Well time for a pre Christmas non sailing trip with my wife, son
and sister-in-law to the U.S. southwest visiting Las Vegas Nevada and
Scottsdale Arizona...might as well go to the desert before going to sea eh?
We usually try to fly out of Buffalo but I was having difficulty
finding any cheap flights so we just decided to fly out of Toronto and got an
early 6:45am flight on November 30th.
It was getting very close to boarding time by the time we made it
to security and wouldn't you know it but "Lucky" me got flagged for
extra screening..what fun...wheeee!...additional time to an already agonizingly
slow process!
Just made the flight...time to doze off..arrive in Charlotte on
the first leg..couple of hours to kill..Cinnabon and a coffee for
breakfast..back in the air..doze again..touch down..VEGAS.
Believe it or not you don't have to be much of a gambler to enjoy
this town...lots of other stuff to do...yah yah I know some of it not exactly
kid friendly...but even just wandering around taking photographs is
fun..especially at night.
We have been here many times over the years and seen tons of
changes....for a while it seemed new hotels were going up as fast as they could
tear the old ones down..but in the last few years construction has slowed
dramatically but a few new projects are underway with the biggest being down by
the Sratosphere called Resorts World ...the $4 Billion first phase 3000 room
hotel and casino is due to open in 2016. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resorts_World_Las_Vegas
Glad my son came out with us...his first trip here..so as neither
of us a big gamblers we left that to my wife and her sister while we planned
other cool stuff to do..at least in our minds.
If you are a history buff one of the things you can do are go see
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition In the Luxor www.luxor.com/entertainment/titanic.aspx
This is really interesting with lots of neat stuff brought up from
the wreck...they have recreated parts of the interior ...some ship corridors,
first class stateroom and of course the grand staircase..they even have an
actual HUGE piece of the side of the ship and a real ICEBERG inside..very
cool...(pun intended!) The only thing is no photography allowed...bummer.
At the end of the exhibit is a wall with every passenger's name that was
lost in First Class, Second Class and Crew...you are given a passenger ticket
when you first enter that has a passenger's name on it that you try to find.
There is a quote written on another wall in the exhibit by the Irish
philosopher Jack Foster..."We are all passengers on the Titanic"...
ponder that for a moment..how true.
Titanic Official Website www.the-titanic.com
As an aside to this if you ever get to Halifax, Nova Scotia, go to
Fairview Lawn Cemetary as you can view the grave sites of over 100 of the
people lost on that tragic day April 15th, 1912 ... Several Halifax based ships
were involved in recovering the bodies..see the Halifax Connection www.novascotia.ca/titanic/connection.asp
For local history check out the Neon Museum..here they have lots
and lots of the old casino and business signs that have been saved ...
Stardust, Frontier, Desert Inn and many more...www.neonmuseum.org
What else?..oh yes a visit to,Madame Tussauds in the Venetian...
This turned out to be a lot of fun...where else can you get up
close and personal with Daniel Craig, Bruce Willis, Robert Deniro...go a few
rounds with Muhammad Ali..hang out with your golf buddies Arnold Palmer and
Tiger Woods..and of course the LADIES..
JLO, Sophia Vergara, Halle Berry and more... Iconic rockers from
the past..Elvis, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix..and the near past..Michael Jackson.
There are of course many more...worth the visit.
We got discount tickets for some of the above at www.tix4tonight.com
..They have outlets
along the street and at Fremont Street.
Fremont Street...another cool place to visit..and the street shows
are free!...This is a lively place to say the least at the North end of the
strip in the old downtown.
Here you will find several of the older casinos and some of the
old iconic neon signs such as Vegas Vic...a huge cowboy at the Pioneer Club.
There is always a huge crowd here...usually a bunch of bands
playing, street vendors of all kinds, and many look alike stars and Vegas
Follies girls to get your picture taken with.
The Viva Vision light Show..overhead is a huge arched video screen
which spans the street from one end to the other and on which they project very
colourful animated films set to music which blares out from a multitude of
speakers..the images dance up and down the street and they change the show
often. It usually starts every hour from 6pm for about 6 minutes..very
entertaining.
My son and I did a little gambling but we spent most of our time
in the evenings wandering around taking photographs..it really is an amazing
place to see.
I have loaded an album of Vegas pics on my Flikr site:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/
My next blog will be about some of the sights to see outside of
Vegas.
Till then, Cheers, Bill
