Day 70 - Las Vegas NV - 8633 Miles

Today we made the drive to Las Vegas from Twin Falls through 500 of the most God-forsaken miles in the country. Three different times during the drive we encountered signs warning that the next gas station was over 100 miles ahead. The picture pretty much shows what the terrain looked like. I could have faced any direction I wanted and the picture would have looked the same. I could have driven 200 miles and repeated the process and the picture would have looked the same.

It looked like the desert terrain from every bad movie you've ever seen where some inbred clan grabs unsuspecting motorists from the highway to torture, maim, and kill. It started out as high desert so it wasn't terribly hot, but by the time we got into town in was 107 degrees.

We're staying at the Luxor on the south end of the strip. I got off the interstate downtown so we could drive the length of the strip and see what it looked like. After making the drive averaging maybe 5 mph where turning left or right across three lanes of traffic seemed to be a pretty common practice and seeing the thousands of people walking around, I would have been willing to just keep driving out the south end of town and get an early start on heading home. Not wanting to forfeit my deposit, I decided to stay.

We made a few laps around the parking deck before we found a spot. Then we headed to registration. It looked like an American Airlines ticket counter at Thanksgiving. We finally got to the room. Hotels in Vegas don't age well. We stayed here soon after it opened and it was pretty impressive. Now it's just another hotel with worn carpets and stains on the ceilings. Another problem I have is that Vegas is no longer the home of 99-cent shrimp cocktails, $2.99 breakfast buffets, and $4.99 prime rib dinners. Now the food and drink, whether it's is the buffets, food courts, or fine dining is horribly overpriced.

I reactivated my players card from the last time I was here. They were real vague on how many points you needed to accumulate to get any benefits, but they did say every 1000 points would get you $10 of free play. Terry and I played the poker machines for a while and managed to accumulate 2 points. I don't think I'll get a room comp any time soon. We did manage to win $9 which nearly offset the excessive cost of our food court dinner. These five days will probably cure my urge to visit Las Vegas fr a good long time.