4th of July in Las Vegas, 1999
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In front of the Bellagio lake
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July 1999....Cecilia had just moved to Houston in late June, and was still getting settled in her new apartment.  The year before Vic and I spent July 4th weekend hiking through the wilderness of Guadelupe National Park.  In 1999, we decided to again head out west to the desert, but with very different objectives.  Vic, Cecilia, Cecily, Lee, and I left Houston on Friday night, headed for the desert lights of Las Vegas.  We arrived early in the evening, with sufficient  time to check into the Imperial Palace hotel, tour the Vegas strip, and spend some time at the blackjack tables.  We also met up with Toby, Mindy, and Tok, who had arrived on an earlier flight.  Vegas never sleeps, but we managed to be in bed by 3am....images from the day:
 
Riding in style from the airport
Bondage at the Excalibur
Worship at the Luxor
Crossing over the strip

We spent Saturday touring the Vegas strip - we gambled in various casinos, enjoyed lunch at the all-you-can-eat Bellagio buffet, and enjoyed the free shows in front of the casinos.  My favorite was the erupting Mirage volcano and surrounding waterfall, which I thought was more creative than the Bellagio water display or Treasure Island Pirate ship battle.  That night we went to the Cirque de Soleil performance of "Mystere", and then gambled until the early morning.  Images from the day:
 
The Mirage volcano
In front of the Bellagio lake
Cecilia in the Mirage jungle
Paris in the desert?
Lakeside antics
The MGM lion

Sunday we woke up early, with the intention of escaping the gambling fever of the strip.  We drove 90 minutes northeast to the Hoover Dam, and took the hard-hat tour of the dam - it was well worth the visit, and we even got to keep the hard-hats!  I was most astonished by the fact that the dam is as thick at the base as it is tall, and that the concrete is still curing!  Images from the dam:
 
Deep inside the dam
Vic is bigger than the dam!

We left the dam in the early afternoon and headed back towards Vegas.  We stopped at  Lee's friend's house, who lived in a nice apartment complex on the outskirts of Vegas.  We BBQed at her pool, and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon around the pool.  We returned to the Vegas strip just after dark, to catch the various firework displays.  We decided that the Stratosphere would have the best display - from the top of its high altitude tower.  We headed to the north end of the strip, and arrived with only minutes before the scheduled start of the fireworks.  Unfortunately we found 1000's of other people cramming into the casino and surrounding streets, and we could not even find a parking spot!  Finally we found a neighborhood nearby that offered a great view of the tower.  We parked the cars just in time, and watched the fireworks from our front bumpers.  The display was good, but did not match what I had seen previously in Chicago or Houston.

We returned to the hotel after the fireworks, and debated where to go for the evening.  We decided on the Hard Rock, located within walking distance just off the strip.  We spent the rest of the evening gambling and partying at the casino.   We were back in our rooms just as the sun was rising.  We slept in late, hung out at the hotel, and then headed back to the airport in the late-afternoon.  We were back in Houston by 11pm, after a fun and exciting weekend in the Nevada desert!

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