While Tara and Brett were exploring Hollywood, the Pupletts were taking a four hour drive through the Mojave Desert to Los Vegas.
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| The San Gabriel mountains |
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| San Gabriel/San Bernardino mountains |
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| Lots of very long freight trains |
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| We stopped here to fuel up. The door has an add for chicken that says "Smell that? Course you do" which took on new meaning when this septic truck pulled up and started pumping right in front of us |
The plan was to visit the southern most casinos today before heading to our Airbnb. The temperature was in the high 30s and at some points spiked to 40 degrees, so it wasn't the best day for walking.
Our first stop was Silverton's Casino. This is a 300 room hotel and 6,090m2 casino that was built in 1994. The site was originally going to be used as warehouse but the owner decided he'd make more money with a Casino. It was initially the Boomtown Hotel-Casino, but it struggled with being so far south of the strip. The casino was bought out in 1997 and renamed the Silverton. It features a 117,000 gallon aquarium which has mermaid shows throughout the day.
The kids were mostly interested in the attached Big Bass store, which sold guns and hunting gear and was almost as big as the casino:
The Mandalay was named after Mandalay in Myanmar and a Rudyard Kipling poem with an aim to evoke exoticism. It is a 43 story hotel and casino owned by MGM. It was built in 1999 to replace the Hacienda Casino. The casino is 13,748m2 and houses a Shark Reef attraction. Unfortunately the hotel was the site of the 2017 Vegas shooting when a gunman opened fire on a concert from the 32nd floor.
One of the things we were told by our tour guide the next day is that in Vegas everything looks close but can actually be a long walk. Unfortunately we hadn't heard that advice when we decided to walk to Allegiant Stadium which appeared to be right next to the hotel. It turned out to be a 40min walk in nearly 40 degree temperature with no shade...
Allegiant Stadium is home of the Los Vegas Raiders NFL team (formerly the Oakland Raiders, before they relocated in 2020). The Raiders relocated to Vegas after issues with their stadium in Oakland and the city budget constraints preventing funding of a new stadium. Las Vegas offered $750,000 to help build the new stadium.
The stadium holds 65,000 and cost US$1.9 billion in 2020.
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| Spare field outside the main arena |
From the Stadium we walked across to the Luxor.
The Luxor is Egyptian themed, pyramid shaped with a sphynx and obelisk. It is 30 stories tall and has a 6,058m2 casino. It is the largest atrium by volume in the world. The Egyptian theming has been toned down in recent years, as has the light beam. When it was first built, the Luxor housed the most powerful man-made light in the world, thirty-nine 7000Watt xenon lamps are used to make a light beam straight up. It cost $51 an hour to operate. On a clear night, the full beam is visible by an aircraft 443km away, which is the distance to Los Angeles. Originally the lights ran at 42.3billion candela, but they have since been set to half power.
Tupac was staying at the Luxor in 1996 when he was killed (4 miles away).
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| The light beam from our Airbnb 8km away |
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| The Sphinx is 32m high, 24m wide and 80m long |
We walked through the Luxor to the Excalibur, a medieval themed casino that was opened in 1990. It was the largest hotel in the world until the MGM Grand opened in 1993. It has a 8,583m2 casino and was themed after Castle Neuschwanstein (but with changes to avoid Disney's castle copywrites). It was the site where the largest Megabucks Jackpot of US$39.7 million was won.
We also passed the site where the Athletics New Las Vegas Stadium is being built. The stadium has replaced the Tropicana casino and will be the home of the Athletics (former Oakland Athletics) Major League Baseball team.
The stadium will seat 33,000 and is expected to be completed in 2028.
After the walk we were hot and tired, so we headed to our AirBnb which was on the eastern edge of Vegas, about a kilometre from the strip. Once we had settled in, we had one last place to be.
We'd booked tickets to see Penn and Teller at the Rio:
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| Tom got picked (with a big group of people) to go on stage for the final act |
The Sphere was lit up for a Metallica concert, but at US$1,200 a ticket we decided to give it a miss.
