Day #3 continued Seen / Scene on the Street There was a Best Facial Hair Competition. Lots of pretty good entries but the one that raised the roof was the Best Bearded Lady. Here she is. Lots of pets out and about too....of all different sorts. The gal petting the dog is some famous Scandinavian model that models for Viking wear of some sort. Imagine that! Actually, the dog was winning the popularity contest. This is the scene in front of Hogs & Heifers, famous for "cowgirl" bartenders that dance on the bar. A Vegas mural--dice mountains--how appropriate Loved the pickup truck. Not quite sure about the white "jumpsuit", though. Hey, it's Vegas!!! Gotta have an Elvis or two out and about checking us out.
Day #3 continued The Fremont Street Experience (and it is quite the "experience"!) Last night Greg was guzzling at the Beer Chugging competition at the Hooligan Dirt Dash--tonight he's chatting up the ladies. Maybe he needs to get out more often? There's a zipline that goes the length of the Fremont Street Experience canopy. It starts from the "Slotzilla" tower. You can go Superman-style (head first, arms in front of you) or seated. We're all doing it next year! But we said that last year too. We finished off our evening watching a few sets of The Garage Boys at Hennessy's Bar & Grill--one of our favorite house bands. They are based in Las Vegas--two guys are originally from Canada, one from Vegas, and one from Oklahoma. They play pretty much anything you can request but specialize in covering classic rock. One of their original songs and one of my all-time favorite Garage Boys song is called "Drink, Fight, Fuck!" Seriously. And I request it every time we see them. They already know what my request is when they see me coming. Tomorrow (Day #4) we go to Red Rock Canyon Park and Red Rock H-D on our bikes, stroll down East Fremont Street (hipster-ville) at night, and enjoy our hotel including the Shark Tank and The Chart House. Stay tuned.
Fun photos, Bikerman! Love that you have a Las Vegas Bike Fest on your leathers. Yep, I can see the zip liners getting ready up on the platform. We ARE going to do that....next year! I did a zip line about 10 years ago in Costa Rica through the jungle and loved it. Somehow zooming along over 100's of people just seems so different. But fun!
Thanks, Duckadiledunee! Glad you're enjoying this Bike Fest write up and photos and that it brings a smile to your face. And I do post with the hope that it will bring my adventures alive for those who read them--at least vicariously. I enjoy seeing photos and hearing about rideouts from places I've never been too! Plus, like I said in my Sturgis posts, going back over my photos and writing some stories and captions lets me sort of "relive" my trip and enjoy it all over again.
If you come to the States, definitely let me know. It would be fun to show your around some of my favorite haunts in the Southwest, Billy! Glad you're enjoying the story and pics.
Day #4: Las Vegas Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel to Red Rock Canyon to Red Rock Harley-Davidson back to the Golden Nugget (approximately 55 miles) We unanimously decided to stay an extra day to do some things we hadn't yet done this time around--namely ride out to Red Rock Canyon which is beautiful and somewhat surreal. On the way back to our hotel we made a stop at Red Rock Harley-Davidson, a large, nice dealership with some very cool vintage motorcycles. If you're so inclined, there are some sweet YouTube videos of the Red Rock Canyon driving loop which is about 13 miles around. One lane, one way traffic. Very twisty and hilly. This year they've "upped the ante" with tourists, though, as we got behind six segways chugging up a hill (blessedly just before a rest stop where they turned in) and another group of about a dozen scooters. All in all, it was a terrific ride today with perfect weather! We lost one of our group on the way out to Red Rock Canyon. He regularly lags behind through town and got caught at a light. When we got to the entrance to the park, the other three of us stopped and waited for him. We had learned that four of us could go through on one pass (Mr. Sandi had one) so thought our buddy was coming through the pay gate when he arrived. However, we lost him again and didn't see him until we arrived at Red Rock H-D! Fortunately he in particular and the rest of us, too, are relatively used to this by now and knew we'd regroup someplace at some point! Anyway, that's why there are only three bikes pictured at the rest stop in the park. This is my bike at the entrance to the park while waiting for our riding buddy. Red Rock Harley-Davidson is a great motorcycle dealership not only for the inventory and design, but also because they have an amazing collection of vintage bikes. They used to have even more--lots of Triumphs and Harleys. Here are a few of the ones they currently have on display.......
Day #4 continued: The Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel (rally host hotel and ours as well) This is the third year in a row that Mr. Sandi and I have stayed at the Golden Nugget which is right on Fremont Street in old downtown Vegas.. We also stay at the Golden Nugget in Laughlin, Nevada when we go to the Laughlin River Run each April. A very nice casino and hotel with good rates for what you get. The additional night that we did only ran us $89 which is a great deal. Here are some photos from our stay this time around prefaced with a bit of info about the hotel from Wikipedia. The "Hand of Faith" golden nugget is about 20 yards off the elevators in our hotel tower. Made us all think of the movie, "Ocean's Eleven". Heist, anyone?! The main hotel pool has a shark tank that has a slide that goes right through it. Personally, I'd rather scuba dive with sharks in the ocean but it's pretty darned cool! I took this photo with my iPhone at The Ice Bar, the bar nearest the lobby and our group meeting place wall weekend long. These were my three primary "working tools" all weekend long. That's a Hendrick's G&T, BTW. We had dinner at The Chart House, one of several terrific hotel restaurants. This one is a fave because of the enormous aquarium in the center of the restaurant. The bar (pictured) is really the best part but the food is spectacular, too! This was our dinner "splurge" for the weekend. My Hendrick's martini on the left and Mr. Sandi's Stoli martini on the right. Yes, they look identical--but taste totally different. Mine was much better! We went to the brunch buffet one morning of our stay. We hemmed and hawed about it but, holy moly, it was AWESOME! I'd go back again for sure. The photos I took of the food area just don't do it justice but check out this photo of the Bloody Mary Bar alone--you get the idea. Definitely excess! We suffered through it.
Awww, DD, please don't hate me 'cause I'm an awesome tripper--so to speak. Plus in these wacky times, those of us in the UK and in the US who haven't gone totally off the rails gotta stick together.
A super duper fun trip, OsteKuste! I'll post a bit more from Day #4 today then finish up tomorrow with Day #5, which was our ride back to Tucson from Vegas. Yeah, Hendricks is my go to gin. And these days it's being served nearly everywhere which wasn't the case when I first started drinking it. Nice. And convenient! As far as Javier goes, he's certainly old enough to drink but he seems to prefer slurping dank murky water from a nearby puddle. Go figure.
The sharks seemed pretty lethargic to me but I suspect there's a lot of repressed anger deep down in their shark psyches. We'll keep you in mind for one of the crew should we have a "job" that might benefit from the use of an angle grinder, Duckadiledundee. Thanks for the offer! Just don't tell anyone about our idea.
Day #4 continued: Our evening on East Fremont Street (NOT to be confused or lumped in with The Fremont Street Experience. Previous Fremont Street photos in my posts were taken on the part of Fremont Street known as "The Fremont Street Experience" which Wikipedia describes as: The Fremont Street Experience (FSE) is a pedestrian mall and attraction in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The FSE occupies the westernmost five blocks of Fremont Street, including the area known for years as "Glitter Gulch," and portions of some other adjacent streets. This stretch of Fremont is covered and has millions of lights in it which you've seen in my photos. When you get to where Las Vegas Blvd. intersects Fremont Street, however, the scene changes and becomes more about vintage neon signs, bars, and up-and-coming restaurants. There's also a container park that is quite extensive and has a lot of great restaurants, shops, and a park and stage. Oh, and a giant metal fire-breathing mantis. On the evening of Day #4 we focused our activities on this stretch of Fremont. Food, adult beverages, people watching, and music. Very civilized! There's lots of great old rehabbed neon signage in Las Vegas and much of it is concentrated on East Fremont Street. There's even the Neon Museum nearby which we've yet to see but it's a must do (sort of like the zip line only nearer the ground). The place we ate dinner tonight was called "Therapy". Very apropos of what we all needed at this point in our Vegas stay. That therapy had to include (for me) a french dip sandwich, truffle fries, and (of course) a Hendrick's martini. Everyone's dinner was outstanding. The restaurant is turned into a nightclub certain nights of the week at around 9PM. After dinner we kept heading east until we reached the Container Park which is a really fun venue made up of shipping containers. They have a lot of events going on throughout the year and each week / month. But...no motorcycle "colors" allowed was clearly posted at the entrance. Worries about thugs and gangs evidently. Don't they know motorcyclists are kind, generous, and peaceful souls? The night we were there it was "Silent Sunday on the Lawn". We kept seeing folks with headphone on that had neon lighting. They seemed to be dancing to some music only they could hear. Turns out they were! Three DJ's were playing music--each color had a different type music--and people who rented the headphones could choose which they listened do and could switch among them. It was pretty funny seeing people dancing when there was no music that the rest of us could hear!
Still at the Container Park... One of the coolest things at the Container Park is the giant mantis that breaths fire every 5-10 minutes. It makes everyone jump and scream every time is starts spouting flames--even if you know it's coming! Such funny and clever things to photograph everywhere. I saw this last year and the year before but it makes me laugh every time we hit the Container Park and I see this storefront. To top off our delightful East Fremont Street evening we hit Hennessy's Bar to take in a couple sets by The Garage Boys accompanied by a nice Irish Whiskey, this one being Redbreast.
That's an interesting question, DD. Whether or not the signs are obeyed seems to be related to police presence. We saw quite a few patches in Las Vegas this year, though I don't recall seeing any 1%ers. However, we haven't see any club patches in Laughlin at the annual River Run. Laughlin also has signs stating "No Soft Colors". I originally had no idea what that meant when I started attending the rally so I asked. It means that not only no jackets / vests / cuts / patches / rockers but not even any tee-shirts with club names or logos. Not even something like Bikers for Christ is allowed. And we NEVER see colors at Laughlin. Mr. Sandi was at the Laughlin River Run the year the River Run Riot happened. But it happened around 2:30AM one night and he was fast asleep in a casino well down the road. Anyway, that really changed the event to this day and brought a whole new level of police presence to the rally. The law enforcement presence has been toned way down but there are still tons of "No Colors" signs posted--and there are no colors. That doesn't mean there aren't club members at the rally....I've met some. One year we were at the hotel pool and this guy took off his (plain) tee shirt and, lo and behold, he had the Mongols patch tattooed on his back! We saw some posted "No Colors" signs at the Sturgis rally but also did seem some patches. Anyway, DD, long answer to a short question..........
Hi Sandi, really great trip report there, I particularly enjoyed the infor panels you included so we get a sense of the places you visited - Great idea ! Dave
Nice write up - it almost makes me want to go back there. Got dragged to Vegas in 2013 for a waste-of-time staff meeting and stayed at the Venetian on The Strip. The only free time I had to myself was on Sunday morning, feeling very ropey after flying in the night before and getting very little sleep. Saw the sun come up, which was the best bit as it lit up the hills I could see from my room, gave up the attempt to doze off again, and went for a walk. As I did not stray off the Strip it was all just a bit too tacky and so very false. If you've seen the real Venice and the Eiffel Tower the ones you get in Vegas are a bit silly. I knew there would be some nicer areas but did not have time to explore properly - shame really as your pics and descriptions showed me a great taste of what I missed. Glad you had a great time.
Thanks, Sir Trev. Vegas is definitely a "unique" place and not much like reality at all. That, I think, is actually some of its draw and--in a weird way--its charm. We take it in small doses (two or three days max) and know what we're in for. I hated it for years after I first went with my ex-husband. Maybe the "ex" part is why I hated it! But I went back with Mr. Sandi again about 10 years ago and learned to not only enjoy it but actually relish the over-the-topness of it. It is most definitely the Land of Excess. And it's certainly a fabulous place to people watch!
