3-17 April 2018
Las Vegas TT Resort
Las Vegas, what can you say? We arrived on April 3rd and did not know what to expect, so I asked our Facebook family and friends for must do things to see and do while here and received lots of really great ideas.
Here are some of the places we visited and things we did!
Fremont Experience
Yep, Elvis just left the house!
Our first excursion was to Fremont Street and the Fremont Experience.
A little history – Fremont Street is a street in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada that is among the most famous streets in the Las Vegas Valley besides the Las Vegas Strip. Named in honor of explorer John Charles Frémont and located in the heart of the downtown casino corridor. Fremont Street is or was the address for many famous casinos such as Binion’s Horseshoe, Eldorado Club, Fremont Hotel and Casino, Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, Golden Nugget, Four Queens, The Mint, and the Pioneer Club.
Prior to the construction of the Fremont Street Experience, the western end of Fremont Street was the representative scene for Las Vegas that was included in virtually every television show and movie that wanted to depict the glittery lights of Las Vegas. The abundance of neon signs, like cowboy Vegas Vic, earned the street the nickname of “Glitter Gulch”
We parked and started exploring taking in the sights and sounds of this 24 hour LED lit covered mall in the middle of the day. Casinos, shops, kiosks, bars, street performers and lots of pan handlers abounded. O M G… Suffice it to say that what happens in Vegas needs to stay in Vegas especially on Fremont Street. Some of the things we saw cannot be explained in mixed company.
To clear our heads and give our eyes a break we then drove down the strip. It was amazing to see how crowded it was. It seemed like everyone was on vacation. Tourists everywhere. A stop at the iconic Las Vegas sign and got our picture taken. Cruising down the strip was a good way for us to recon and figure out what we wanted to see later. We will be back in a couple of days.
A must see for us was the Shelby Museum.
A little history – Shelby American was founded by Carroll Shelby in 1962 to build and market high performance parts and modified cars for individuals. The company was based at Santa Fe Springs, California (1962), Venice, California (1962–1967).
Production was switch to the A. O. Smith Company located in Ionia, Michigan during the (1968) model year.
A tour of the facility is offered daily and we enjoyed learning about Carroll Shelby and seeing the reproductions of some of his famous sports cars. The tour included a look at the factory production floor. There are 21 stations transforming a stock Mustang into Shelby, wow. No, George is not getting one. We already have a 65 Mustang in our son’s garage!
Whittier, California (1986–1998) and Las Vegas, Nevada (since 1998). Some of the automobiles produced by Shelby American were the Ford Mustang-based Shelby GT350, Shelby GT500 and Shelby GLHS. Shelby American also installed the engines of US-market examples of the AC Cobra which was an AC Ace with a Ford V8.
The company was also highly involved with racing, with Shelby cars winning many races and the first title for an American constructor at the World Sportscar Championship in 1965. From 1965 to 1967, Shelby American also provided support to Ford for their successful campaign to win the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans as historically the first American constructor ever with the mid-engined Ford GT40’s. With Shelby Daytona, Shelby became one of only three American constructors (along with Ford and Chevrolet) to win a title on the international scene at the FIA World Championships.
Shelby American moved in 1998 to Nevada becoming the first automobile manufacturer in Nevada and began production. They had a facility at the airport, now it is located at the very beginning of the strip.
Night bus tour
We really wanted to see the “Strip” lit up at night so we hopped aboard Big Bus Tour and enjoyed a three hour tour. The bus picked us up at Circus Circus at 7pm and we drove up the strip towards Mandalay Bay. Our tour guide was really good giving tidbits of Las Vegas history. From the original founders/builders to the Mob, to the performers, and one of the most interesting facts is the strip is really located in three different cities in Nevada. From the iconic Las Vegas sign in the unincorporated town of Paradise, originally named Pair of Dice, to Winchester to Las Vegas four miles down the road.
Our tour stopped at the Golden Nugget by the Fremont Experience. The Golden Nugget houses a 61 pound nugget.
A little history:
One might assume that this massive nugget was discovered here in Vegas, or at least somewhere in the gold-heavy west during the heyday of the Gold Rush. But, strangely, the Hand of Faith was discovered in 1980—not by a mining company or lucky settler seeking fortune in the California hills, but in the small Australian town of Wedderburn by a guy taking a new toy out for a whirl.
Kevin Hillier went out one fine spring day to see what tiny metal treasures his new metal detector could unearth. In a stroke of mind-blowing luck, he managed to locate the largest gold nugget ever found with a metal detector, which also happened to be the second-largest nugget ever discovered a whopping 875 troy ounces. The 61-pound mass of gold was only a mere six inches below the surface.
After an exciting press conference and some accolades, Hillier sold his gold nugget to the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, for over a million dollars. The nugget can be viewed in a hallway near the hotel lobby, its value rising and falling daily but its shining magnificence remaining forever priceless.
We then went to Fremont Street to see it at night. Yep, it gets worse as the night goes on. Suffice it to say we won’t be back! lol
The Big Bus tour was a great experience and we would recommend it!
