Las Vegas

Las Vegas is a pretty bizarre place. It felt more like an amusement park than a city. We stayed at the Stratosphere. The hotels are pretty cheap in Vegas -- in the middle of the week, at least. Below is the view from the top of the Stratosphere.


The Stratosphere's gimmick, on top of the nice view, is thrill rides. At the top of this tower, way above the city, they have a few rides that look absolutely terrifying. The worst of these is essentially a tethered fall. It begins as a free-fall, but a cable attached to a harness slows your descent as you near the ground. I had absolutely no desire to try any of these things, but they did make a good spectator sport.

We tried to have, in one day, an authentic Vegas experience. We gambled a bit at the Stratosphere, a bit more at Caesar's Palace, saw a bit of the strip, and ate at two hotel restaurants, one of which was a buffet (and was actually pretty good).

It was an interesting place, and I had a good time. If nothing else, a shower and a soft bed was nice after four nights of camping.

We stopped at the Hoover dam on the way out of town the following day. It was about a thousand degrees out, so we didn't stay long.


The water level in Lake Mead was pretty low.



Becca informed me that this bridge didn't exist a few years ago. Apparently, prior to 9/11, to get to Arizona from Nevada one simply drove across the top of the Hoover Dam. This was determined to be a national security threat, so a bridge was built to bypass the dam.