It was raining fairly heavily on the 22nd (when I drove to Las Vegas), and I got this picture of a double rainbow. You have to look carefully to find the second one, but it is there.
Most of the pictures here are from the downtown area. I went over to El Cortez, one of the older casinos in Las Vegas, as evidenced by their advertisement. (This is a reference to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, a mobster who was big in the early history of Las Vegas.) The casino has pictures of famous old-time stars. You can’t take photos in a casino, but the picture of Jack Benny is in the entryway from the garage. The comedy/tragedy faces are above the hotel’s theater marquee.
On the street outside the hotel are signs from older casinos. A couple of them are further down on Fremont street. Hover the mouse over a picture for details. I also took some pictures at Neonopolis, but they didn’t come out terribly well.
Across from El Cortez is a building which used to be a medical center and now houses offices for designers and artists. It also is the home of the Beat coffee house, which was part of a report on Las Vegas from NPR.
Further down Fremont Street, I found that there are still people who believe that an apostrophe means “Look out! Here comes the letter S!”
Recently, a company installed a zip line on Fremont Street; it lets you slide down a cable from a height of 67 feet, reaching speeds of up to 35 miles per hour (or so says their advertisement). When you sign up, you are told to go to the observation deck on the fifth floor of the building if you have a fear of heights; you can check if it will be too much for you. I went up there and took these two pictures from the roof. I didn’t do the zip line, but may do it on Sunday. If I work up the nerve.
On the way back to where I’m staying, I passed through the low-rent district and saw these old-school motel signs.
