I suppose it all started as one small step for a man, but now there are footprints all over the ceiling trusses in the parking garage. Those crazy tourists.
Window cleaners on the side of the hotel. The guys were seated in chairs and were just slopping water all over the place. It didn't look like a terribly efficient process.
The area beneath the tower is, of course, a shopping mall and casino.
The tower is kinda high. 1,149 feet high to be exact. The tower, the hotel, and the casino cost $550,000,000.
A view of the original casino area of Las Vegas, Glitter Gulch, from the observation level. You can see the display of the Freemont Street Experience stretching between the buildings.
On top of the Stratosphere are four rides. One is a standard rollercoaster
that makes several circles around the top of the...well...top. The High Roller
is the world's highest rollercoaster. It is 840 feet long and 909 feet above
the ground. Another ride is the Big Shot which will take you and 15 other
folks from the 921-foot level straight up the tower on top of the tower to
1,081 feet at about 54 miles per hour.
As of the end of 2005 the High Roller's existence was near the end. It was
to be shut down, removed, and replaced with...well...no one knew what. I'll
update this when I find out.
The X-Scream is the third ride. It has a rollercoaster car arrangement that
travels back and forth on a short, straight track that tilts up and down.
The trick is that one end of the track extends out over the edge of the whole
Stratosphere about 27 feet. That doesn't seem like much, but at one point
you are looking at nothing but the Strip 866 feet below.
The forth ride is the new Insanity (opened in 2005). I don't have any pictures
of it...yet. It's basically chairs suspended at the end of chains from a spinning
disk connected to an arm. The disk starts spinning, and the arm, of course,
the extends the disk, the chains, the chairs, and you out over the edge. What
fun would it be without doing that?
Above is the view down Las Vegas Blvd from the north end. The large building to the left of the boulevard is the new Steve Wynn resort that was still under construction when I took this picture. It's open now and its huge.
Below the observation level there is a bar (where the picture was taken from) that looks down on the restaurant. The restaurant level slowly rotates.
Wow! The Perfect Store. Nothing but Corona beer paraphernalia.
Fun place!
This isn't the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign. This is the not quite so famous Welcome to Downtown Las Vegas sign.
2018-03-03