TR-VegasVacation ala ';The Griswolds'; (PART 2)

PART 2: (Long)

DAY 5: Route 66 to Oatman, Burros, Gold Road Mine, Golden Nugget (Laughlin) and Homeland Security.

Started the day at the Powerhouse in Kingman, which is a very nice Route 66 museum and visitor center. Then we hit the ';Old Road'; toward Oatman, which is THE absolute funnest section of old Route 66 to drive (especially at night). This 20 or so mile section goes up into the mountains and has about a zillion switchbacks. How any of them old timey rigs from the early 20s and 30s made it I%26#39;ll never know.

Once in Oatman you are instantly transplanted back in time to the late 1880%26#39;s or so (almost) with old wooden shops with wood sidewalks up and down the street. Oatman was a big-time mining town back in the day and now is a big time TOURIST town similar to Virginia City up towards Reno.

There are the ever present ten to twenty burros wandering around across the road looking for carrots. Its fun for the kids to feed the burros, but buy your carrots at the grocery store before you get to Oatman or you will pay jacked up prices for the privislege of feeding THEIR animals. BTW, these burros are all descendants of the ones used in the gold mines way back when. All the store owners seem to know them by name. These animals have it pretty good actually. At Noon every day there is the BIG FAKE gunfight in the middle of the road and the bad guys always lose, SHOCK. The ';actors'; collect donations from the tourists for the Children%26#39;s Shrine Hospital and for five bucks you get an autographed photo of said gunfighters.

After leaving the burros behind we proceeded to the Gold Road Mine for a tour. It was OK, but not worth walking into again. Now back thru Oatman toward Laughlin, roughly 30 minutes away.

I like Laughlin a lot for a number of reasons. First, a drive down the ';Laughlin Strip'; takes you by ALL of their 8 or so casinos in about 15 minutes if you hit a couple lights as opposed to moving about a car length in 15 minutes in Vegas. Also, you can to walk to nearly all of the casinos on a sidewalk along the edge of the Colorado River, very scenic. And you also have the cool option of a water taxi for $4 to get to any of the casinos that way. Two other reasons I like Laughlin are low room rates for good quality lodging and the casual, lazy feel of the town as opposed to the rush-rush that is Vegas. As far as gambling goes, you can pretty much get any wager you need in Laughlin, same as Vegas.

Pulled into Golden Nugget and this place is as good or better than it had been prior to ownership changes. Valet parking was at least a 10 second wait and the same guy had our bags to the rooms before we called for them. Overall, GREAT customer service from check-in to check-out.

The rooms had been updated since 2004 when I stayed there and the ';tropical'; motif has been replaced by a more subtle golden/tan kind of deal, whatever. I don%26#39;t care one way or the other as long as the bed and pillows are comfortable, I can crank the A/C to achieve 68 degrees in the room when its 108 outside and the view is not of the parking garage. Rooms passed inspection A-OK and for $39 a night I%26#39;m down with that all the time.

Wife and son headed out to a VACANT pool at 5pm, when was that EVER achieved at a Vegas pool? The GN pool is small but since there are only about 200 rooms and mostly OLD guys stay there, I doubt if its ever real crowded. Has a great view of the Colorado River.

SS headed to sportsbook where there was exactly ZERO futures bets worth playing. I like these deals but the casinos evidently don%26#39;t like paying them off at reasonable odds so now they are getting very stingy. Not that I wanted to bet this, but Texas A%26amp;M at 85/1 to win the College Footbal BCS this year? WTF, are you kidding me? They should be 85/1 to win the Big 12 and about 8500/1 to win the BCS. Oh well, guess I%26#39;ll just keep the futures tickets I already have on Texas, Penn State, Florida State, and LSU.

Didn%26#39;t feel like playing at an empty craps table so did what I do best, drive around and explore stuff. Hadn%26#39;t been over Davis Dam in awhile so thought I would do that little excursion and maybe a little of Christmas Tree Pass toward CAl-Nev-Ari since I had an SUV. Little did I know that I was about to become a possible security risk for the United States of America.

I started the drive over to the dam Dam along the west shore of the Colorado River and was perplexed when I saw a sign that said, ';Davis Dam Road Closed';. Wondering why, I just drove on past the sign. When I got to the road leading up to and over the dam Dam there was another sign that said ';Road Closed'; and some concrete barriers ';kind of'; blocking the road about 100 yards away. Since they were only ';kind of'; blocking the road, I decided to investigate further and rive up to them. That was a BAD IDEA.

About 10 seconds after pulling to the side of the road and getting out to check out the barrier deal, here comes a black Tahoe or Suburban out of the dam Dam parking lot heading my way. Wow, maybe their coming out to personally greet me and take me on a tour of the dam dam! That would be wrong. When the big, shiny black vehicle stopped about 10 yards in front of me and two guys with guns strapped to their hips got out and said, ';Sir, please step to the front of your vehicle, turn and face it and place your arms on the hood, I knew this was NOT the private tour guide.

We had a nice little conversation about WHY I needed to be where I was, but the most scary part came when one guy asked if he could ';take a look'; into my vehicle and ';Do you have any weapons in the vehicle?'; Ooops, I DID.

That dam REAL Indian arrow purchased from the REAL Indian at the REAL Indian Trading Post a couple days back. I mentioned this to him and he was ';kinda'; amused, but not really. These guys are just too dam serious I guess. Anyway, I showed the guys the thing and and they seemed relatively assured that I did have have any plans of attacking their dam dam with my one arrow and no bow. They cautioned to obey the ';road closed'; signs from now on and to feel free and drive away from their dam dam and have a nice day. I feel so much better now knowing that if someone attempts to drive over the dam Davis Dam and maybe do some fishin off it that good ol%26#39; HomeLand Security will do everything in their power to put a stop to it.

Headed QUICKLY back to GN to relive this tale with wife and six year old son. SHE was not pleased at all, HE wanted Daddy to take him and go ';do it again';. My opinion was somewhere in between.

Took a six pack of cold ones to the VACANT pool to chill and later spent 30 minutes at VP (+$5.75), got some take-out Joes Crab Shack grub and I was ready to hit the hay. Checked the temp in the room, 68 degrees, Awesome... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I%26#39;ve had enough excitement reliving this wonderful day, so PART 3 (DAYS 6 and 7) will follow later.

TR-VegasVacation ala ';The Griswolds'; (PART 2)

Dam good story so far steve- looking forward to part 3

TR-VegasVacation ala ';The Griswolds'; (PART 2)

You should have a cameraman with you and sell your trip to

the Travel Channel or Comedy Central. Good stuff. Did you make it thru Christmas Tree Pass? Do I need to wait to part 3?

Great TR Steve, I could see how my DD would tell me the same thing you Son said regarding your problem with the Dam police.

Can hardly wait to read the next installment!

Welcome Home Steve.

Great Trip Report so Far. Keep up The Great Writting:)

By the way, I agree with you; Laughlin is way KooL. Spent two days one night back in early May, and Loved it. Just a real pain navigating the walkers, canes layed accross stools, wheelchairs blocking walkways.

Great to see the senior%26#39;s spending thier kids inheritance :)

PS: Nothing funnier then seeing a 80 year old man, on barrowed time, stareing hungraly, salavating, at the cleavage of a booze broad:)

From Dictionary.com:

';No entry found for funner.';

Glad they stopped you from chipping a hole into the Dam with the razor sharp arrowhead. I was stopped once trying to take down a border crossing building with a Kachina Doll.

A-DO-BE

-silly, there%26#39;s no basemement in the Alamo!

I%26#39;m on pins and arrows here waiting to hear more! FYI, had you had that 6 pack in your car, instead of back at the pool, you probably would have been hauled to the pokie. Afterall, a man who drinks and is armed with an arrow, is much more dangerous!

BJMark wrote: ';there%26#39;s no basement in the Alamo!';

Pee Wee Herman is not very smart, eh?

';And tell %26#39;em Large Marge sent ya';

So when do we get to the Las Vegas part?

Tooo funny Steve. I loved picturing you face down on the hood ;)