Las Vegas, Day Three.

The following is a description of the exploits of a certain twenty one year old individual during his hiatus from his university during which he made the trek to Las Vegas, Nevada for a period of three days in which he had one of the most enjoyable weekends of his life. Sunday’s description follows, see below for the previous two installments.

Check out time was at 11am, but due to some late night activities the previous night, I ended up pounding my fist into the alarm clock one too many times, and sleeping through it. Luckily that didn't become a major problem, I was able to call down to the concierge and they checked me out without a problem. Was quite depressing as I looked out over the expanse one more time through the window and slowly closed the curtains, knowing it was the beginning of the end. Still had a few hours left to live it up though, so after checking my bag, I headed upstairs to the entrance to the Stratosphere Tower. Ended up screwing myself out of four bucks by checking out a few minutes before that, since you need to show your room key at the ticket counter to get the discount. It happens. I bought the entrance to the Tower fee along with a dual ride pass, ended up $16 total. A bit steep given I'd already seen the view, but if its your first time seeing it I HIGHLY recommend it. Decided to test fate with the High Roller coaster first, the roller coaster that makes its way along the outer rim of the top of the tower. I can now add the world's highest roller coaster onto my list of conquests, which was already populated by the world's fastest and the world's tallest, among various other impressive stats. The ride is relatively weak on the scream machine scale, about the same speed as the Matterhorn at Disneyland. The difference of course being that you're a thousand feet above the ground. Riding on the outside is fun, but you don't really feel like you might go careening off into space, since just below you and to the outside is the outdoor observation deck, blocking most of the "straight down" view. The ride circles the top three times, and does two loops of the full track, but still is only a minute or two long. It's a good warmup for the main attraction on top, but might not be worth the price for anyone other than the die hards trying to add that notch to their stick.

Following the first ride you're led into an area where you can buy pictures of yourself, which leads directly into the waiting area for the "big cahuna," the Thrill Shot. This is a type of ride seen in many places, I've personally ridden one at Cedar Point in Ohio called the Power Tower, and there's another at California Adventure in Anaheim. Its a variation on the ride called Supreme Scream at Knott's Berry Farm, in that one you are slowly lifted to a height of something like three hundred feet, and after being held at the top for a few seconds, are slammed downward with a force even greater than gravity, before bouncing up before hitting the ground, and getting to a height smaller and smaller each time before slowly coming to a rest of the ground. The Thrill shot is the opposite, you go from sitting in a chair minding your own business a foot or two off the ground, to being launched by compressed air with a force of 4 G's up a huge needle protruding from the top of the Tower, eventually slowing down in a hurry and plummeting down again, which allows for a period of weightlessness each time you reach the peak height and begin to fall again. Many rides such as the ones at Cedar Point and California Adventure are made up of four of the pillars, two to raise you up and then drop you, and two to launch you up before letting you fall. Having ridden both, I can't really decide which is more visually intimidating or causes me to be more apprehensive. They're both quite intense. The Thrill Shot however, had me quite worried. In sheer size it was only about half the height of the types of these rides I'd been on before, but when you tack 150 feet onto a thousand foot tower, you're ending up 1150 feet above the Strip in broad daylight, and that's a long way down. Luckily, I happened to be getting on the ride at the same time as two twelve year old or so girls, so that was enough of a blow to my ego to get me onto the thing and locked in without much of a fuss. My goal as a kid was just to get into the car and get the safety restraint down, and then scream bloody murder if necessary. I chose an end seat facing the strip (there are four on each side) and I highly recommend that position for future ridegoers. On the way up if you're on the edge you can't really see the tower or the side perpindicular to you in your peripheral vision, so other than the restraint of the person next to you, it literally seems like you're being launched to the moon, with no apparent falling point in sight. Within one second or so you also can't see the platform you were launched from since its blocked by your seat and feet, so no evidence exists that you even have somewhere to fall to. Needless to say, it's quite exhilerating. They play rave-like music during the loading period and while you wait, which then climaxes with a hard low bass note, about a half a second before you're flying. I wasn't quite as loud as the girls next to me, although I put up a good fight.

After returning to earth from my spacewalk I called my parents from the pay phone they have on the outdoor observation deck, and proceeded to brag about how I was higher than them, and discussed some of the PG-13 versions of my exploits over the past few days. I then wandered around enjoying the view one last time, before heading back down to the elevator to the normal world. This was the first day I wasn't spiffed out, and I was glad, it was maybe 90 degrees outside, and a t-shirt and jeans were much more appropriate. I decided walking would be fastest in order to get over to the Sahara, the location of my next conquest. Speed: The Ride, actually ended up being my favorite roller coaster in Vegas (Thrill Shot fitting into the thrill ride category, but isn't a traditional roller coaster). For 8 bucks you can buy a double ride, which is good because the ride itself is about a minute long. This one is very comparable to Superman: The Escape at Six Flags Magic Mountain, in that you are accelerated by magnetics to a great speed almost immediately, before flying through the ride and up a vertical tower, and then returning through the same track and slowed down by the same magnets to arrive back at the station. The additions to this one were many however. Rather than a pure up and back ride focusing purely on speed (Superman is the world's fastest at 100mph) you immediately go into a diving curve once you're out of the station, through a tunnel, and up into a huge loop. You then reach a section of the track that's straight and uphill, which proceeds to FURTHER accelerate to an even greater speed, before you're slung around a curve and up the tower. This acceleration in the middle of the track is something I've never experienced before, and that "pedal to the metal head slammed back against the seat" feeling was quite awesome. You then experience similar weightlessness to Superman and are decellerated by the same track before procedding backwards through the loop, always a cool feeling, and returning through the tunnel and curve to the station. Short, but very satisfying. The second ride is merely an added bonus. After clinging on for dear life the first time, I decided to keep my hands up the whole time during the second go round, and that just doubled the fun. Waving your arms in circular motions as you fall backwards through a loop gives you a sense of chaos, of course if you're worried about the shoulder restraint failing I recommend avoiding this tactic like the plague. :)

From the Sahara I headed back to the Stratosphere to pick up my bag, and then took a taxi back down the Strip to the New York New York, in order to complete the Vegas coaster trilogy. Checking my bag there almost became an issue as they asked me whether I was "checking out or checking in." Not being a guest I replied I'd just checked out, but unfortunately they went to check my name in the computer. As luck may have it, someone with the same first and last time had just checked out that morning, and when they asked if the room number was correct I just said "Yeah, that sounds about right." Bent the rules a bit, but it worked out. Headed upstairs to ride the Manhattan Express, the major roller coaster the circles around the manmade skyline of the New York New York. I'd heard rave reviews about it, and was looking forward to the section of the roller coaster they call the heartline roll, where the track literally just rotates lengthwise so you're inverted for about a second before you hit a curve that returns you to an upright position. You end up traveling back the way you came just below the track you entered on, and that wasn't a manuever I'd experienced before, other than a somewhat similar style curve on the Six Flags Magic Mountain coaster Flashback, which became unpopular in a hurry after it caused more headaches than it was worth. The restraints on this one were unlike any I'd seen, instead of your classic U shaped shoulder restraint, it was if they'd cut off the bottom part of the U, so you just had two curved padded bars that rested on your shoulders, and then a waist bar you pulled down to take the place of where the lower part of the U would have been. It looked comfortable until I actually got on, and then I found it to be not as cool as I thought. The first part of the ride shows promise, you get carted up a large lift hill next to the structure of the hotel, and can see your reflection in the wall of glass, so you can see how far you have to go up the hill, a neat effect. It isn't anywhere near the height of such other rides I've experienced like Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain (I don't work for them, its just an awesome place thrill rides wise so I'll continue to plug it), but after a somewhat small drop down the first hill you go over another and go down a much larger drop the second time, still didn't seem that humongous or anything. This is where the ride started getting violent, and I'm going to have to give it about an 8 on a violent scale of 10. Through the loop, and especially through a lot of the curves, I was banged around quite a bit. The fact that it includes a Flashback like turn probably means it had to involve Flashback style cars or track, causing it to be a bit painful. It's a relatively long ride by way of pure length, and yes that one turn is a pretty neat feeling as you remain inverted a bit longer than your traditional loop, but I came off it with a bit of a headache. I'd decided to buy a double ride like on Speed, which unfortunately came at double the price at $15. The second time through I tried putting my hands up, but rather quickly had to reluctantly grab onto the shoulder restraints again, trying to keep my head from slamming into them as much as possible. Gave me a decent workout anyway, and I got to ride on the other side of the car and closer to the back, but it still was far below what my expectations were. I recommend once on this ride if necessary, otherwise head down the Strip for Speed or the view and thrill rides on top of the Stratosphere, for a much more comfortable and exhilerating experience.

Unfortunately due to my late wakeup I ended up having to nix a couple of the other activities I had planned for the day, as well as due to the horror stories I'd heard about security at the airport taking up to two hours on average. I did get a chance to go over and see the lions at the MGM Grand, which is free, but I didn't think it to be anywhere near as amazing as the Secret Garden of Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage. The crowd around the glass enclosed cage was about four people deep, so it was hard to get a good view. The hotel had been redesigned since I last visited, you no longer walked through the legs of the giant lion out front, which is what I thought was the coolest part back then. Ended up deciding to just hang out there until it was time to head for the airport, I'd been hoping to get down to the Eiffel Tower at Paris and hopefully get a look at the Fountains at the Bellagio, but I wasn't even sure if the Fountains would be running as they'd been off for the previous two days, and I wasn't sure how long the Eiffel Tower would take, and paying the $9 just to rush up and down didn't sound like too much fun. So there's plenty to do on the next trip anyway. :) Kept winning the "last hand" on Blackjack and then the next two, before losing a couple and coming back to the "last hand" and winning again, so I finally just had to pry myself away and head for the door. I did throw in a random dollar "on the way out" into this one machine with like four separate reels, and ended up winning on two of them, and cashing out at $15. So I left a winner, always a good feeling. After snagging my bag and a taxi the trip to the airport was relatively uneventful, other than me throwing longing glances towards the Strip, as it became further and further away. It turned out the wait at the airport was minimal, and so I killed about an hour with a personal pan pizza and yummy TCBY yogurt with M&M's mixed in, always a good combination. And yes I spent a couple more bucks at the airport slots, and no I didn't win a million. :)

For the flight out I was on the window seat Strip side this time, so I was able to see the Luxor Pyramid, Eiffel Tower, and lastly the Stratosphere all disappear into the fading light. Was I sad? Very. The return to the real world was not a welcome one after living like a king for a period of three days. Anyone heading that direction? Need a tagalong? [wink] Frankly I think that trip was one of a kind. I hope someday I'll be able to afford to take myself back on my own bill, and try to recapture some of the glory. When I'm old and gray though, I'll be able to think back to my 21st birthday, and remember what it felt like to have the time of my life.