Las Vegas
In recognition of my sister's 21st birthday, my family (minus the youngest sister and pets of course) took a trip to Las Vegas, the city of sin. Here is my story.
Day 1 - Evening flight out of Syracuse. Met a bunch of young people heading to Marine boot camp. (Good luck to them!) Couple hours in Newark. Then 5 hours across the country. Boy do we have a big country. Landed in Vegas at 11:30 pm, taxied to the MGM Grand (the largest and perhaps grandest hotel in the world! or so they'd like you to think.) Found the parents and crashed.
Day 2 - Hit the middle part of "The Strip". Caesar's Place, The Venetian and The Mirage. All fancy and fake. But there's still something about these places. In the afternoon my sister and I hit the pool. Now that hit the spot. I hadn't been swimming in a good two years, and just playing around in the cool water under the warm sun was great. In the evening we went to downtown Las Vegas, which is where it all started. The casinos were smaller and somewhat seedy, but hey, they also sold us 99 cent Margaritas, so who can complain. The best part of downtown was the huge LED screen that covered the entire pedestrian area. Every 15 minutes a movie was shown on the screen. It really make the geek in me happy. Here's a photo:
Day 3 - Today was poker tournament day for the guys and shopping for us gals. Sadly it seems like there are fewer stores in the hotels than the last time we were in Vegas. In the afternoon I went to the river pool, which is a long, winding pool with a mild current that you float down. This is a truly brilliant idea. For one thing you get to see new things and pass under water falls, jets and palm trees. I'd alternate a float with a little reading. Ahhhh. In the evening we walked along The Strip, which is really the best time to do it. For one it's not so freaking hot, and secondly, and more importantly, the lights. The goal of this little meander was to watch the fountains of Bellagio. They are by far the best free thing in this town and probably beat out many of the not-so-free things. Every 15 minutes water fountains rise out of the pond in front of the hotel and shoot out water which is choreographed to music. Absolutely amazing. It appeals both to the physicist and musician in me.
Day 3 - Everyone else has a flight out at 8 am, and my flight doesn't leave until 11 pm, so I decided to take a little trip to Red Rock Canyon. Red Rock is a about 20 miles west of Las Vegas and absolutely beautiful! There's a 13 mile driving loop with several places to pull off with trail heads. There are almost 20 trails throughout the region of various difficulties, lengths and things to see.
First off, Red Rock Canyon is well named:
This is Calico Hills. They are petrified sand dunes from a time when Red Rock Canyon was a huge, Sahara-like desert. They're red because of the iron oxide in the rocks. Basically the rocks rusted.
This is the mountain range the forms the western border of the area.
More red rock:
View from the Keystone Thrust trail. Somewhere in this picture is the Keystone Thrust Fault, which slide above younger rock to produce inverted strata. Where exactly this is, I'm not sure.
Petroglyphs from the Anasazi or Paiute Indians. I have no doubt that I spelled those wrong. They're in the lower center of the image. (Sorry...photo's on its side.)
One last picture after 8 hours of hiking/driving:
I then headed to the airport sweaty and dirty for my red-eye out of town. Tried to sleep on the plane with little success. Finally got back to Ithaca completely exhausted but happy.
Day 1 - Evening flight out of Syracuse. Met a bunch of young people heading to Marine boot camp. (Good luck to them!) Couple hours in Newark. Then 5 hours across the country. Boy do we have a big country. Landed in Vegas at 11:30 pm, taxied to the MGM Grand (the largest and perhaps grandest hotel in the world! or so they'd like you to think.) Found the parents and crashed.
Day 2 - Hit the middle part of "The Strip". Caesar's Place, The Venetian and The Mirage. All fancy and fake. But there's still something about these places. In the afternoon my sister and I hit the pool. Now that hit the spot. I hadn't been swimming in a good two years, and just playing around in the cool water under the warm sun was great. In the evening we went to downtown Las Vegas, which is where it all started. The casinos were smaller and somewhat seedy, but hey, they also sold us 99 cent Margaritas, so who can complain. The best part of downtown was the huge LED screen that covered the entire pedestrian area. Every 15 minutes a movie was shown on the screen. It really make the geek in me happy. Here's a photo:
Day 3 - Today was poker tournament day for the guys and shopping for us gals. Sadly it seems like there are fewer stores in the hotels than the last time we were in Vegas. In the afternoon I went to the river pool, which is a long, winding pool with a mild current that you float down. This is a truly brilliant idea. For one thing you get to see new things and pass under water falls, jets and palm trees. I'd alternate a float with a little reading. Ahhhh. In the evening we walked along The Strip, which is really the best time to do it. For one it's not so freaking hot, and secondly, and more importantly, the lights. The goal of this little meander was to watch the fountains of Bellagio. They are by far the best free thing in this town and probably beat out many of the not-so-free things. Every 15 minutes water fountains rise out of the pond in front of the hotel and shoot out water which is choreographed to music. Absolutely amazing. It appeals both to the physicist and musician in me.
Day 3 - Everyone else has a flight out at 8 am, and my flight doesn't leave until 11 pm, so I decided to take a little trip to Red Rock Canyon. Red Rock is a about 20 miles west of Las Vegas and absolutely beautiful! There's a 13 mile driving loop with several places to pull off with trail heads. There are almost 20 trails throughout the region of various difficulties, lengths and things to see.
First off, Red Rock Canyon is well named:
This is Calico Hills. They are petrified sand dunes from a time when Red Rock Canyon was a huge, Sahara-like desert. They're red because of the iron oxide in the rocks. Basically the rocks rusted.
This is the mountain range the forms the western border of the area.
More red rock:
View from the Keystone Thrust trail. Somewhere in this picture is the Keystone Thrust Fault, which slide above younger rock to produce inverted strata. Where exactly this is, I'm not sure.
Petroglyphs from the Anasazi or Paiute Indians. I have no doubt that I spelled those wrong. They're in the lower center of the image. (Sorry...photo's on its side.)
One last picture after 8 hours of hiking/driving:
I then headed to the airport sweaty and dirty for my red-eye out of town. Tried to sleep on the plane with little success. Finally got back to Ithaca completely exhausted but happy.
posted by laura s at 3:03 PM
2 Comments:
Yay for Vegas! It looks all pretty and gambly, but everyone who's ever been there tells me that it's a lot faker than it looks. But I still wanna go someday.
Congrats on surviving the school year. I tried to post some Dory encouragement when you had about 48 hours to go(just keep swimming...) but blogger hates me and I was trying to hurry to work.
Holler if you're going to be in the Des Moines/Iowa City area sometime this summer, though at this point, it's probably July before I can do anything. Otherwise, I'll keep reading your adventures here.
Kris
I am glad that you had fun traveling outside of Vegas... I guess the strip isn't quite as fun by yourself, If I had all that day, I'd probably have stayed on the strip.. but thats just me.
Katie
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