It's only 119 miles from Death Valley National Park to the Las Vegas Strip. Mileage and time wise, very short. In terms of the difference between the two, it's a couple of billion light years! Speaking of light, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure that the lights of any of the major hotels along the 4.2-mile strip uses more electricity than the entire 5,270 square miles of the national park. I wonder how they pay for all that energy consumption?
There was a time in our lives when the opportunity to visit Las Vegas was a no brainer. We enjoyed being "high rollers", playing one dollar blackjack and the culinary delights of the all you could eat (but maybe not digest) buffets at fine establishments like Circus-Circus and the Westward Ho (which no longer exists), as well as 99 cent shrimp cocktails and foot long hot dogs at the smoke filled Slots of Fun. As we've gotten older, I guess our tastes have changed and the appeal of Las Vegas diminished.
When we were planning this cross-country road trip the one stop along the way that we debated the most was "should we go to Las Vegas?", and if so for how long? We finally decided to go for it and to spend two nights. We were curious to see how "sin city" had changed since our last visit, which was around 10-12 years ago.
We had a great two days, walking the strip, recalling the glory days of our past visits and marveling at the changes that have taken place. We can say without question that Las Vegas, which was hit very hard by the pandemic, is making a strong recovery. In addition to the strip, we enjoyed an up-close look at the Hoover Dam on a two-hour Lake Mead cruise aboard the Desert Princess.
If you go to Las Vegas and don't want to spend big dollars on one of the many shows at the strip casinos there is a great show in downtown Las Vegas along Freemont Street that is free! Freemont Street is the home of many of the old casinos. In an attempt to compete with the bigger, newer casinos of the strip they created the Freemont Street Experience, which opened in 1995. Overhead there is a 1,500-foot-long LED canopy with a continuous light show, both day and night, and live music/entertainment on multiple stages. But the real show along Freemont Street is simply people watching........man, what a show!
As we put Las Vegas in the rear-view mirror, we had invested a grand total of $20 in the slot machines and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the biggest metropolitan area we had been in since this crazy pandemic started. While mostly our tastes have changed from "Vegas people" to "national park people", we really enjoyed some time in Las Vegas on this road trip.
As for "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".........if it happened after 9:00 PM .......we missed it!
