.Woke up to a page from John, asking if I'd care to join him, Leslie, Mike, and Hallie for some good ol' fashioned wanderin'. "What the hell, let's do it", I said, (or words to that effect, like "yeah, sure").
As I left Treasure Island, I noted
that the pirate-ular carnage of the previous night had been
cleaned up. All was quiet .
Caught up with them at the Imperial Palace,
where Mike & Hallie were staying, and took in the lovely (and
talented?) Car Collection. A good 200 or so classic cars, most of
them from the 20's and 30's, and all of them in top-notch
condition. They boast the worlds largest collection of Duesenbergs 
, about 50 of them (or nearly 10% of
all the Duesies ever built!). Here's a particularly spiffy one 
. They had cars of all sorts: from the
absolutely hideous 
and the notorious 
, to the beautiful 
and the just plain silly 
.
While in the Car Museum, I got page from my mother, back in Philly. She had been taking care of my two Basset Hounds while I was away. Apparently Samantha, my pregnant bitch (so to speak) had exploded, giving rise to an additional 10 bassets, albeit in miniature.
Anyway, that put sort of a rush on the rest of the trip, from my perspective, as taking care of a bunch of puppies was not something Mom had bargained for, nor was she thrilled by the prospect.
Anyway, enough with the car museum - off to The
Mirage, but first a quick photo-op with Harrah's
Lovable Harlequin 
.
Next stop: the Secret Garden of Sigfried & Roy. It's true! We found where it is. Strangely, there were a bunch of signs leading to it, which makes you wonder how well this secret is being kept. And then, when you get to it, there are Mirage employees waiting to extract $10 a head! Some secret...
Still - it was worth the $10. It had all the best parts of a zoo (lions, tigers, an elephant, some dolphins), with none of the lame-o 'random antelope-like animals' exhibits that you usually have to take in stride.
Here's a big ol' kitty-cat 
. This one's been bleached 
. And yes, that's a real elephant 
. It only looks like it's
made of fiberglass. Someone seems to have given this lion a mohawk 
, presumably so it wouldn't upstage
the big-haired look of S&R themselves.
After we were done with the Secret Garden, we went off to The Secret Liberace Museum of Sigfried & Roy. Or so we called it. Pretty much everything became "the secret whatever of Sigfried & Roy" for the rest of the day.
The Liberace Museum is an interesting place, as you'd probably expect. It sprawls over three separate stores in a strip mall. The folks working there were exceedingly nice, and even cut us a deal on the admission price (because, naturally, we were Running A Little Late). The museum houses his pianos, his cars, his costumes (some of which weighed nearly 200 lbs from all the rhinestones!), and a ton of old photographs and memorabilia. A really nice place, for someone who was apparently a genuinely nice person - something you don't expect to find in showbiz.
Unfortunately, they politely asked that no pictures be taken, so you'll just have to go see it for yourself.
Back to the strip: this time the MGM Grand.
We wanted to check out their backlot amusement park, and see what
other oddities they might have. One thing they had is one of
these giant swing things. Picture a 250-ft. high arch, with a
rope hanging down from its center point. Put two or three people
into a harness, affix them to this rope, and hook them to another
rope which goes up to this 250-ft. high tower. The tower pulls
them up until they're about even with the top of the arch, then
releases them, they plummet, and wind up swinging back and forth
from the arch cable. A little hard to describe, but obvious when
you see it. Here's a before
picture 
- the little tiny blotch near the top
of the right tower is really just these
3 idiots 
.
No, we did not ride it!
They had some other miscellaneous amusement park devices, but nothing to really write home about, so we moved on.
To New York, New York. (The Casino
So Nice, They Named It Twice.) Here's a wonderful exterior shot,
this time during daylight 
. We wandered around for a while, and
decided to ride their roller coaster. While it took longer than
one might have liked (they'll shut down the coaster there's so
much as a cloud spotted nearby), we did eventually get to ride
it. Opinions were varied: they liked it, I thought it sucked. I'm
not a fan of looping coasters to begin with, and I hate
rough, jerky steel coasters. This (at least where I was sitting)
was one of those. Your mileage may vary.
After the coaster, we had dinner at the American Cafe in the casino. Again, the food was excellent, but what was particularly impressive was that A) this was their 24-hour dining facility, and B) you name it, they made it - and yet the food tasted as if they specialized in whatever type of food you ordered. It had none of that "generic, reheated food" thing that you get at most diners. Truly wonderful. And the prices were right, as well.
After dinner, we (John, Leslie, and me) said our good-byes to Mike and Hallie, who had to catch their plane (planes?) back home.
The three of us went off to Bally's, to see Penn & Teller. Best show in town. Since they do their show all over the country, it doesn't suffer from that 'Vegas Show' mentality. Quite the antithesis, actually. Just these two guys, on a bare, black stage, talking. (Well, only one of them was talking...)
After the show, we went back to Treasure Island.
Leslie went off to sleep, John and I still had this one thing to
do to make the trip complete: get to the top of The Stratosphere
.
We took a cab there, and after some minor bumbling about in the casino (very poor signage), found the way up. Annoyingly, they make you walk through this long, spiral mall before you can get to the elevators that go up to the tower. John and I developed a low opinion of the place. Any casino that makes work this hard to see their resident neat thing is not a casino that either of us would care to patronize in the future.
Anyway, we did eventually make it up to the top, and immediately had to ride the two rides. We were Running A Little Late, and they were about to close. Made 'em, though. Rode the High Roller roller coaster, which you can see as the little red thing circling the top of the observation deck in this photo. A waste - while it is the world's 'highest' roller coaster (909 ft high), it is completely without any thrill factor whatsoever. The ride itself is an unexciting 2 passes around the tower, and the thrill that you'd think you'd get from riding a roller coaster 900 feet off the ground is completely negated by these facts:
Then we rode the Big Shot, which is this 200-foot metal tower on top of
the Stratosphere, though at night it looked more like this 
. Now this is a ride! There's
this fixture that slides up and down the tower. Four seats per
side, 16 in total. After you're all strapped in, the
thing launches upward 160 feet, pulling a positive 4Gs on the way
up, then it shoots back down, pulling negative Gs, bounces you
around a few times in the middle, and calmly sets you back on the
ground. This is a feeling like no other - when you're launched,
it feels as if you are being catapulted from the top of this
building, and you're left with a profound feeling of what a very
bad thing that would be!
I'm sure it would've been even more impressive had I been able to see it, but I wasn't allowed to wear my specs on the ride. Gotta get me one of those elastic hold-your-glasses-on-your face straps, for just this sort of situation. (Of course, there's the danger of looking like ex-Lakers White-Guy Kurt Rambis...)
After that bit of excitement, I took a bunch of shots from the observation deck of Vegas After Dark. They came out surprisingly well, given the relatively slow film (400) I was using. (Though they don't look so hot here - the prints came out better.)
The Rio
, one of the prettiest exteriors, and
conveniently (for this photo) not surrounded by other hotels.
Looking southwest.
The Strip 
: Looking south - The big green thing
is MGM, the big blue thing is Bally's,
and New York, New York and the Excalibur
are pretty obvious at the right-rear of the picture. Behind the Excalibur,
the triangular section devoid of light is actually the Luxor
Pyramid, the Stealth Hotel.
The Fremont St. Experience 
: A zoomed-in view of the old downtown
Las Vegas area, which is north of the Stratosphere
and the strip. It may seem odd for the 'downtown' to be this
relatively minor section of town, away from the obvious center of
town (the strip). The trick is that the strip isn't in
Las Vegas - it's in Clark County, NV. Downtown Las Vegas probably
is the happening spot in Las Vegas-proper.
An Artsy Shot 
: Okay, so it's just overexposed - big
deal. Anyway, this is looking north from the Stratosphere.
Note how the lights just sort of stop? There's no real reason
(i.e., no obstacles), folks just haven't built out that far yet.
The view at night really makes you feel like you're on an island.
An island of life in a sea of desert - if I may get all
metaphorical on yo' ass. Here's a
less-overexposed shot 
, looking west.
After that, it time to go back to the hotel. We both needed to get a decent amount of sleep in preparation for the homeward-bound part of the trip.
