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Ilus Galambos

Ilus Galambos

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      A walk on the strip in the morning

      13 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

      After going to bed sometime after 4, we still woke up a bit before 8, and as it felt like we were not very likely to fall back asleep, we decided to go for a walk on the strip in the daylight too. It actually stretches along for multiple miles, so we didn't even make it all the way to the end, and still walked quite a lot. The casinos look quite cool in the morning too (although they are best at night of course). Most of them have an elaborate theme going on, so the Paris casino has a replica of the Eiffel tower, that is 1/3 of the original size, and is full of fancy French restaurants. The venetian has canals around it where you can ride gondolas in, and also has a replica of the bell tower of St. Mark's Basilica. The Flamingo casino had a nice garden inside, with all kind of birds living in it, including (you guessed it) a flock of flamingos. In front of one casino they had live music, dancers, and daytime fireworks. We went inside a shopping mall, where the ceiling of the mall is made to look like it is daylight all day, and there's a part where they have a rainstorm, with lightning and actual rain falling every half an hour. Which sounds really cool (at least it sounded awesome to me when a colleague of mine told me about it back in Scotland), but it was a bit underwhelming to be honest. For breakfast we tried panda express, and had a Starbucks coffee (there's literally a Starbucks on every corner, and yet there's still a big line in most of them. It's like they don't know any other coffee exists).Leia mais

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      Our first night in Vegas

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

      "I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo" - Hunter S Thompson

      We arrived in Vegas just after sunset and it truly was an interesting experience, we weren't under the influence of LSD and ether like Thompson but it still felt like some kind of weird trip walking through the Casino floor seeing all of the weirdest examples of Americans waddling around whooping like cowboys and riding mechanical bulls in our hotel casino and bar. We didn't get a room upgrade but we did score a free bottle of champagne for being on our honeymoon which was a good start to the onslaught of free drinks we were given, about that - if you want to go out in Vegas without bankrupting yourself, play penny slots. 1 cent a spin and a waitress will be around every 10 minutes with any cocktail or drink you could ever want. They make them strong too since they want you to get drunk and gamble all your money away. We spent 2 dollars on the slot machine and won 30 almost immediately! Deciding to quit while we were ahead we only played the 1 cent slots for the rest of the evening meaning we probably spent 3 or 4 dollars visiting all of the flashy casinos drinking crazy cocktails until 4 in the morning! The casinos have crazy architecture and things inside like an enormous shark tank or full size replica of the trevi fountain or a 1/3 scale model of the Eiffel tower

      Once it gets late on the strip all of the even stranger people start to emerge in the casinos which Seamus quickly made friends with! After we could barely stand from tiredness and the horrifying mixture of cocktails we went and had fast food, there must have been something in the drinks because we managed to have an argument over a cheeseburger that left Seamus in tears :D we quickly recovered and passed out for a lovely 3 hours of sleep      Leia mais

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      Arriving to Las Vegas

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

      It was definitely the best decision to drive into Vegas in the dark, as the casinos start with their funky lights and signs way outside of town. We drive past one that had an enormous roller coaster surrounding its hotel building! I'll have to update this with photos from the camera later, as I took a lot of cool ones. Thankfully our chosen casino/hotel was really easy to drive into as it is near the end of the strip, and we didn't need to drive in a crazy traffic jam or anything. Oh by the way we took forever to decide on a hotel, reading so many opinions, reviews discussions about the different hotels. God they are all so opinionated, people spend a lot of time in Vegas, however fun it was, I can't imagine personally experiencing it 10+different times in different hotels, I think I would have better ways to spend my time at that point. Anyway we decided to stay at Treasure Island, which is a slightly older one with no crazy theme, but we got a better price for it, and we can walk into all the other ones to experience them anyway. We decided to book it for both Thursday and Friday, as checking out at 10 the next day and finding a new place sounded really painful. It was a hard decision, as for Friday the price was about 5 times higher. At checkin we mentioned that we are newlyweds, hoping for a cooler room or something, and at least we managed to get a free bottle of champagne out of it! Although calling room service they told us it will be about 40 minutes until it arrives...Leia mais

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      Last stop before Vegas, Baker

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

      At this point it was 7 in the evening, and we have been driving since about 9,so we were getting pretty tired. So getting an energy drink was actually the main reason we decided to stop at Baker, all its famous sights just came as a plus. Well it was also another place mentioned in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which meant Seamus definitely wanted to stop anyway. The stupid engine cover under our car started dragging on the ground again, so we also bought some duck tape to try and make it stay up. We managed to see the world's biggest thermometer, and a funky alien themed shop too just before it closed.Leia mais

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      Road Zzyzx

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

      Most people only know that there's a funny sign as you are nearing Las Vegas, marking the exit to Zzyzx Road. I actually managed to read about its history, which I found really funny, so I wanted to stop and take a look around. I'll just copy and paste this as it would take forever to type out with my words...

      "In 1944, Curtis Springer, a radio evangelist in 1944, Curtis Springer, a radio evangelist from Los Angeles, decided that he would reinvent the area formally known as Soda Springs by turning the mineral springs found there into the basis for a resort. After filing a mining claim with the government, he got permission to use the lands (under false pretenses) and called it Zzyzx because he wanted to have the last word in the dictionary.
      He hired several workers to help him create his resort, developed an area for people to stay, and imported various types of plants to add to the atmosphere. From there, his resort took off and brought people from all over to try his fake medicines and experience the “relaxation and healing” that he provided. In the 1970’s the government realized what he was doing on the land he claimed to have got for mining and kicked him and his followers out. Thus the land was taking over and eventually given to the CSU system which runs it now as a desert research center. "

      In the end it wasn't the abandoned resort that really impressed us, but the 5 mile drive to it. It rove past a huge salt flat, that just became bigger and bigger as we drove past it (this salt flat is what the research center is here to study). We had to stop multiple times to wake around, take photos, and taste the salt (it really was salt, as we now know).      Leia mais

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      Calico ghost town

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌬 15 °C

      Calico was a silver mining town that only existed between 1881 and 1896 for fifteen years. The town was left to decay, and it did almost completely disappear, but it was rebuilt (supposedly with historical accuracy) to its original look. Well, it probably didn't have gifts shops, and dog treat shops back then, but otherwise let's say its accurate. We were waved in by the lady sitting in the front booth without paying, I'm not sure if we got lucky, or it is always free. It was really really windy here too, for example in front of the saloon they had some rocking chairs on the porch, and all of them were moving on their own from the wind. We could go and walk around a few hundred meters of the original mines, the little train that also goes around in the mines was not operating unfortunately. It was a bit kitschy, and I didn't know before going that it will all just be a reproduction, and nothing original, but it was still a fun stop.Leia mais

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      Old woman meteorite

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌬 15 °C

      Another silly sounding roadside attraction: the second biggest meteorite in the US. We went in very sceptical and then were proven wrong, it was not just a rock, but almost completely made out of iron, and weighed almost 3000 kg. It had to be lifted out of the desert where it was found by military helicopters. The rest of the museum was mostly for children, but we still learned a thing or two about hummingbirds, and tortoises.Leia mais

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      Molly Brown's Country cafe

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

      We stopped for lunch at a random diner, that turned out to be a very local chain, with 4 restaurants in a 10 mile radius. The waitresses were ridiculously kind and attentive, which is always strange for me here in the US, but this was the most extreme case we have encountered so far. They had a super good value lunch menu, where we both got a big plate of food for 12 dollars. Originally I wanted to have pie as my diner experience, but we couldn't even finish my plate, let alone have dessert. Seamus ordered chicken fried steak, which he wanted to try for a long time (which is a steak fried like a wiener schnitzel, and I had a philly cheese steak.Leia mais

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      Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

      This was such an amazingly American weird roadside attraction, but one that we actually really enjoyed stopping at. We don't know why Elmer built his bottle tree Ranch, as he wasn't around, but the gates are open for everyone to come in and see it. It is an enormous field of metal "trees" that he mush have welded himself, where on every branch a colorful bottle was placed. There are all kind of funky metallic things topping certain trees, some of them movable by the wind, also lots of wind chimes (store bought and homemade as well) and bird feeders. Seamus called it the best art he's ever been inside, and I have to agree, it is just really beautiful to be in. The heavy winds make everything tinkle and creak, and the birds are chirping, and you walk around between all the colors, and funny signs, it is relaxing and entertaining at the same time. There were special bird feeders for hummingbirds, and there were multiple of them flying around, in various colors of green and red and pink. We were the only people in the whole place, and mostly left because of the high winds (and because we really needed to use the bathroom)Leia mais

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      Joining route 66

      12 de abril de 2018, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

      After about 2.5-3 hours of driving (but having fun as the surroundings were so different) we finally arrived to the first point I actually planned to see today, which is a short bit of route 66 that we could drive, between Victoville and Baker. I think you can see on Seamus that the wind by now was really brutal. Also surprisingly the sun was strong, but it wasn't actually very warm, nothing higher than 18 degrees, even though we were in a desert!Leia mais

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