Wendy's trip log: Las Vegas 2023

Las Vegas Nevada

January 5th-January 9th 2023

DAY 1:

I travel again with Tulip Travel and this time we are heading to Las Vegas. I still hate flying, and travel days with this crew is always stressful. There is almost always a problem with ID's or seating or items in the carry on. But on day 1, we stumble through it, a 5 hours layover in Baltimore gave us plenty of time for dinner.

and soon we are a-flight again and seeing the Las Vegas Strip out our airplane windows.....

Viva las Vegas,... here we are.

We got in late and everyone was tired.

Grateful to be landed safely, we then made our way to our hotel. We are not staying on the strip, but at another casino named, Bolder Station. No time for fun in the casino...we all just wanted to go to bed.

DAY 2:

We got up and spent some time gathering and making a plan. We did not have any shows booked but we wanted to try and get some so after breakfast in the hotel we chilled in the room and some of us the casino. That someone would be me and Annette, while Chris made a game plan. We decided to try and get tickets for a show, many were booked or on the wrong day or just after we left. We finally got a Motown show for the last night. 1st plan of action, pick up the tickets... I went in as Annette stayed with the van and said a quick hello to the King ....Hello Elvis. It just so happened to be his Birthday the week we were there. So Hello and a Happy Heavenly Birthday, unless your one of those who still believes he is alive somewhere.

Tickets in hand, we decided to do a little shopping before heading to some natural spots.

I grabbed a picture of this place, The stratosphere. One of the few casinos I have never been in.

We were soon at Red Rock Canyon. I was so happy. I love places like this, and the last time I was in Vegas, we had gone to the Valley of Fire over Red Rock canyon, so we were at a place I had never been before.

There is really not much to say about this place except, it is beautiful.

Red rock canyon is Nevada's 1st Natural Conservation area and is located in the Mojave dessert.

There were as many as 6 different Native American tribes that lived in this area, and there are some Pictographs located here, as well as pottery fragments. The Paleo Indians were believed to have lived here around 11,000-8000 BC.

Around the 20th century, settlers attempted to create a sandstone quarry in the area, but was unsuccessful. There have been some movies shot here however, Bells of San Angelo and The Stalking Moon are named. (I personally have never heard of either. )

Some 6 hundred species of plants call Red Rock home, including The Joshua tree and the Utah Juniper, even Ponderosa Pines can be found at the tops of the valley connecting to Spring Mountain. it's hard to imagine that there are any plants just looking around, and knowing that this is a dessert.

Dinosaur as well as small proto-mammals have been found in three locations of the Red Rock Canyon.

There are also several current animals in the area, wild burros, which we never saw, rabbits, big horned sheep, and even desert tortoise. (These are protected at the visitor center). We didn't see these either.

Natural forces have taken millions of years to create these rock formations. Some include the Aztec sandstone formation which is over 180 million years old. These formations have been changing the shape with sedimentary rock and cross breeding with wind and deposits. They can be seen as small out crops on the ridge. The red colors are due to iron oxide which cause the rocks to "rust" creating the red orange and brown colors. Areas that are bleached, are where the rock has been washed with water or where the oxide never deposited.

More then 500 million years ago, this area was under water and was once an ocean basin. Limestone at the canyons bottom were created 250 million years ago during the Paleozoic era. Fossils of sea life have been found in the stone.

Apparently at one time, the Pony express ran through Red Rock canyon. I can't imagine what a job these riders did.

As we continued around the 13 mile drivable route, we began to see the sun setting around us. It was incredible.

We even got a glimpse of the moon.....

and a sign that indeed there were some animals in the area.

What a wonderful day we had. I just love nature. I wish I understood more about the geology of these things, but it all just goes over my head. Long story short this area was formed a long time ago and served as home for many creatures, both human and non for many many years before my visit here. Im grateful that our country values the importance of keeping such places special for people like me to visit.

We headed back to the hotel/casino and we all got players cards which gave everyone a $5- free play. I assisted our crew with dropping their free play into some machines, before spending my own free play and more in a few slot machines before we ate dinner. Later we went to the free event held at the casino. It was R&B music. I expected that, but it turned into RAP music. We still had a great time dancing and just enjoying ourselves.

DAY 3: Hoover Dam

I couldn't sleep. So my crazy butt headed down to the casino about 3am, and spent several am hours dumping $ into machines before the rest of my party was moving. We had breakfast at a local IHOP and were on our way to the Hoover Dam.

It feels weird to go through a check point, but I guess they have to do this for safety reasons. I always feel sad when I have to go to places and be checked. I wish that we had a nation and a world that didn't feel threated at all. We made it successfully through security and headed to this beautiful site.

We walked along the bridge that overlooks the dam. Although I have been here before, I didn't actually walk around the bridge area. Mark and I only drove through and did some quick pictures. We had walked on the big bridge above the dam.

Some interesting facts about the Hoover Dam;

The dam was built during the Great Depression, beginning in 1931 and ending on March of 1936. It cost the Federal Government $48.8 million dollars. It took 5 million barrels of cement, 45 million pounds of steel and 8.5 million pounds of dynamite. The amount of concrete could stretch the length of the USA.

In 1935, it was the largest dam ever built in the USA at 726.4 feet tall. Today it is the second tallest. The damn created lake Mead, the largest lake reservoir in the USA. The dam provides power to three states, Nevada, California and Arizona this consists of over 1 million people.

The dam was originally named Bolder Canyon, but in September of 1930 it was announced as Hoover after president Herbert Hoover. The town of Bolder, would not have been had it not been for the dam's production. The city of Bolder was built solely for the 5,000 workers that were employed at the dam.

During the built of the dam, 96 deaths were reported due to accidents, an additional 42 workers died of illness associated with building the dam, it is suspected that these additional deaths were a result of carbon monoxide poisoning while within the tunnels. Although there are myths and legends that people are buried with in the concrete walls, this is untrue.

Just before the USA entered into World War II the Nazis had plotted to blow up Hoover dam. The thought was that by destroying the dam, it would prevent manufacturing in California of war planes etc. During the war, Hoover Dam was closed to the public.

In 2023, at the time of our visit, lake Mead was at a time of great concern as it was loosing water. At this writing, the water level is 1,712.66 feet above sea level. This is 20.74 feet higher then when I visited in 2023. Although this does not mean that water levels are healthy, it does mean that there is hope that this lake, which provides water to much of the south west is in a better place then it has been in the last 5 years.

We did not take the tour that visits below and into the workings of the dam, but I am sure it would have been an interesting tour.

I thought this was a fun story.

After walking around the dam, we did a little shopping in the visitor center. I am surprised that this is not a National Park, but they are within the National Historical landmark. They do not offer NP stamps etc.

A picture of Lake Mead as we left the area and headed back to Las Vegas.

back in Las Vegas, I saw this women.....

We headed down the Las Vegas strip. We found parking and took the guys into Excalibur.

We had been looking for a show that evening, but there was a always an issue, either there were no shows that evening or there were not enough seats for all of us. We decided to simply check out the casinos and we took the tram.

We had a riot on the tram, we simply laughed laughed laughed. Perhaps it was best that we were not planning a show this evening, we were all so tired and silly.

We passed by Mandalay Bay and got off at Luxor.

My first time in Las Vegas. (2002) Mark and I spent a ton of $ in Luxor. Not on gaming, but on Egyptian statues etc, to furnish my house. I love that stuff.

They really do make it pretty interesting. I think this place was once more upscale, it kind of looks sad. They need an update. Although, I'm not sure what they could do to out do what they have already.

We headed back on the tram to our van and made our way down the strip to the Welcome sign. I was so excited because I have never been to the sign.

On the way back to our hotel, I took pictures of the strip as we drove by. Nothing is more amazing then the Las Vegas Strip at night.

We passed the Pawn shop on TV.

There is something going on here....

DAY 4: Our last full day in Las Vegas.

We were all pretty lazy in the morning, and slept in. I got people moving on packing up their stuff as we fly out tomorrow. We then went and did a little shopping. I ran into Circus Circus as I haven never been there and I just had to get a $1- chip to add to my collection. It was quite the place. We considered staying and catching the free circus show, but decided that we would rather go to Caesar's Palace for their shows.