June 21, 2011

Las Vegas Travelog October 2010

Eight months after the facts, we present our October 2010 Travelog as we visited Las Vegas for the annual Nail Party that has been a tradition for over 10 years.

Because of the lack of interest in it, I do beleive it has been quietly put out to pasture for now as I don't beleive that there are any plans to continue it on for 2011. That is a pity of course because while it started out back in 1999 as a seven person "convention" or "party" and grew to it's ultimate climax in 2008 with 28 people attending, attention and interest to it has all but died.

I post this travelogue on a June weekend when many are reported to be attending the 2011 Las Vegas IBS Convention at The Las Vegas Convention Center. We never had any plans to attend that show ourselves, however, it is being attended by many nail people organized through Facebook and we look forward to seeing some pictures of that event soon.

In the year 2010 I personally visited Las Vegas three times - February, October and December for New Year's Eve. Last February we had a fine time there with Lin, Lon and Rebs doing our usual stuff. December's New Year's Eve thing was one that had one purpose - to attend the UFC match at MGM Grand that some of you may have seen on PPV throughout the world. We attended that on New Year's Day with some friends of mine from home. We actually celebrated a 1st wedding anniversary then as well. I met up with Linda and Lonnie only for a few hours during that trip as I was pretty much booked through the whole week down on The Strip at Monte Carlo.

While we can say the February and December New Year's trips were pretty much standard and uneventful, we can certainly say that the October gathering was exciting and memorable.

The October Party was attended by Martin from Holland (aka Luvlongestnails), Rebs, Lin & Lon and for a short time Cindy as well. I was there for 7 days and really had a great time doing some very different things this time.

Highlights of the trip included a visit to both the Coca Cola Store and the M&M's Store on The Strip which is beside MGM Grand and across the street from Monte Carlo. Both stores have everything imaginable available with the respective logos those prduct lines are famous for. The stores are each three or four floors high with escalators to move you up and down, and if you're ever close by there, I recommend the visits to each. We spent a good part of an afternoon going through the places and while it is commercialism over the top, I still consider them almost as museums of a sort as I can imagine there is no place on earth like these two stores.

Another real fun highlight that we all took part in was visiting The Pinball Machine Museum. The place was not fancy, in fact it's a converted warehouse, but what was inside was golden. As a kid I was always fascinated by pinball machines. I was hooked on a few of them in fact. In high school I was obsessed with one or two of them that were in a bowling alley near my school and I can recall spending a lot of time and cash filling those machines up with $$$ with the ultimate goal of getting a few free games. Not much has changed over the years. The machines we saw and played on were all pretty much 30 - 40 years old. In a way they looked fragile and breakable, but as a former pinball artist and expert, it's not a difficult thing to learn to handle these machines with love and respect and care. A tournament of sorts took place between Marttn, Lon and I on a hockey machine that had flippers on it not unlike a present day foosball machine ... I forget who won the thing in the end but I know it wasn't me. So much fun. I loved the antique-ish touches within the place as well. The soda machine was really old. Put your money in, pull the lever, and the arm inside pushed your can of choice right off the shelf, a four foot drop, down to the bottom. Lift the door to retrieve it and if you open it right away, you're assured of getting sprayed with the contents as the soda gets all pressured up inside during that four foot fall. Again, I recommend this place for those that had experiences with these things years ago ... it won't break you either as we spent about 4 hours here and all it cost me was about $7.00.

One afternoon Linda and I slipped away and visited The Atomic Testing Museum. If Las Vegas was not to become famous for gambling and hotel shows and partying, we'd probably know Vegas for the role this city and area it played in the field of Atomic Energy. I won't go into detail here about what a powerfull show this place puts on with it's incredible exhibits and films throughout the facility. There are artifacts here that are some of the most impressive things I've seen in my life. Lin and I took several hours to go through it all and I came away with the feeling that I must do that again as there is so much stuff presented that I'm sure I missed a ton of it. You make your way through the exhibits at your own speed, they show you a movie explaining the overall significance of what we're seeing there on this day, and they end it all as you begin to exit with the most sobering piece of memorabilia of all - a chunk of The World Trade Center - actually a piece of an iron support beam. This last exhibit may not have anything to do with the rest of the material presented throughout the facility, but it is relevant in a way. As we left, I was wanting more. And I guess that's the tell tale sign that they made an impression me, as I left the facility in awe. Again, you gotta see this place. If you're ever there when I'm there, we'll go, it's a date.

One of the biggest and most famous attractions in the area is Hoover Dam. I have been there before with Lin, Lon and Rebs as we did the boat tour in 2008 or 2009 on a very hot day.

We visited again in october. But this time Rebs drove Martin and I to the dam. The boat tour was great. The driving tour was just as good. It's interesting to see it from both perspectives. This time, via car, we saw it close up and first hand. Before we got there we stopped a few times and took some pictures that I have posted below. Even before we actually got to the dam, we crossed the new bridge that goes over The Colorado River. Building this bridge was a daunting task. I saw a documentary about it after we visited and I was blown away by the amount of concrete that is in this thing and I am more fascinated by the fact that this bridge is not held up by conventional beams. This thing is suspended at each end and is supported from the sides or ends. Hard to explain, but if you see the pictures you'll understand.

We left early on the Monday morning and eventually made it to Hoover Dam via that new bridge. We parked and walked throughout the facilty. We took the tour and went down hundreds of feet below the dam, and back up again and walked around, crossing over the dam and back again.

We left late afternoon with that same feeling we always feel when we visit something of this magnitude - I wanna go there again! And some day I will.

As if this day wasn't already a full one, we did one more bit of sight seeing before we got home. Rebs and Martin decided to visit The Sahara. As some of you know, The Sahara Hotel Casino in Las Vegas is one of the most famous and historical locations in the city. It was built back in the 50's so you know that a lot of famous people played and stayed here. Well. As I recall the reason we stopped off here on this day was to get some photographs of Fountainbleu which is located beside Sahara. Fountainbleu is a brand new structure - a proposed hotel casino that is 75% finished. The project halted construction at this point because of money problems, the recession, etc. blah blah blah. The cranes are still there. The windows are in, the concrete is up, but it's just sitting there and there are no plans to finish it.

Last year someone at The Plaza Hotel Casino (Fremont Street) got the bright idea to inquire about what happened to the furniture and TV's and carpet and other stuff that Fountainbleu had purchased and paid for and was currently storing in a warehouse somewhere. Before you knew it, a deal was struck. The Plaza purchased the Fountainbleu contents dirt cheap and everyone is happy. The Plaza is currently closed for renovations, they plan on re-opening in fall 2011 complete with all these Fountainbleu furnishings. What a deal.

OK, so back to The Sahara. This is where it gets complicated. Sometime back in December, this is well after Rebs, Martin and I made this Sahara vist, it was announced that The Sahara will close it's doors forever! So yes indeed - On May 16 past, the Sahara became just another victim of this long, drawn out financial disaster that has crippled Las Vegas. So sad. But what a lucky thing for us to have visited on that October afternoon. It was just meant to be I guess.

We had some great dinners and other visits throughout this October party. I gambled moderately, as I was under a tight budget that got tighter and tighter as time went along. I did get off to a great start on my first afternoon there however. The day I arrived, within 2 hours of arriving infact, i hit $4,000.00 on a 10X PAY machine at The Fremont Casino. I promptly blew the whole thing within a day or two. It was bad luck at the machines after that. The funnest dinner we had, and we had many, was at The Diner at The Golden Gate. We sat in a booth across from the desserts that were on display. One of us - and I won't mention who - could not figure out how the pies on display were suspended on the wall. They seemed to defy gravity. Amazing. Well, there are a picture or two in the gallery below that will illustrate this amazing feat and we'll see if you can figure it out.

That's about all I have to say about this trip for now. Thanks to the rest of The Brat Pack for letting me show some of their pictures here, and for showing me such a great time during my one week trip to Las Vegas back in October 2010.