The North side of Vegas in the Freemont Street Experience area is a little different, the two streets you exit the highway are the
Streets with exits to know from north to south
For the
For The Strip with Casinos at that exit
One other street to note
Valley of Fire state park was the first state park in Nevada and I really could see why it was chosen. For a person who had only seen the desert in Movies it was spectacular. There are some fabulous hikes to take around spectacular red rock formations in an almost pristine desert landscape. Ancient writings called petroglyphs drawn by the Anasazi are featured attractions on several trails.
It’s really easy just take I-15North to NV-169East straight to the park about 55 miles out of town and 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Start
Get on I-15 N go about 35miles and 35mins
Take exit 75 for NV-169 E toward Valley of Fire/Lake Mead
NOTE: There is a very useful stop here for gas ice water and sodas and junk food, The Mopa / Paiute Travel Plaza and Casino. Get your camera out now if you love the desert the road looks like it vanishes in the distance. GET GAS Make sure your tank is near full here!
Stop at the Visitors center and select the things you want to see on the map and get your bearings. Get a quick look at the history of the place and discover what wild life you might meet. I didn’t get to see any wildlife except chipmunks called, Antelope squirrels, but I did see traces of burrows or longhorn sheep.
If you have at least 2 and ½ to 3 hours of daylight left, your not totally exhausted, and want to sight see on the way back to Vegas, drive down Lake Mead to Hover Damn. This does not get you in on any kind of tour you will be seeing Hover Damn from the top but it is rather beautiful when they turn the lights on as the sun sets.
Driving down the Lake Mead National Recreation Area is beautiful BUT there are NO gas stations or restaurants so it is a bit of an adventure. Once you reach the vicinity of the damn though you will find the fabulous Hacienda Casino a good stop. Across from the Casino is a gas station but his prices were a dollar more than any other. This drive is all about the desert but there are a few stops you might make:
Echo Bay Marina takes you a bit off the track but it is a nice place to see the lake and I did find a bathroom at a club house there.
Oasis Spring - Along the way in middle of the nowhere you see strange palm trees in a couple locations and you can see frogs and dragon flies in the middle of the desert where water bubbles up out of the ground.
Callville Marina – I stopped at echo bay instead of this one and but this looks like a shorter Rd and a bigger facility, Also this could be a more useful time to look for a bathroom.
Unnamed Overlook parking area with a bathroom - after you turn left on to NV RT 166 there is an overlook with a parking area facility where I got a beautiful picture of the lake and the clouds near sunset.
The simple story is leave out the other end of Valley of Fire (which is NV 169) and turn right NV 167 South all the way to turn left on NV 166 East to turn left US 93 and go across the damn to the Arizona side overlooks. To get back to Vegas take US 93 all the way back until you cross the street you need like Tropicana Ave. for the south side of the strip. To get to the Freemont Street area you can take US 93 all the way past Flamingo RD to Bolder Highway which becomes Freemont ST going north even go all the way to Las Vegas BLVD on the north side of Freemont ST.
Because there are a couple turns here is a Google Maps Map with directions including some stops.
The whole first part of my trip had not been my plan at all it was a series of accidents that could not have worked out better. The mining trip that did not work out, the place I stayed the things I saw, the hangovers that made for perfect timing I felt like the luckiest sap on earth.
Now for the part of the vacation I booked in advance, a motel two blocks off the south end of the strip.
Pictures are at the following web address
http://picasaweb.google.com/123Scooter/VegasPart2
The morning after the Grand Canyon trip I drove down and moved in, impressive, a bed a TV and a toilet everything a guy needs to feel comfortable. I dropped off the rental car at the airport because I only rented the car for my original plan of driving to the opal mine. The airport shuttle took me back and dropped me off at the MGM Grand then I walked out to see the strip for the first time.
Giant lions, miniature cities, ancient Egypt juxtaposed TV screens as big as a city block and giant construction cranes everywhere. An entirely different canyon, standing on one of the elevated pedestrian walkways you can watch the construction cranes carve it to the whims of the dollars on the street.
I walked up as far as the Bellagio and Paris snapping pictures of every Vegas icon I came across. I walked inside each to see what a new Vegas casino looked like and some were pretty cool. I started back early though this would take some planning and I wanted to clean up before going out that night.
My idea was to go out somewhere I could dance and perhaps meet people. I had seen the Bar Coyote Ugly inside NY NY and decided to start there. I walked over from the MGM and just as I get in the door at NY NY someone handed me a free admission to Coyote Ugly, 20 bucks normally.
That night was great and Coyote Ugly was hilarious it has two gimmicks; women bartender’s called Coyotes stand on the bar with a microphone and shout orders at the crowd, make rude lewd commentary the second gimmick is that they get women tourists to dance on the bar by offering them free shots. The real enticement to dance on the bar is to have someone who came with you take a picture of you having a wild time in Las Vegas. Several times I saw bridal parties get up and dance on the bar the bride to be would wear a piece of lace or veil in her hair an soon the whole bunch would be dancing on the bar.
I woke the next day with a hang over and laid out at the pool for 20 minutes front and back took a shower and walked back to the strip. I knew from a flyer I found in my rental car that somewhere in Vegas you could get free show tickets at the “Las Vegas Information Bureau” I asked an employee at NY NY and he said “I think that is in the giant coke bottle.” It turns out that the Giant coke bottle has lots of stuff but I didn’t see “Las Vegas Information Bureau” until I was walking out. It turns out to be a time share tour that earns you the free show tickets. I had bad experiences with time a share tour in the past but I thought Hook me up with free tickets and I won’t let any of it bother me.
Yada Yada Yada I do gab on. I
MGM Grand New York New York
Gift shops movies Monte Carlo
Construction construction
Shady spot
Planet Hollywood Aladdin
I did not mention this before but the opal mining part of my trip had completely fallen through at the last minute and I had to scramble to pull together a place to stay. It turned out great though letting me book a funky sweet at the venerable El Cortez and use the rental car for day trips.
The biggest and most amazing road trip was the trip to the
Pictures that go with the story are at the following internet address
http://picasaweb.google.com/123Scooter/GrandCanyonTrip
Getting up early in Vegas is tough even with the 3 hour time difference in your favor. I stopped for coffee on the road a Mickey D’s with strange sculptures around it. I vaguely remember a news story about the artist. Crossing the Hoover Damn in to
Over a little rise from Seligman two giant dust devils came into view on either side of the road. I did not realized how big they were until I was fixing up the pictures. There is a tiny white dot in front of one and when I zoomed in it turned out to be a barn. Carefully looking at the pictures I realized just on the other side of it other tiny dots were houses. I drove right between them and did not get whisked off to OZ although I doubt OZ could have seemed much stranger. The one thing it is tough to see in the picture is how tall they were the brightness of the sky was too much for my camera whiting out the picture.
You turn north at Williams and it’s just 60 more miles to
I stopped at the visitor’s center to find my way around and decided the main thing to do was to get to the famous
Earlier in Valley of Fire State Park I really wanted to get pictures of big wildlife while so I snapped pictures of a grey squirrel, I had no idea what would run me over in a few minutes on
In stead of taking a park bus to get to bright angels I motored over to the nearest parking area on the map for the Grand Canyon Railway. Across the tracks and through the Bright Angels Lodge I ran into my first big wildlife. Condors, huge vulture like birds hanging out on rock outcroppings just below a tourist shop with an out look. If you look closely all the condors have numbers on their wings and are carefully tracked by the park service. It’s no guarantee if they fly off with your poochie that they will be able to find it for you though.
There were lots of other people on the trail but the narrow spots and sheer drops made you feel like you were still seeing something authentic.
Then it happened not far down from the trail head I ran into a heard of long horn sheep. It was amazing it was as if all the things that changed my plans, made me get up late, etc. all were meant to put on the trail in that spot at that moment to get the wild life pictures I had been hoping for.
Just after coming through a cut in the rock people started pointing below the trail and then something came vertically out of the canyon and spooked by people on the trail leapt directly over the trail to stand on a sheer rock face 10ft above it. As I started snapping pictures more of them started appearing adults and young in a group of about 8 or 10. Snapping picture and trying to watch at the same time I realized too late that I was in their way. They split up and went around me on both sides. The heard wanted to get through the cut in the rock and go up the trail but it was crowded with tourists worshiping the shade under the arch. People behind me shouted let them through but not before some sheep had found there way into interesting places to pose for pictures. A young couple coming up pointed out to me that the Condors were following the heard, some in the air and one perched just above on the rocks. It was like
I only continued down about a mile, enough to get a completely different perspective on the canyon and went back up. I felt really great and even though I only spent 3 hours at the Canyon it was totally worth it.
One more miracle happened on the drive home, a cop back in Vegas pulled me over for failure to yield at a merge, (I was lost and trying to read a map in the dark while driving.) I talked to him and he let me off with a warning. He even gave me directions; I was on the right road going in the wrong direction. Next I found cheap gas at the only corner I could turn around on and back at the El Cortez I got a parking space next to the entrance.
The Next day It all went crazy I was leaving the fabulous El Cortez on
More to follow
I took today off from day tripping so I wrote this email please ignore the spelling etc. the photos that go with the story are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/123Scooter/Vegas
What was I thinking?! I stayed at Dads the night before to be close to the air port and make it easier for him to give me a ride. I fell asleep at 3:30am and woke up at 4 with that much sleep I felt like I was in Vegas already.
Groggy but overjoyed to be on vacation for the first time in my adult life floating around the
AirTran Had over booked My Flight #777 and offered me 2 free round trip Tickets anywhere they fly to give up my seat ant take a 5pm flight. Jackpot! When it turned out they didn’t need my seat they made me board no free-bee, maybe on the trip back.
The flight was good but I could not sleep any. Went over the
I got in to Vegas feeling surprisingly good. When I steeped from the shuttle to the rent a car place I felt the Desert sun, it made my skin tingle like standing next to the reactor in an old Russian submarine. Got my car and I decided to drive all the way up The Strip to Fremont St. Talked to the girl in rent-a-car garage and she gave me the easy directions 2 right turns and look for Las Vegas Blvd. Wow Vegas BABY! But a longer drive than I expected.
The Aroma of Cigars smoked by the rat pack and the Mob boys with Vitalis in their slick back hair permeates every inch. At first it was weird but I got used to it by the next day. My room is a big king size bed joint with a serving bar. The window to my room is right up front and is in one of the pictures I took above the street level wall-poster-banner. They call it a vintage room and they mean it. The only things that are less than 40 years old are the phone and the TV. I don’t think that is true though the rooms just cleverly look that way. So does every thing in the hotel from the restaurants to the uniforms of the staff. Even the tattered corners you find give you a feeling of Vegas from an earlier time.
Every thing has been going my way, I walked over to
It is a good thing I got rest the night before so I could have the energy to handle being over gasped. As you enter the park there is a tiny sliver of lake Mead in the distance and down below valley floor is dotted with red rock formations, the smaller one dot the valley walls like signal fires. The effect of the park on a person who has never seen the desert is over whelming and I just could not capture the vistas with a camera. Walking a trail away from the sight of other people and the park structures and you are alone in the wild desert. I loved it, that feeling of wild beauty seeing amazing rock formations completely new and different from anything I have ever known. There are no words but a million pictures. The only wildlife I encountered was one garbage can full of bees and tons of white-striped pale grey chipmunk-like critters. I did see evidence of the wild burrows or perhaps the long-horn sheep, in big green piles.
The trip back I drove south along
I filled up with gas, 360 a gallon, close to the damn and also close to sunset. It turns out my timing was perfect because they were just turning on the lights at the damn and it was beautiful. Two Japanese guys snapped my picture and I took their picture in return.
I headed back across the damn and went back to the nearby Hacienda Casino for prime rib buffet. On the way out I saw a car that you could win for five nickels. I could not find the change lady so I put in a 20. Now I have to cancel my return flight to drive home in my NEW CAR. Oh, sorry back up I win the car next week down on the strip this time I only won $140 BUCKS, HOLLY CRAP THAT’S FUN.
I wasn’t really tired when I got back to the El Cortez, I was wired, so I walked over to watch the
More about this trip later including pictures of the bridge Captain Kirk Died on in the Trek movie Generations and how I learned shoes and not Sandals in the desert (attack the lone fire ant)
Trip to the desert 2
