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Day 28: Mon Aug 18, 1997
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| Our room in the Luxor. |
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| Inside the pyramid: statues inside the atrium. |
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| Inside the pyramid: entrance to the casino. |
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| View from outside. |
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| The Sphinx in front is larger than the real one. |
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| An oblisk on the sidewalk in front. |
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| Sharleen and Sphinx. |
Then we went to the Casino next door, The Excalibur. It's theme was medieval England, King Arthur's court. From the casino hotels we saw, The Luxor is rather subdued inside. Anyway we decided to eat at the buffet, The Round Table. There looked like a long line, we weren't sure, but that was it so we got in line. I didn't time how long it took to get to the cashier, about 20 minutes or so I think. But that wasn't the end, after passing the cashier the line went back and forth about 6 times or so before we got to the food, about 30 minutes later. In line we talked to the people in front of us. I asked if they had won more than they lost. They said they weren't gamblers. The plates were big, the guy in front said to take everything you want the first time around since it wasn't easy to come back, we didn't see anybody come back through. The food was not bad, we got plenty to eat, but I'm not sure it's worth the crowds and waiting.
After lunch we went looking for a room. We hadn't called from our room in The Luxor, local calls were 75¢. We went back to the car and drove up The Strip. It seemed there were miles of casinos, all trying to catch your attention. Circus Circus had advertised good room rates so we found it, parked the car, and headed in to see what they had. Again it was maze-like inside, and even more noisy than the other hotels we had been in. The lines at the check-in area were long, and the place was a circus, so we decided not to bother with a room there. We explored it a bit more on the way out. It has a large glass covered area with a carnival inside, including a pretty wild roller coaster. We walked through that area, then back to the car and went on up The Strip.
Inside the Circus Circus pink glass dome. The roller coaster is about to drop over one of the humps in the background. |
One of the more interesting new hotels was The Stratosphere which had a tall tower looking much like Seattle's Space Needle. There was a roller coaster on top of the tower, anyone with a fear of heights would almost certainly have a heart attack on that ride. There was what appeared to be another ride of some sort that shot up along a central spire on the top of the tower, probably some kind of weightless type ride. We didn't get many pictures, no place to stop and park.
Next we went to check Motel 6. It was a couple blocks off The Strip, a much quieter neighborhood. We got a room, found it was not non-smoking like requested but got that straightened out and took a break. Sharleen took a nap, I checked my email. Later we went out looking for food. By this time it was dark enough for the lights to be on and we drove up The Strip. With all the lights it was incredible. It didn't seem possible to drive under such conditions, a robot would be so confused by the scene, how could it ever recognize the traffic lights or taillights of cars; throw in random pedestrians and it is a mess. We really wanted to get to a street parallel to The Strip but several blocks to the east. We did, and drove south on it looking for a Mediterranean Café. We found it, closed. We went back to the motel and ate at a small restaurant there.
We didn't take pictures of the rest of Las Vegas, so here is a link to a web Page for many of the big Hotel/Casinos. Note: I have disabled this link. When I went to check it I found it had become a hard core pornography site. It used to be a link to a good list of the big hotels and casinos, the web addess had the word casinos in it. I don't appreciate such trickery and will not include any more links to Las Vegas.
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