Saturday, November 16, 2013 (Las Vegas, NV)

After our regular morning routine and breakfast we were headed for the Las Vegas strip, specifically the Stratosphere and the Big Shot thrill ride.

Heading toward the Stratosphere, tall tower in the far distance

The Stratosphere had America’s tallest free standing observation tower at 1,149 ft, I’m told now that the new twin towers in New York are higher. Anyway, it’s very very tall. We rode the elevator up to the 108 floor. Boy when you first step out of that elevator and walk to the edge, it gave me a bit of vertigo. I had to hang back for awhile until I got adjusted to being that high. They have several thrill rides, but one of them was closed due to the wind today. Did I forget to mention that it was very windy out today?

One of the rides at a bargain price of $110 was called Skyfall. They dress you up in a jump suit and harness and attach you to a wire and you jump off the side of the building and free fall to the landing spot on the ground. That’s definitely not something I would want to try, no sir.

Skyfall - see the cables along side the tower, it's a long way up....

view looking down, if you look close you can see the target (it's a blue speck) at the base of the tower, it made me woozy just looking through the glass window

 

If you look in the toward the top of the picture in the center you can see a woman that just jumped......and no it wasn't me.  =)

Here is another view from the bottom of another jumper almost ready to land

It took me a while to get my courage up to just try the Big Shot, which shoots you up at almost 4g’s and then drops you back down again and it does this four times (I was counting) at varying heights. There are not good words to explain the ride and the feeling, except when you go up you leave your stomach on the ground and when you go down you leave your head in the clouds...... you’ll just have to try the ride when you are next time in Las Vegas.

Bigshot tower

Bigshot seats you are strapped into and let me tell you, you hold on for dear life.....

The view from the top of the Stratosphere is amazing, I can only imagine what it must look like at night with all the lights. I would definitely come back to the observation tower, but I don’t think I have to ride the Big Shot again, I think I’ll leave it at once is enough but I am glad I experienced it.

After our adventure at the Stratosphere, we drove back down the strip toward our rv park. It was amazing how many people were out and about today. I can’t imagine how much money all these casinos cost to build and how much money they must bring in a day, it’s mind boggling.

Not a good picture, but if you look you can see the line of people waiting to get their pictures taken in front of the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign

Crowds of people at an outdoor restaurant

More crowds walking the streets

We got back to the rv and took Gracie for a nice long walk before we got ready to go meet up with Brian and Kathy Burleigh. Rich and I worked with Brian at ODOT and Brian has since retired and moved to North Las Vegas. Brian and Kathy live in a gated community called "Ardiente". We got to the community gatehouse and checked in with the attendant and got our guest pass. Don’t try to pay Brian and Kathy a surprise visit because you won’t make it past the attendant unless Brian or Kathy have called and told them you were coming.

We had a wonderful evening visiting with Brian and Kathy and checking out their new home. They gave us a tour of their home as well as the community clubhouse and grounds. They are beautiful and I see why they chose this community. We had fun catching up on each other’s activities over the last six months or so as well as doing a little reminiscing about our times at ODOT. We had a lovely dinner at Famous Dave’s BBQ. The food was really yummy and the company was great. Thanks Brian and Kathy for the fun visit and all the laughs.

Brian & Kathy Burleigh at Famous Dave's