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December 2003

Nevada - Las Vegas and surrounding areas

David Aaronson
2005-09-27 20:59:55

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We stayed at the Paris while in Las Vegas. This was the view out of our window across the strip to the Bellagio and a partial view of the fountain shows there (1). The music the fountains are choreographed to is lost in the traffic noises from this distance

Here we are in front of the Sphinx at the Luxor hotel which is unsurprisingly Egyptian-themed (2). This is actually a stop on Las Vegas's new mass-transit system which at the time only had three stops on it.

The Mirage features a volcano out front which 'erupts' every few minutes (3). For the record, actual volcano eruptions are much more impressive (see the Costa Rica pages from 2001).

The mini-Eiffel Tower (4). How many mini-Eiffel Tower's are there in the US alone? We know of 4 (the others being Paramount theme parks) at least. Inside, the Paris hotel is French-themed in the same way French Toast is (i.e. nominally). We're trying not to be biased by the number of mistakes they made during our stay, it's a nice enough hotel but we probably won't be staying there again.

The Venetian hotel which has a scale model version of every postcard view in Venice crammed into the courtyard in front of the hotel (5). Inside is quite spacious and features a gondola route with much much cleaner water than the original. In the casino they seem to use a carpet shampoo scented by Chanel guaranteed to give most people (4 out of 4 in our case) a headache within 3 minutes.

Lake Mead, just a few miles south of Las Vegas was formed by the creation of Hoover Dam which backed up the Colorado River so much that it no longer reaches the Gulf of California during much of the year. This is view from Hoover Dam looking upstream towards Lake Mead (6). The massive drop in water level apparent here is partially seasonal and partially due to the Bellagio's fountain shows. Actually, it's a combination ...