challenge to a duel.  I've never dueled, either; can I get a plaque?  The final room in the museum is a compendium of Las Vegas history, including one of the letters from the old Stardust casino sign, a photo of "Miss Atom Bomb" wearing a strategically placed mushroom cloud, one of the first slot machines, and other entertaining trivia.

The gift shop was disappointingly sparse.  I got a nice, glittery shot glass and a few other gifts, but the magnets like the one at right seemed a bit pricey.  Now, of course, I regret leaving them behind, because who wouldn't want this greeting them from the refrigerator?

Incidentally, Tim has his own pictures -- and version of events (in his initial write-up, I came off as a Liberace-obsessed agoraphobe; I insisted on edits).  I'll link to some of his photos and copy others.
 

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