The Vegas Experience

It’s Las Vegas, baby!   Woo woo … home of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, but originally Bogart and friends in New York.)  Unfortunately it is really the home of the high roller these days.    It’s $10 a bet on the strip and downtown thinks it’s the strip and has priced itself out of the market.  Most of the real action is in the smaller independent casinos out on the fringes.  Some of these are really seedy, while others are surprisingly clean, and well appointed … while still offering entertainment for a reasonable price. 

We used to be big fans of the downtown area.  The Nugget was always a bit more expensive, but the Horseshoe had a great café and $1 blackjack … while the Plaza offered quarter craps during the week.  We used to be able to purchase “a pound of pig” (big ham steak with eggs etc.) at the Plaza, but no longer.  Those days are long gone!  These days a $9.99 special is touted as exceptional and it’s $4.99 for the shrimp cocktail.  We spent a couple of hours touring the downtown area looking for anything resembling the old bargains. … forget it … they are all gone!

For meals we recommend the two for one special for seniors at the Palms on Thursdays that includes an excellent array of seafood (crab and salmon), oriental favorites, Lebanese specialties, American steaks, and a great dessert bar.  The Silverton has a $5.00 senior buffet on Mondays, but plan on standing in line for 45 minutes to an hour to get in.  Once in, the buffet is not bad and certainly worth $5.00.  Apparently, it’s a good time to be a “senior” in Las Vegas. 

We stayed at the Thousand Trails Park on Boulder Highway, a really nice, well managed park, that is close to Henderson.  Remember when Sam’s Town was the out of the way locals place? … no more!  It is now in the middle of the action and acts like it.  Avoid it and keep on driving.  For a real bargain try the $2.99 spaghetti dinner offered at the Jokers Wild in Henderson … also a nice casino to sit and play.  We played one-cent poker slot for three hours on two dollars … great entertainment for the dollar … they also have fifty-cent beer all day long and one-dollar shrimp cocktails.  It is our “go to” place to play for gambling.

We ventured out to Hoover Dam and took the expensive “Dam Tour” ($30.00 per person).  Really this is not the place to skimp on a tour … going into the bowels of the dam is worth the additional money spent!  Lynda’s maternal grandfather (Pop) was an engineer who worked on the dam for the Department of Reclamation.  It made it that much more interesting, knowing that there was a personal connection to this “Wonder of the Modern World.”  Here are a few pictures from the tour.

One of the giant leaning electrical towers

Original diversion tunnel

Generating Electricity

Smaller Electrical generator that runs entire plant

Electrical Generation Room

America honored within the dam

Bridge over the Colorado River looking back at the dam

Lynda in an inspection tunnel

Kim in an inspection tunnel near the outside vent

Tunnel through the dam

On the outside of the dam ... the river continues down stream

Vent as seen from the outside ... we looked out from the inside

the dam is built into solid rock

Overflow area

Built during the Great Depression

Lynda remembers Pop by the Hoover Dam sign

One of the most disappointing tours we engaged in was the “Ethel M Chocolate Factory” tour.  The “M” in Ethel M represents her last name … “Mars”  … sound familiar?  The tour is self-guided and lousy.  At the end of the tour you get one small sample of chocolate and then exit into the candy shop where three small pieces of toffee costs $10.00.  We definitely rated this as a rip off.  There is also an M & M factory “museum” (think candy store) on the premises where M & Ms are sold for twice their normal retail cost.  When in Vegas … skip this one!

Kim ... Bored at Ethel M

Lake Mead is worth the drive.  It is relaxing and has some beautiful vistas.  Unfortunately, the lake is really well down and below its normal levels.  We visited the lake on one of the days we had the coach in the shop and we had Cody (our dog) with us.  He liked the views and the photo ops … but he gets carsick and didn’t care much for the drive.

Lake Mead ... Beautiful ... close to the dam

Lake Mead from the Boulder City Overlook

A bit further down the lake shows signs of the drought

About half way from Boulder City to Vegas

Lake Mead about 1/4 from Vegas

Lake Mead ... Getting very low on water

Kim & Cody enjoy the Lake

Lynda with Lake Mead in background

Shades of things to come on Lake Mead

Lake Mead is dry at Las Vegas Bay

The boat launch at Las Vegas Bay ... The waster is but a trickle

During our stay in Vegas we decided to take the coach into a shop to address the dash air conditioning and a few other minor issues.  After hearing a few more horror stories regarding fires started in the RV refrigerators, we also decided to replace our RV fridg with a residential “all electric” fridg (a two-door fridg with crushed ice and water in the door and twice the room as the RV model).  Other items we took care of were the repair of a drawer in the kitchen and the addition of an electrical outlet in the electric bay to accommodate a heat-wrapped hose during cold weather.  We used “Apache RV” service because of the positive comments online and we think we are happy with their work … we will know for sure in a couple of weeks if everything is still working well … but so far … so good!   

We spent two days tooling around Vegas while our coach was in the shop and finally found the middle and upper middle class neighborhoods … they are spread out on the outskirts around Hwy 215.  We also discovered that Las Vegas Blvd. (the strip) goes almost all the way to State Line.  On the way around town, these beautiful trees impressed Lynda.

Until next time … Keep doing what you love!