LAS VEGAS (Day 12 - part 2)
We grabbed some lunch at a charming place called Idle Spurs. It was built in early 50's by Chuck and Jeannie O'Hara and based on a western ranch theme. There was nothing vegetarian on the menu but the waitress was happy to swap out avocado instead of bacon on a delicious BLT sandwich.
Every good place needs a cowboy lamp!
Inside was even a large garden.
Fiestaware is a line of ceramic dinnerware made by the Homer Laughlin China Company in West Virginia. It was first introduced in 1936 as a radical departure from the traditional Victorian-style. People could mix & match individual pieces instead of having to buy a complete set. It was not the first of its type on the market, but is was the first widely mass-promoted one.
Sarsaparilla is a carbonated soft drink originally made from the sarsaparilla plant (a vine found in Mexico and Central America). In the Old West, however, it was made using the root of the sassafras plant (which has since been banned as a likely carcinogen) and called root beer. Sassafras was widely used as a home remedy in the 1800's. Adding it to carbonated water (which was believed to also have health benefits) made it easy-to-take medicine (much as Coca-Cola was an easy-to-take form of cocaine). It was marketed in 1885 as a remedy for hangovers, headaches and morphine addiction.
We hit the road again... eventually leaving California and entering Nevada.
There was no inspection station on the roads leading out of the state.
A military convoy of some sort
Originally known as Soda Springs, the area received this made-up name in 1944 by its owner, Curtis Howe Springer, whose intention was to have it be the last word in the English language.
Beef, turkey, pork, buffalo, ostrich and even alligator... but apparently no actual aliens are used in the making of their jerky.
The world's tallest thermometer in Baker showed it was over 100 degrees out! Willis Herron had the 134-foot-tall, three-sided digital display built in 1990 using 33 tons of steel and almost 5,000 lamps. Unfortunately strong winds broke it, but he had it rebuilt (this time filled with concrete) in 1992. It stopped working in 2012 but was repaired and back in business in 2014. Its highest recorded temperature: 127 degrees in August 1995.
A forest of Joshua trees
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System consists of three solar thermal power plants, making it the world's largest solar thermal power station. The facility formally opened the beginning of 2014.
Lots of desert equals lots of desert sports, such as racing around in this dune buggy...
... or land sailing. The earliest text describing a "wind-driven carriage" comes from China around the year 550.
Suddenly, an entire city rises out of the sand...
... Primm, Nevada. It started out as just a gas station straddling the state line in the 1920's. In the 1950's, Ernest J. Primm felt that 'if you can get them to stop, you can get them to stay.' And so he began to build on the barren patch of desert located about 40 miles south of Las Vegas. His son, Gary, took over in 1981 and began adding casinos. It has since become a destination in its own right... far cheaper and with less crowds than Vegas. The town was renamed from State Lane to Primm in 1996. Although it eventually lost its own post office and now is listed under the city of Jean.
The Gold Strike casino hotel was opened in 1987...
... and had probably the world's largest gold panner!
Being a desert, the valley recycles its wastewater. Wastewater ranges from raw sewage, then effluent (water that flows out of a treatment plant or sewer) and finally secondary effluent (after several treatment steps).
Back in the middle of nowhere
Billboards promising to satisfy every desire lined the way.
Created just a couple months ago (in May 2016) by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, Seven Magic Mountains is one of the largest land-based art installations in the US in over 40 years. The stacked limestone boulders painted in fluorescent colors will be on display through May 2018.
Approaching Las Vegas
It was hot out!!
The Luxor, opened in 1993, is the fifth-largest hotel in Vegas.
New York-New York is built after the New York City skyline of the 1940's and includes the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and a 150-foot-tall Statue of Liberty.
The white building is a copy of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Monument located in New York City.
It commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War.
When Excalibur opened in 1990, it was the largest hotel in the world with over 4,000 rooms and covering over 70 acres. Today it is only the seventh-largest hotel inVegas.
The MGM Grand was the largest hotel complex in the world when it opened in 1993.
Welcome to the Las Vegas strip
Building-sized guitars...
... and giant motorcycles
Sinners...
... and saints
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