Estrella/Vegas 2010 - Part 13, Two Nights in Paris.

[jamesq]

We went over Hoover Dam. That's not as exciting as it sounds. We drove on a road, rather then off the edge. In a barrel. Sadly, the route over the dam lets you see a goodly chunk of the dam from the upstream angle, but hardly anything from the downstream angle. Next time, we might stop for the tour, just so we can take everything in.

After a few wrong turns getting to the strip, we lucked into the correct parking lot for our resort, the fabulous Paris Las Vegas. Chosen for it's proximity to the middle of the Las Vegas Strip, no resort fees and actually useful coupon book, it was a lot of fun. I'd stay there again.

Some amenities we used at PLV:

• The pool.
  
• Le Burger Brasserie
  
• Cafe Ile St Louis
  
• La Creperie
  
• Bally's-Paris Promenade shops

We ended up having Crepes every day, they were that good (and given there was a really good crepe seller on-site at Estrella, that means I had about 8 crepes during my vacation). Le Burger Brasserie wasn't all that french (aside from the french menus), but it was really good. Probably the second or third best burger I've ever had (Hamburger Mary's on Davies in Vancouver is still my favorite). They did have a $777 burger on the menu, which exists solely because of what I call the Vegas Disease (more on that in a later post). $777 for a burger. Damn. It might have come with Maine lobster and Dom Perignon, but I still don't think it would be worth it unless I had my pick of server(s) to take back to my room for the night.

The casino was a big flashy casino. I lost a bunch of money.

Service-wise the staff seemed fairly responsive. We got a cot in our room and went for some add-ons, only getting dinged with extra charges when it was something that would obviously incur charges. Everything was coldly professional and distant, more German then French.

Our last night at the hotel, thekillerb69, othelianna and I mooned Las Vegas from our 22nd story window.

Comments

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

It may not be too much longer before the main US 93 route goes to the bypass bridge (which you may have seen under construction slightly downstream of the dam). Not as spectacular as the road across the dam, but straighter and will get people through that passage to Vegas a bit faster. (And, for some, make it easier to get from, say, Texas, to a desert site in, say, northwest Nevada, a little faster without having to worry about TSA taking their trailer of camping/shade structure gear apart.)

Hopefully they'll leave the dam road open for sightseeing, because there are few other ways to fully appreciate the scale of that thing, but at the very least, it won't be the *only* way to get across the CO River for hundreds of miles in either direction.

[jamesq]

Lots of construction was visible, as was a fair chunk of the actual completed bridge. thekillerb69 was particularly interested as he's an engineer. And I just love the sort of effort and skill that goes into mega-engineering projects.

They actually warned us that there might be delays due to blasting. We got the delays, but no Earth-shattering kabooms. I wanted Earth-shattering kabooms.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

And yeah, $777 for a burger better damn well include some attractive company for the night. Just saying. :D