Eric/Paul visit wrap up
As I mentioned a few posts ago, my good friend Eric Strauss and my business partner Paul were coming out this past week. Eric just flew out about an hour ago.
Eric got here very early on Tuesday (ie, like 1 am late Monday night) and we pretty much just went to sleep the first night. The next day we picked up Paul around noon and went to see “Knocked Up” with stevesbets at the Palms movie theater. The movie was okay I guess — lots of funny moments for sure, but I think they tried to make it a little too serious at points. Ahh, screw this, a full trip report is too much work… I give up.
Anyway, I don’t even remember a lot of the stuff that we did, but Paul and I got some work done on the site that we’re starting. I think most of it should be pretty easy to get done — the hard part right now is the name. I really have no idea what to call it.
Other things we did included three trips to the In-N-Out on Sahara just east of Valley View. It’s a good spot to get a burger if you’re ever in the area.
Today was fun though. We went down to the Stratosphere. That place is a shithole. The whole thing is in disrepair and smells like crap. That being said, the prospect of the rides at the top of the tower was enough to draw us down there. I have a bunch of pictures.
Looking west. Sahara is the main road running away from the pic. I-15 is in the foreground running across the pic.
Looking down at the Stratosphere pool.
Looking down the strip. The Wynn golf course is on the left and you can see the airport in the far distance on the left.
Me on the top of the tower just before getting on one of the rides.
Looking up the tower that is at the top of the Stratosphere. The ride basically shoots you up the tower and then you freefall down. It’s the tallest thrill ride in the world. The other rides were called “Insanity” and “X-Scream”. I got a video of Insanity while we were waiting in line to get on it. Here it is…
X-Scream is basically like a track that sends you towards the edge then stops at the last second. It also tilts downwards. I got a pretty bad picture of it here…
I’m not sure which one I liked the best. “Big Shot” (the tower ride) was pretty cool, but I’d done a ride like that before, albeit starting much lower on the ground. It was pretty cool to do that ride at 1000+ feet in the air. X-Scream and Insanity were both new rides for me. I’d never done anything like it. X-Scream was cool, but I never really felt the thrill of being thrown over the edge and dangled. Insanity was pretty tame also, but at least I felt a real thrill while I was on it. So I’d probably say Insanity was my favorite of all three rides up there. This is what wikipedia has to say about the rides…
* The Big Shot at 1,081 feet (329 m) is the highest thrill ride in the world;
* Insanity the Ride, opened in 2005, at 900 feet (274 m) is the second highest thrill ride in the world, it dangles riders over the edge of the tower and then spins in a circular pattern at approximately forty miles per hour. Since its public opening, the ride has stopped twice with passengers onboard (upwards of an hour each time), due to high winds that trigger a “safety mechanism” which shuts down the machine immediately without bringing the passengers back to the loading dock. The hotel is currently being sued by the first set of passengers who were trapped on the ride dangling over the edge.
* XSCREAM at 866 feet (264 m) is the third highest thrill ride in the world. This ride also “drops” people over the edge, and has also stopped while people were on it, though it is not clear what triggered this ride’s failure.
Anyway, the rides were fun, the week was fun, etc. Saturday I don’t have much planned, but I’ll be back at the Rio on Sunday taking pictures. Good luck to everyone over these last few weeks.
Related posts:
- A cool roller coaster video
- Eric visiting Costa Rica
- Bike ride
- Wrapping up the Philly visit…
- Quick Rio Visit
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