You may have noticed the dolphin in my header photo. I bet you wondered what that had to do with January/February . You’re right, its no refection on Valentine’s Day or any other January/February holiday but it is from the Vegas trip.

Ok Next question. We’re in the desert. Where did a dolphin come in?

Well we had a lot of exploring to do on Monday. It ‘s our last full day in Vegas. We started the day off at the Hash House  A Go Go again. Location and convenience counts for something. I skipped the pancake this time but tried the waffle. Not bad but the waffles at the Sheraton in San Diego were better.

After eating too much at breakfast we headed to the Mirage. For a desert, there’s sure a lot of water here.

In the Mirage was the Secret Garden. The full name is Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. There are 3 interconnected pools and the dolphins can be found in any of the pools. You can also do “downstairs” and watch through viewing windows. There’s no show per se but the dolphins are trained to perform some behaviors so the biologists can observe them.

I spend quite a bit of time watching the dolphins while JR went on to explore the rest of the Gardens. He found the Big Cats. He led me through the gateway to huge cages where retired cats from Siegfried  and Roy’s shows now reside in leisure.

They appeared to be well taken care of but they looked sad to us. Still if they were free in the wild they’d be dead by now. Wild Big Cats just don’t live to be 20 years old. 🙁 We took most of the morning among the animals and then it was time to move along.