Saturday, November 29, 2008

Grave Yard

I have always said I wish there was a museum dedicated to the old signs from the Vegas Hotels. Well I found out there is such a place. Not quite a museum.... yet, but there is a collection of the signs in a fenced in parking lot down Las Vegas Blvd. You have to book tours, but by the time we emailed our request it was too late. :-( Barry and Sheila hadn't been to the"Bone yard, neon sign museum" yet and they were intrigued like us. Their son, said he used to hop the fence, so the 4 of us drove out to the site, to be criminals. (feel free to click and see better details...)

We were greeted by a big fence with nasty barbed wire all over it....

Being like a cat, I hopped up on the fence, still denied access, but at least I had a better view.

Some of the signs I had to google to see what they once were. This sign was from the Royal Nevada, which disappeared in the 60'2. I bet this is one of the oldest ones here?
I found a pic of the old sign in it's glory days.

This is from the hotel Treasure Island. Apparently whoever the idea man over at the hotel was he probably got fired over this one.... months before Pirates of the Caribbean opened, Treasure Island stripped itself of the pirate theme, and changed their name to TI, giving themselves a new look, who knew Pirates would be one of the hottest marketing ploys today! I guess they figured that out, because it's back to being Treasure Island and guess what? The pirates are back. Not this unlucky guy tho.

This is one of the Lamp's from the Aladdin. The latest Lamp was taken down before the hotel switched from the Aladdin to Planet Hollywood. It sits near Freemont street, all lit up. But this one, wasn't so lucky. Here it is now and below is where it sat before.

Perched up high above the Aladdin

These diamonds were driving me nuts trying to figure out where I had sen them before. When I got home I looked in my scrapbook from 1987, and there was a picture of the Stardust! Mystery solved.


I found these 2 pics online, one of the hotel down, and the other of the sign being dismantled in pieces, that explains why there are diamonds all over the boneyard, the sign is huge!



In '87 I saw a show at the silver slipper, Boylesque was playing there. I found an interesting story online about this little malicious slipper.....
The Silver Slipper was a Las Vegas, Nevada casino that operated from September 1950 to November 29, 1988. . The casino was known for its rotating slipper that sat atop the casino.
On April 30, 1968, the Silver Slipper was purchased by billionaire Howard Hughes for $5.4 million in his famous spending spree of buying Vegas properties, which included the Frontier next door. Legend has it that he purchased the casino because the lights from the rotating slipper bothered him. This was a time when Mr. Hughes feared for his safety, and because the toe of the slipper always stopped and faced the window of his Desert Inn penthouse before rotating again, he feared a camera could be planted in the toe either by the government or someone else. After several attempts at requesting that the slipper be turned off, Hughes purchased the casino, had the slipper filled with concrete and dismantled the rotating mechanism.
The casino was purchased for $70 million on June 23, 1988 by Margaret Elardi, who by this time owned the Frontier. It was demolished several months later and turned into a parking lot. There were plans to build an addition to the Frontier on its former grounds; however, they had to eventually be scrapped due to a costly union strike taking place, which put a severe financial strain on the resort.



Here are more pieces of the Stardust, and random letters. I'm working on finding out what they came from, as of yet, mystery continues.
I wasn't going to put this pic on the bog because I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what it said. We tried every "S" word there was. Then once again,my scrapbook to the rescue, I went to a Museum in '87, little museum called.... LIBERACE, and his signature on the booklet matches the black sign. So it wasn't an "S" after all, it's an "L"
Thru Google I could not find a picture of the Sahara with the letters going downwards. All the sites had the letters left to right, and then I found it... yep, in my scrapbook, this sign in '87.
Always a reason to go back to Vegas, here is one of them, to actually get inside the fence of this very kewl tourist must see attraction!!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Vegas Through The Lens.


The amazing Wynn Hotel.

An exclusive french restaurant's menu at the MGM Grand.
Click on the pic and take a look at the price of a taster menu.
Hey, it's Vegas...


Las Vegas Boulevard otherwise known as The Strip
accidently blurred by Selena but wow one of my
favourite pics.

More food. From LBS Burger - aptly named The Perfect
Burger. It really was perfect. Wow.

The best hosts in the world, Barry and Sheila.
Only in Vegas it seems. A wine glass,
gently placed on the ground in a
parking garage outside the Red
Rock Casino, a 1 billion dollar
neighbourhood casino. No plastic cups
here! Neighbourhood means that it is way
off The Strip in the suburbs of Las Vegas
near where we stayed. They are all over
Las Vegas like Costcos are in Calgary.
The famous Fremont Street - featured
in a episode of CSI - even cooler in person.
The best omlette I've ever had. Oven baked filled
with Gouda cheese - it must have weighed 5 pounds.

The Luxor beams light into the night
Vegas Sky.

KA

We went to one of the Cirque De Soleil shows, this one was KA. The story line was about twins separated, and their journey back to each other. WOW! Is the one word to describe this, vertical show. I have NEVER seen a show that is upright,vertical, actors dropping off the stage, and nonstop motion in my life!! It was incredible! Anyone heading to sin city should see this performance. We got a great picture taken of us by the jesters that run around,but we have to scan it so I'll upload it after. For now, this is all you get, cause no cameras were allowed.



After the show we called our roomies to rave about the show!!!

Fortune


So this lovely lady told us our fortune, and it was that you will get riped off!! Her fortune never dropped out, so we lost .50. Instead of listening to her we preceded to drop a 20.00 into the slots, just to say we did, we got the same result as the fortune teller....nothing dropped out of the slot!

Red Rock Canyon

Believe it or not, it rains in Las Vegas, not just any kind of rain either, record rain! So I guess when Barry and Sheila talk about rain here they will remember us being here for the record fall.

Anyway despite the rain, we headed for the hills. We took the morning and went to Red Rock Canyon. How incredible! The color was intensified by the rain, and the cloud cap is pretty cool. So it turned out to be a great day to see the mountains!


We must have been following a wedding, because in amongst the dry earth, there were red rose petals. Great contrast.

This tree was so kewl, again, contrast in colors. We were at the highest point here.


Our license plate of our 9.00 rental car!


This is new! Graffiti on a living plant!


Sheila and I doing our part to preserve the area, keeping the rock from falling.

Proof! Rain on the window.

Here is an article from the Vegas Sun;
Anyone in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving Day witnessed something few have ever seen on the holiday. It rained.
The National Weather Service said 0.14 inches of rain fell at McCarran International Airport on Thursday. Since records have been kept, beginning in 1937, the airport never has recorded measurable rainfall on Thanksgiving Day -- that is, until this year.
The rain amount also broke a record for Nov. 27, set in 1981, when one-hundredth of an inch of rain fell in the city. It was the second day of record-breaking rainfall -- the 0.32 of an inch that fell Wednesday set a record for Nov. 26.!!
That's us!!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in Vegas is something to see! Every hotel has a buffet for all walks of life. Just pick your menu! At one hotel we saw lineups for free pumpkin pie. Regulars got pie vouchers! We were lucky enough to celebrate it with great friends, Barry and Sheila, and their family and friends. This was a list of dinners at one of the hotels. It couldn't have been as good as what we ate! Sheila, hats off.... you are an amazing cook!
Our Thanksgiving table...


These are famous Bundt Cakes that are high demand in Vegas!! They are from "Nothing Bundt Cakes"
Fabulous evening, Thanks guys :-)

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Bodies

We saw an interesting exhibit today?? Hmm, how do I explain it? We saw dead bodies, real ones,but the the muscle and bones that were left looked like wax, so it was hard to believe they were real, and I'm not sure I wanted to? I know I like the macabre at Halloween, but not really these kinds of dead bodies.

We wanted to see Titanic, we've been looking forward to seeing it since we missed it in Toronto...only to be denied again. Last week it was in the Tropicana, they are moving it to the Luxor, and.... as yet, it isn't open. :-(

So we walked.... and walked and walked. We went into a bunch of hotels to check them out,and took tons of pix along the way. We found one of my favorite stores.... the Coke store! It even has a whole section for Diet Coke.. needless to say, I'll be shopping there! The hotels are amazing! We walked a huge chunk of the strip today, then it started to get dark. We headed back to our car, and got to see some of the neon glow.

Back to our amazing "suite" at Barry and Sheila's, We had a great supper, then we all headed to Freemont street to see the light show. Soooo kewl! Tonight is was Queen songs. Now we are turning in, to recharge for tomorrow.


inside one of the casinos

:-(


weird!

The Coke Bear!


New York, New York

Monte Carlo

Paris Hotel


The Coke Store

The end of Freemont Street


Freemont Street



Dancing on Freemont Street