A Day In Vegas

Las Vegas: The City

After a lifetime of movies and TV shows depicting Las Vegas as a strip of casinos, it’s kind of interesting to visit it in person and find out that it’s really just a city like any other. There are different neighborhoods, grocery stores, chain restaurants, etc. The only difference is that downtown has that strip of casinos, but it would be easy to come here and not know that they even exist. On my last trip, I made it a point to place a bet at a roulette wheel, which I won and promptly cashed-out. While gambling isn’t my thing, anyone who reads my blog knows that hiking IS one of my things, and the area surrounding Las Vegas offers a lot along those lines.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area

While I was here on my last trip, my uncle took me on a great hike in Red Rock Canyon. In my pursuit of visiting as many National Parks and Monuments on my trip as possible, I discovered I could easily add a visit to Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which was conveniently near Hoover Dam, southeast of the city. My uncle was familiar with the hike that I wanted to take there, but had never taken it himself because it’s on the opposite side of the city. The trail follows the path of an old railroad that overlooked Lake Mead from the south and passed through multiple tunnels carved through the hillside. He agreed to take me as long as we left early because the forecast was hot and windy.

Lake Mead was surprisingly far away and my idea of early isn’t my uncle’s idea of early, so we arrived there a little later than we wanted to. It was a beautiful and interesting hike of a little over 4 miles that passed through five old railroad tunnels and provided a great, ever-changing view of Lake Mead below. My uncle wasn’t thrilled with the view of the lake, though, because it’s become so low that there are concerns about Hoover Dam’s ability to generate power for Las Vegas. By the time we completed the out-and-back hike, which was a bit easier on the return because it was all downhill, the temperature had risen into the upper-80s and the wind had picked-up badly.

Hoover Dam

On my previous trip, my plan was to stop at Hoover Dam between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. That plan was squashed when I informed the security check point guards that I had a gun in the car and they turned me away. The bridge heading east past the dam didn’t even provide me a view and it was disappointing.

This time, I made sure to leave the gun at home. The dam was a short drive from the Lake Mead NRA parking lot and after three long years I finally got some views of Hoover Dam. While the dam was impressive, the part that had me shaking my head more than anything was the quantity of people who also came to see it. It was a Thursday morning and it felt like a weekend at Cedar Point from my childhood. It was hard to believe, but my uncle pointed-out that when people came to Las Vegas, a visit to Hoover Dam was on the to-do list for people who’d never been there before.

Tell Them “The Green Beetle” Sent You

While I’m keeping track of mileage on my trip, I hadn’t run a total and wasn’t prepared for my car to tell me that I needed to have an oil change in the next 1200 miles. Now, I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure that I’ve got more than 1200 miles to go before I get back home. After considering the remainder of my trip, this day in Las Vegas seemed like the best opportunity to get an oil change and it was just a question of where to get it done.

The last time I went to a quick-stop oil change place was probably in early 2006 before I bought my first new car. Ever since then, I’ve just taken the car to the dealership, figuring they had the right tools and the supplies to service my car. My first thought was to call local Volkswagen dealerships to see if they had an opening, but none did, so I bit the bullet and picked a drive-in oil change spot.

When I pulled my car in, one of the employees dips into my driver’s side window and says, “We don’t have oil for this car” talking about European blends of synthetic oil, etc. He just happens to know a place that can do it, though, which is also the only place he trusts to work on his VW as a matter of fact, and sends me on my way, instructing me to tell them that “The Green Beetle sent you”, which explains the tricked-out, green VW Beetle that was parked near the shop.

The place was located about fifteen minutes away and I’m told they can do the job but it will be about an hour and a half because there are people in front of me. For a change, I had planned on something like this happening and brought my laptop and earbuds with me, so while I waited I was able to put the finishing touches on the blog post covering my visit to Death Valley that I didn’t have an opportunity to do earlier in the day.

A Relaxing Evening

After I returned from my oil change, my uncle, his wife Ellen and I went out for an early dinner. Back at home, my uncle and I spent the rest of the night talking and flipping between local news, hockey games and a Fast and Furious marathon. While I think I explained the F&F universe as well as anyone can, I’m not sure he’s going to dive any deeper than the bits and pieces of Fast and Furious and Fast Five that he saw last night. By the end of the last hockey game, I was completely wasted and went to bed early, hoping to get an early start tomorrow morning.