The Las
Vegas Strip is home to many world famous resorts and casinos. From the South
Pointe Casino on the south end of the strip to Golden Nugget and the Fremont
Street Experience, there is a lot of real estate for gambling, shopping,
dinning, and shattered dreams and bank accounts. The first casino to call the
strip home was the El Rancho, which opened in the 1940s. More casinos opened
shortly afterwards including Hotel Last Frontier, the Flamingo, and the Desert
Inn.
Many of the hotels that made Sin City the
city it is today are now gone. Some hotels burned to the ground. Others were demolished
for bigger casinos. It’s a lifecycle of casinos in the glitz and glamour of The
Entertainment Capital of the World. The Dunes, Sands, Stardust, and the
Hacienda were all once the hotspots for celebrities such as Elvis Presley,
Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. These casinos have all since
been imploded to make way for bigger casinos such as the Venetian and the
Bellagio. The implosion of a casino is an event for those who live in the city.
I like to think of it as a funeral. The service happens overnight and hundreds
of people usually attend to see history come crashing down.
The neon signs that stood outside of these
once famous casinos have a final resting place. And you don’t have to look far
to find the cemetery. Just north of Fremont Street, is The Neon Museum. The museum features a
collection of some of the most famous neon signs from the 1930s to today. The
two-acre museum is next to the Boneyard itself, which houses more than 150
historic signs from the Stardust Hotel to the Algiers Hotel.
My husband and I toured the Neon Museum
during a trip to Las Vegas. This was the second attempt to visit the museum. We
didn’t realize on our first attempt that we needed to reserve a spot for a
tour. A travel fail for sure but we learned our lesson. A few years later, we
walked through the door to the final resting place for the history of Las
Vegas. Our tour guide was a walking history book. He talked about the
beginnings of the city and all of the major players. He also talked about YESCO
– the company that started the neon sign business in the 1930s. We walked
around the museum looking at the different signs and romanticized what life was
like when these neon signs once glowed along the Las Vegas Strip.
Like I mentioned above, you will need to
purchase tickets for a tour. If you catch a tour during the day, it will cost
you $18 per ticket. If you want to tour the museum at night, the cost goes up
to $25 per ticket. Daily tours usually sell out so plan in advance. Parking is
free. The tour generally takes about an hour. Afterwards, you can visit some of
the historic hotels that still stand today including the Flamingo and the
Tropicana.
And since it is Las Vegas, you can plan an
entire vacation that includes visits to the Neon Museum, Hoover Dam, and even
the West Rim to the Grand Canyon (about 2 hours from Las Vegas). Need a play to
stay? Just check out the many International
Vacation Home Exchange properties around Las
Vegas and surrounding communities. And as always, save travels.
Thank
you to guest travel writer Carla Pruitt. You can follow Carla on Twitter at
@crobscarla
0 comments :
Post a Comment
We would welcome your comments and ideas