The Charm of Old Vegas Oddities

If the Vegas Strip is a world unto its self, old Vegas is a separate solar system. Along with the vintage hotels and casinos from the Vegas early years, it contains hundreds of quickie wedding chapels, each with its own theme, history, and raft of characters. You will find the Mob Museum, the Museum of Atomic Testing, the Heart Attack Grill (where anyone over 350 pounds eats free), the pawn store where the TV series "Pawn Stars" is filmed, and, of course, local characters, like the one in the photo, just driving down the street.

The Nostalgia of "Old Vegas"

The Glitzy Hotels/Casinos on the Vegas Strip owe a huge debt to the section of town known as "old Vegas," about a $25 cab ride from the Strip. It is vintage Casinos like Circus Circus and the Cortez Hotel where the original mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky stayed while they started the Vegas gambling empire. It is also the site of all the quickie wedding chapels like this one where Brittany Spears started her famous 7 hour marriage.

Las Vegas has the highest marriage and also highest divorce rate of any city in the US due to the ease with which either can be obtained. No license, no blood test, no waiting, no problem. Also, you can be married by any number of Elvis impersonators or have several as your attendants.

The Stratosphere: Hotel/Casino for the Xtreme Thrillseekers

A bit off of the Vegas strip is the Stratosphere; the casino/hotel with the "highest thrill rides in the world." The building is 1,149 feet tall with 900 rooms. At its' top it features 4 rides: Insanity, Sky Jump, X-Scream, and Big Shot. The names say it all. As we were riding past, one brave person was enjoying the Sky Jump; "a controlled free fall from the 108th floor in which the person falls at a scream inducing speed." In the bottom photo - top left hand corner, you can almost see the tiny person I caught in free fall. Doug talked about trying it but it is definitely not anywhere in my future.

Casino Crawling

Each Casino/Hotel has a distinctive personality and it is fun cruising though each. The "grater" looking building on the right is Planet Hollywood, an older failing hotel that was redesigned and saved by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demi Moore, and Bruce Willis. It has a flavor of the Hard Rock Café chain.

Next door is the Paris Hotel/Casino where you can ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower and take out a mortgage to pay for a drink while enjoying a gorgeous view of the city . It also boasts a restaurant where you can be insulted in person by Chef Gordon Ramsey while enjoying one of his delicious meals.

Paris also has Mon Ami Gabi, one of the mostly highly recommended restaurants in Vegas for good food, good prices, and good location. It was always packed.

A must see is the dancing fountains of the Bellagio. Every half hour in the evening a choreographed dancing fountain show will steal your heart. The music changes with each show so you could spend an entire evening just hanging out in front of the Bellagio. You might recognize it from the Oceans Eleven film.

The Ferris wheel near the Venetian was intriguing, but we never saw it move - so we were wary about trying it. Caesar's Palace is an institution in Vegas and a must see. The entire side of Aria is a technological marvel: a massive video screen that can be seen even in the brightest sunlight. It is about 25 stories tall!

Sin City

By many, Las Vegas is known as "Sin City" and few would argue that it is the basis of this city's existence in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Except for Boulder and one other city, prostitution is legal in Nevada. You are reminded of this continuously in Vegas by the teams of people every half block forcing cards on every male who passes by. The cards have photos of women available in 20 minutes. It doesn't matter if the man has a partner with him; the cards are offered to every male. I found this terribly insulting at first and one point I had a minor hissy fit with one of the distributers, but soon just learned to ignore it. It's Vegas after all. It was interesting watching the crowds for the very mismatched couples and wondering.......


In the casinos, if you played slot machines or cards, all alcoholic beverages are free. I have never been anywhere in the last decade with more places that you can smoke. Every casino that we visited allows smoking.

Sin is very big business in Las Vegas and they average $6.1 billion a year in profits from gambling alone - and it is what makes Vegas the Disneyland for adults.

Designer Shopping

Directly across from the shopping center in the last photo is this very excusive shopping center containing all of the high end designer brands you could ever imagine seeing in one place. It's handy for when you hit that enormous jackpot and feel the need to get rid of it all in one shopping spree!

Shop Til You Drop

The strip is a major shopping mecca. The photo shows a small part of a one mile long shopping plaza complete with its own indoor sky and changing weather. There is one section of the center where the clouds overhead will darken, the thunder starts and the rain showers down. It happens every hour on the hour. PS Even the Walgreens was great - 2 giant floors of tourist stuff at reasonable prices.

Meeting Famous People in Vegas

Okay, you may not think a Gladiator is a famous person, but there is quite a collection of impersonators roaming the Vegas Strip including, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Batman, Darth Vedor, Choobakka, the Minions from Despicable Me, one of the transformers, Las Vegas showgirls, etc. You can have your photo taken with any of these famous people but they do expect a tip - even though by law, they can't ask for money. My favorite sight was Elvis having a deep conversation with Batman.

Managing the City Touring

It is confusing and difficult getting around the Vegas Strip unless you want to cab everywhere. Doug was determined to explore everything so we covered almost all of it on foot. To go across the strip itself there are overpasses like this one about every 1- 3 blocks. If you are lucky, the escalators up and down are actually working. They walkways are usually crammed with tourists, musicians asking for money, and people frankly asking for money for drugs or beer. There are various monorails but most go only to a neighboring hotel and back. On the last day we did find a longer monorail that costs $5 a ride.

New York Las Vegas Style

The New York New York Casino and Hotel is a nostalgic trip through Manhattan. Even the skyline of the hotel looks like a conglomeration of various buildings throughout the city of New York. It comes complete with the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and a cab ride, that just happens to be one of the most frightening roller coasters I have ever been on. I thought it would be a great way to get a great overview of Las Vegas but I was too busy screaming for my life to see anything. I love roller coasters and this one is the best.

The inside is a tribute to typical city streets of New York with pizza parlors and outdoor eateries along the indoor streets.

The Sphynx - Vegas Style

Part of the Luxor's Egypt oriented theme is their version of the Sphynx. In a city where beauty is so important, they decided to repair its nose

The Luxor Casino and Hotel

Luxor is a must see - with all the Egyptian accents, it may be as close as we can get to Egypt for a while. They did a superb job of copying many of the ancient Egyptian architecture and monuments, from a pyramid to walls of hieroglyphics throughout the hotel. Evidently we missed one of the highlights - the Styx river voyage that carried you to your room. Too many people were getting drunk and swimming in the river so it had to be shut down.

The Vegas Strip

The newer main strip of casinos, shopping, and eateries is like Disneyland for adults, filled with bright lights. loud music, crowds, hustlers, impersonators, and millions of tourists from every part of the world. Here I am posing in front of Excalibur, the medieval themed casino. Over a dinner of mead and chunks of meat you can watch jousting matches of fully armored knights on horseback - for a fee of course.

Viva Los Vegas

Doug found a great package to Vegas with lodging at the Monte Carlo and American Airlines to get us there. For a first day in any major city in any part of the world, The Big Bus is a must. They are always British style double decker buses equipped with a knowledgeable guide to the city. You can spend the entire day on the bus and get on and off whenever you want at the various areas that interest you. It is a great way to get an overview of any city. To name a few, I have been on Big Buses in Edinburgh, London, Sydney, and Dubai and enjoyed each trip. The best by far was the guide in Vegas. He had to work nights as a comedian.

Surviving Boat Repairs

Since Doug left Australia and returned to the US last March our days have been filled with the drama of boat repairs. We continue to dream about cruising down the Gulf coast and across the Okeechobee River to the other side of Florida. Hopefully this will come true before he returns to Australia in March.
In the meantime, Mike the boat repairman has become a member of the family and we are gradually replacing all moving parts. After the holidays the waiting proved too much. Doug and I looked at each other and said the magic word - "Vegas!!!"