Back to Square One

You may remember from our Camping Basics class at REI (shameless self-hyperlink) back in January 2012 that Step 1 is NAVIGATION: know how to stay oriented.

For you Vegasphiles, I challenge you to identify the famous Las Vegas landmarks in the following photos from Top of the World:

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

I am proud that Amanda and I were able to identify directions and landmarks, and it only took us a combined total of 14 years of living here to be able to do so.

The views were fantastic, and the marketing was clever. The restaurant rotates, but the tower doesn't. So a cart of faux desserts sits on the tower and twice in an hour-long lunch, you rotate past the dessert cart. Here was the view of my dessert:

And for the entertainment of everyone involved...

No skyjumpers flew by during lunch. But we did get to wave to some riders on the Insanity.

For your further photographic love of Vegas, see Krista's interpretation of the Boneyard (another self-hyperlink) over on the Wannabe.

Apocalypse Foreshadowing: Earth Hour

In celebration of SPRING BREEEEEAAAAAK!!!!! 2012, the next few posts will be dedicated to experiences and images that I feel might give us an impression of what the world-as-we-know-it will look like after it ends. With this in mind, I was quite excited to kick off my vacation week by celebrating Earth Hour at the Stratosphere. Here's the article from the Las Vegas Sun that describes the event; oddly, the Sun didn't mention our own observations in Las Vegas.

Back in March 2009, I drove down the Strip during Earth Hour and was freaked out enough to want to go back this year. I chose the vantage point of the 1,100-foot observation deck, the highest observation deck in the U.S., from which to do it.

It was windy.

Here's a shot of the Strip BEFORE 8:30, with all the lights on:

Now, at the time, I thought that the minutes after 8:30 were anticlimactic. It will be interesting for me to see the comparison from DURING Earth Hour:

Yeah, it looks very different with the two photos next to each other. Nevertheless, we agreed that next year we will view Earth Hour from the top of the parking garage at the Bellagio. It was definitely more apocalyptic driving down Las Vegas Blvd. three years ago. But it was TOTALLY WORTH IT, because we stayed until 9:30, when the lights began to come back on. The casinos turned their lights on within a span of a few minutes. We stood there and "woo-hoo!"ed each time a new sign or building lit back up.

Some tourists who knew nothing about Earth Hour wandered by to find out what exactly we were yelling about, but the effect was lost on them, because they didn't know which buildings were which. It was much easier to notice the difference AFTER than it was before or during.

Earth Hour 2012 at the Stratosphere Tower was pretty much a perfect way to begin Spring Break.
There will be more otherworldly scenery to look forward to as the week unfolds.