At the conclusion of the UFO Congress, AlienZoo cruises to Las Vegas and Hoover Dam
4/2/2000
Written by Wiggz...also known as the AlienZoo prohibitor of dullness.
International UFO Congress, held in Laughlin, Nevada, during the weekend of March 11, the AlienZoo crew packed up its bags and road-raged our way north, about 75 miles to Las Vegas.
We were prepared for an amazing contrast. Laughlin is a sleepy river town with a few high-rise casinos. The entertainment is geared toward an elder, gentler crowd; as I pointed out last week, the headliner acts range from crooner Englebert Humperdinck (Say that 12 times fast, because his original name is Arnold Dorsey!) to comedian Red Buttons ("You know you're old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes and you're walking barefoot."). And the bedspreads in our rooms at our hotel had this gaudy purple-yellow-green flower pattern, which after three days, to my amazement and fear, began to enchant me. One of the rooms we were assigned (but later turned down) had a patched-up hole in the bathroom door, like someone -- undoubtedly an enraged octogenarian -- put a fist through it.
Vegas, on the other hand, is all about excess. Huge digital screens scream images advertising upcoming shows -- like Britney Spears on August 4 -- in way-larger-than-life fashion. Although the home of National Institute for Discovery Science, Vegas is like downing four cans of Red Bull energy drink and gluing your eyeballs to the TV screen in your family room (which has been magically spray-painted gold, but I wouldn't recommend this, or gluing your eyeballs to the TV screen), while your TV is playing Japanese "anime" cartoons at full volume. It's about piling on 24 heaping plates of shrimp and four servings of crème brulee, and still wanting more to eat, just because you think you can. In terms of size, everything dwarfs you. Everything seems to be going on around you, yet there's this vague lure of Something More leading you along with every step. Everything seems like a life-sized version of Tron, minus the funky costumes.
Vegas is also about losing $20 bills on slot machines, and peering over to Blobbert as he randomly wins another $50 at the press of a button. But I don't want to get into that. Like they say, Easy Street is the route of the devil. Amen, Blobbert.
For Zookeeper, who led us to Vegas by steering his massive, jet black Ford Expedition into the high desert night, taking me to Vegas was something of a social experiment. I'm sad to admit this, but I had never been there before. So Zookeeper was all too eager to see the how panic would grip my face as I was launched on the Big Shot -- which is perched atop of the Stratosphere tower, some 109 stories (921 feet) above Vegas's shimmering carpet of orange streetlights. As the Big Shot releases you, you feel the pull of 4 Gs overwhelm you. The ride isn't as spooky as it seems, though. But I still had Blobbert go first. If you hit the Stratosphere, you should budget some time for the roller coaster ride called the High Roller, in which you cruise around at 35 miles an hour 110 stories up above ground. We didn't ride it, but we think you should, if you haven't already.
Leading up to the trip, Zookeeper joked about sneaking up to Area 51, gleefully speculating about dropping me off at the military range and watching me arrested. Of course, this never happened. Instead, to my relief, I got almost-sick on seemingly harmless motion rides. Not a bad trade-off.
Of pigeons, Red Bull, and motion sickness
Have you ever eaten pigeon before? I finally got the chance at The Buffet at The Bellagio, where for $23 a person, you can eat all you want of some pretty amazing cuisine. Without really meaning to, we found our way into an absurdly glorious 11-course meal. Our excursion started with shrimp, lobster claws, strawberries, and melon, then varied between hot-and-spicy Chinese soup, smoked trout, and mushroom-walnut pasta. Zookeeper and Blobbert brought to the table a couple of heaping helpings of beef, and then some more beef, then some venison and veal. And then some prime rib. And they polished off what they got without problem, savoring every bite with their eyes closed, as if entranced. My desserts consisted of tapioca pudding, bread pudding, and -- you guessed it --pigeon wing. It was like the darkest dark meat I've ever had. And especially greasy, too, like turkey basted with WD-40. My tongue basically went into shock: Compared to tapioca, pigeon tastes pretty weird. Two bites were enough. But I can say I tried it.
You can't go to Vegas and be into outer space and sci-fi stuff without going on Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. For the first part of the journey, you see Star Trek personnel running around, as your tour guide escorts you. You're led from one room to the next (the rooms all look like a part of the Enterprise) until you're asked to sit in a spacecar, of sorts, which jets you on a space mission to save the ship from doom. It's all very convincing, especially the part at the end of the ride where the spaceship flies back to Vegas, over the rooftops of the Strip, and a sign advertising The Moody Blues appears in the bottom left corner of the screen. We immediately thought of AlienZoo's very own Jim Dilettoso, who was the rock band's manager for years. The ride was so lifelike that it made me a little uneasy, so I had to close my eyes every now and then.
On the way out of the Star Trek ride, we hit Quark's Bar and Restaurant, where the ride ends up. The décor is totally out of the future, giving me plenty of ideas about how I want to rearrange my own abode. Beverages, I should note, are served in neon glasses. The menu is written entirely in outerspace lingo: you'll find items like Little Green Salads, Moogie's Choice Pasta, The Wrap of Khan, Isolinear Chips and Dip, and "alien ales" with names like Klingon Warnog Ale. Since we didn't have too much time, we got charged up on Red Bull before taking the monorail to Caesar's Palace, home of the Race for Atlantis IMAX 3D ride.
The story behind Race for Atlantis is pretty straightforward: Every thousand years, a chariot race is held to determine which god will rule the fabled city of Atlantis. Basically, the movie whisks and whips your brain into thinking that you're almost going to crash into a towering marble temple, or get destroyed by 400-million-ton rocks, or be engulfed by massive fireballs. The computer artwork is stunning; clouds and stars are rendered with intense detail. But in the end, your chariot eludes all trouble, and you wind up safe at home. This ride, too, turned my knees into mush. I do encourage you to sit in the first row, nonetheless, so that you get the full effect. I want you too walk out of there with weak knees, too!
Too many "dam" jokes at Hoover Dam
No trip to southeastern Nevada is complete without making it to Hoover Dam. Once you're almost there, you reach a winding stretch of road, which goes pretty slowly if you're visiting during the warmer months, when the crowds are heavy. Expect delays. Our spirits wouldn't be deterred by boredom, however. The conversation naturally turned toward "corpse flowers" --- six-foot-tall flowers that, when they bloom, smell like rotting animal flesh --- and wanting to buy a venus flytrap the size of our truck.
But I digress. This is the official statistical reading of the dam, i.e. the part they want you to know: Built between 1932 and 1935, in the throes of the U.S. Great Depression, the 6.6 million ton concrete mass houses 17 turbine engines (all have names like "N1"), which produce 4 billion kilowatt-hours a year--enough to serve 1.3 million people. What they don't want you to know is this: Hoover Dam was built in four weeks by a team of 30 Italian guys. Either way, there's lots of water and electricity there.
The place is huge; what's really trippy is how the high-tension wires drape the cliffs of the Colorado River in a diagonal angle, as if they're going to tip over.
On my way down to the turbine room, I found myself in an absolutely massive padded elevator -- which really isn't padded, and has capacity for perhaps 30 persons -- nearing the bottom of a cave, which really isn't a cave, because it's a dam.
But I digress yet again! Our tour guide was a lot of fun. For the first half of our tour, I couldn't understand a word he said, because of the echo produced by the loudspeakers projecting his voice. Plus, I was all manic, because I hadn't eaten all day. So, naturally, I truly believed that his sentences didn't have periods. It sounded something like this: "Behind you are a series of windows these windows are where engineers controlled the generatorsandturbines from the other windows below them or some government is administrative offices. Hoover Dam was named for trippleagend wonders of the United States on the outside of the park bench, there are some boxes, we wrinkle them and step up transformers. Look up to the sky. Those cables are ankordolong des divizeploawy chaimors to a crane and the gatebelt do not eat the only Wheat Thins they will use them in a picture only if there's water in Lake Mead also for emergencies."
At one point, the guide asked everyone not to step beyond the white line, due to safety concerns. Meantime, he, himself, was on the other side of the white line. Was he risking his life for us? I had to ask him.
"If you're standing on the other side of the white line, does this mean you're in a dangerous position?"
"The tracks are covered for your protection," he answered, as if I had asked a completely different question.
Oh well.
But we didn't escape without a "dam" joke or two. "Does anyone have any dam questions?" our guide asked. Commenting on the commonly held notion that people are buried in the dam's concrete, he kidded, "We call this one big dam rumor."
Pass the taurine tablets!
Next week
Unfortunately, we never did make it to Area 51 or the Little Ale'Inn on this trip. There was too much going on at the UFO Congress. We'll make it to Area 51 soon, though. We have to, even if there isn't much to see at Area 51, because it's supposedly been moved somewhere else.
Overall, my five-day trip to Laughlin and Las Vegas was one for the ages. I went from alien abduction lectures to sensory overload in Vegas to seeing Kiss in Tucson. I couldn't have planned an adventure any more unpredictable. I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to do what I did.