The road to Las Vegas

Is eleven hours each way too far to drive for a night out? Not when your destination is Las Vegas, Nevada!




It was early when we (my friend Jorge and I) left Denver. This is the inside of the Eisenhower Tunnel which travels 1.7 miles through the Continental Divide about 60 miles west of Denver. It is the highest vehicular tunnel in the world.




As we headed west, the conditions and scenery were very changable. Clear blue sky one minute, snow storm the next. We survived four seperate snowstorms in Colorado and Utah. And for the first time in more than two months, as I drove through the 30 miles of I-15 that crosses Arizona, America finally rained on my parade.



Crossing the state line from Colorado into Utah. Later I would also cross the border from Utah into Arizona and finally Arizona into Nevada.




The canyonlands of Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. The scenery here was amazing, and if you're good, i'll show you some more photos of this area taken on my way back from Las Vegas a little later on.
















And then finally, I was there. Welcome to Las Vegas!







This is where I stayed. Well actually thats a lie. I was going to stay at the MGM Grand....








...But I got invited to stay in the West Wing. It sounded nicer than it was. Luckily i spend nearly no time at the motel because I went out to the Strip right away.






This is me in front of the New York, New York. Its so nice they named it twice. This is one of my favorite casinos in Las Vegas, i haven't been able to decide my favorite favorite. I had dinner at the New York New York. As well as a raft of other options which others might find more exciting, their buffet serves chocolate milk.


Harrah's Casino









The Flamingo








The Strip, which in places is sixteen lanes wide, seems to have an endless stream of near standstill traffic. This was taken on a Sunday night, and it doesn't seem to get any better by day. There are a lot of limosines, but you can never tell who is inside.






This is the Paris casino. Yes, that is the Eiffel Tower you see, right there in Vegas. I doubt if its a full size replica, but it is pretty tall and you can ride up to the observation deck.





This is the Bellagio, another of my favorites. Moments before I could get my camera out the entire lake in the foreground was being whirled up by a giant fountian show to music that was playing.







Here's me at a casino, I can't even remember what casino I went to so many! If you think bright lights and exciting sound effects are all ploys to get money from your wallet into the machine, try having waitresses bring free drinks to you while you play.




Caesar's Palace. Another favorite of mine.











Someone who knows might be able to tell me the name of this arch. I know its famous, and was probably from Rome, and like most other landmarks has been replicated in Las Vegas.





I took this photo at 11pm while I was out in the sunshine. This is truly amazing, I was inside a casino and it looked like broad daylight - the sky is a fake! I don't know how they did it so convincingly.





Leaving Las Vegas this morning. Unfortunately it was time to draw this charade to a close and begin the drive back to Denver.

There is a town not far outside Las Vegas called Mesquite. It has casinos and resorts, but is a lot quieter than Las Vegas. In the middle of the desert, God knows how much water taken from God knows where keep golf courses as green as I have ever seen them. Bastions of paradise in a barren landscape of nothingness.


Driving through the desert not far past Mesquite it isn't hard to imagine how Las Vegas could look today if Nevada hadn't been the first state to legalize gambling. Its the philosophy that drives people to build green golf courses in the middle of nowhere, the 'because we can' kind of attitude that built Las Vegas. It was a gamble that paid off. This is the desert the world came to.