Viva Las Vegas

Well, you must have guessed by now from the title that I have been to LV (Las VegaS). But that was not the only place I had been to over the weekend. The weekend was a long weekend thanks to Thanksgiving. 4 days off from work , and so me and Harshit (he's my college classmate) decided to go on a road trip with one more friend Vipul, who stays in LA ( Los Angles).

We reached LA after a nights ride amid the heavy thanksgiving traffic - which had brought the expressways to a virtual standstill. Reached around 1AM after starting around 4PM from San Jose.

I have been to LA before - and that time we could not do much as it was raining. We had coasted through Beverly Hills and been to the Walk of Stars and othe attractions of LA. Just did not get the time to go to any of the rides of either Disney or Universal Studio. This time we did something better. We went to Six Flags Magic Mountain.

What is 6FMM you say ? Well, its a roller coaster park. With more rides that you can do in 1 day. We were there from 10:30 AM (park opens at 10) till 8:30 ( we were kicked out at 8 when the park closes). And man - we had pure adrenaline rush ! The top 3 rides we did were :

X - What can I say . This was the best - and not one for weak hearted people. You cant stop screaming on this one !
DejaVu - First you go one way - facing forward. then you retrace the same going backwards. And all this with a few loops and upside downs thrown in at some crazy angles.
Superman - First you rush upwards vertically at 100mph. Then there is a free fall for 6.5 secs. We were holding nickels up there which we let go and they seemed to float away from us, untill we realized we were having a free fall !

Not many pics we could take there - as it would be bad for the cameras to take them inside. Got this pic though after we finished the rides :)





Next day we set out to LV after roaming around in the Boulevard in LA and having lunch at a Greek joint ( Veg Falafels were great !). This chap was balancing cups on his head after throwing them from his feet !





The traffic was again really bad - and by the time we searched for a hotel it was already 9PM. We could only see one show - at the Freemont Boulevard. It was a light show on the ceiling which covered the entire boulevard. It would be too much to upload the video i took so here is a still from there.







Next we headed to the LA strip - where all the casinos are.





We started with Stratosphere - but the wait line to go up to the top floor was 1 hr - so we quit that and moved to Treasure Island. That's when I got to know that TI does not stand for Texas Instruments ;) . I wont go into detail of everything but the ones that I liked were :

PARIS .



The replica of the Eiffel tower is here. And ... when you enter the casino - you see the rafters for the support of the tower inside of the casino ! Great concept.




VENICE.



What else can you call a casino which has a waterway with Gondolas and the ceiling painted like the sky !


LUXOR



It is housed in a Pyramid ! The top of the pyramid emits a beam into space - which we saw miles before we were near LV. Its that powerful.

We also went to Treasure Island and Bellagio... but did not hve time for others.

Next morning we went to Bellagio to see the synchronised musical fountains - but they were shut down and some maintainence work was being done there. I could not see most of the shows this time - but I am thinking that next time if I get to go to LV, I should stay at one of the hotels/casino - that would be great :-D

Disappointed at the show being cancelled - we set off for Hoover Dam - at a crawl. Long weekends should be avoided I think ... all the people are all over the country ! We got parking quite a long way away from the dam, so after a few pics we just set out on our journey.






Our journey today was to be on Route66 - a historic route as it was the first route to be across the US running from Chicago to LA. The fun part of this route was that there was hardly any traffic through it. We stopped at Kingman for tea and there was this old locomotive engine on display there.





We were there in the Route till late at night - when we finally hit the highways to LA and reached Vipul's home - where we watched "The Magnificent Seven" :-D

Next day was back to San Jose via Route1 - which runs parallel to the pacific ocean.



We stopped for lunch at a quaint Danish village called SolVang for lunch - it was just awesome ! The village gives you the feeling that you are in Holland and not in the Us. Also - on the way to the village there is an Ostritch farm with ostritches and emus. Africa and Holland in 1 day :-D








Sunset was beautiful. By the time we stopped the car though - the sun was already setting :(



Reached back San Jose late at night. Enjoyed every day of the vacation !