Viva Las Vegas

I was determined to do as much as possible in Vegas in a short amount of time. I think it was a mission well accomplished. I drove into Vegas north up the Strip past all the well known casinos and into downtown Vegas where Fremont street and my hostel were located. Between the Strip and downtown, I passed ELEVEN wedding chapels on the right side of the road – this is not counting chapels on the other side of the road or on Main Street, two streets over. After a shower, I walked down to Fremont Street. Fremont Street is a pedestrian mall with ten casinos and shops that is covered with a large screen that they play movies on every hour after dark. The one I watched was about aliens attacking – silly but entertaining.

The next morning after a breakfast of pancakes, I started walking around Vegas. I wandered up and down the strip through casinos, shops, and tourist traps. I probably won about 1.37 on the penny slots, but it really isn’t that exciting when the only people you can high five are chain-smoking old people (who look suspiciously like WT). I saw next to no one my age in my wanderings which I found surprising. The other thing I found surprising is that most of the dealers and folks who work the tables are older Asian people – which is fine – just not what I envisioned.

I went to see Viva Las Vegas and saw some showgirls, a magician, a comedian, and a dog Elvis-impersonator. It was interesting and I enjoyed it. After a buffet dinner at the Rio, I went to the Tropicana to see Folies Bergere – a true Vegas showgirl production with more than thirty girls in tall feathery hats, revealing costumes, fishnets, and high heels. When it finished, I had twenty minutes to get to the MGM Grand for Ka – a cirque du soleil show. This show was AMAZING. The stage was not stationary and was constantly moving, there was an escape up a 45-degree wall that was shot with arrows that the actors then swung around on. There was a battle scene on a 90-degree wall near the end too. The acrobatics were fantastic and there were a few times when I caught my breath, sure someone was falling to their death. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My favorite casino was NYNY bc it was the most interesting on the inside – all the rest of them start to look the same. The Bellagio was the prettiest and the conservatory of flowers was beautiful – and they do a ton of work to maintain it. Other than that, it was Vegas. It would be a ton more fun to go there with more people.

After another breakfast of pancakes and a wander through the world’s largest gift shop full of tacky Vegas knickknacks, I attempted to find the King at Elvis-a-Rama, an establishment that is unfortunately closed. Next stop was the Atomic Testing Museum dedicated to the building and testing of atom and nuclear bombs in Nevada. They did a ton of testing in southern Nevada – people used to come specifically to stand on the rooftops of the casinos and watch the mushroom cloud. They had a ton of information and it was very interesting.

Next stop the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam was completed in the 1930s and nothing has really been changed since. It is fascinating to me that this nearly 800 foot tall dam that is 66 feet thick in places was built 4 inches at a time with unreinforced concrete (no rust-resistant rebar at the time) is still fully operational and expected to last for another 2000 years. I took the long tour for more behind the scenes information and who would have thought one little venting session about how people can’t read and make up their minds in a reasonable amount of time would cause the manager to hunt you down and move you to an earlier tour? I wasn’t trying to make a fuss, merely frustrated with people who cannot read the signs saying what the difference was between the tours. Regardless, the tour was fun and I got to go through ventilation shafts and in tunnels and all through the Nevada and Arizona sides of the dam and learn heaps of funny stories and interesting facts about the history of the dam. And according to the experts, there are no bodies contained with the dam – how could there be? It would be hard to hide a body in only 4 inches of concrete.

Driving from Hoover Dam to Prescott to meet Kelley is exciting because as a driver, you are in constant danger. First, you had to watch out for bighorn sheep, then cattle, then elk, then unknown animals. There were more signs saying ‘watch for animals’ than anything else. What animals? Even Kelley does not know.