The temperature in Salt Lake was 104 degrees when I left on Wednesday afternoon, July 11.
When I approached Las Vegas on I-15, I could hardly see the city for a dust storm. The city remained in a dust cloud until the rain finally fell on Friday.
The temperature was also on the warm side at 115 degrees at about 8 p.m.
I ate dinner at Anime Ramen, a place Randy and I found when we were here near New Years and discovered our other favorite Japanese shokudo (cafe) had closed down. The ramen is good, and the entertainment is okay if you like Japanese cartoons.
Our conference was at the Red Rock Resort and Spa. This is the entry to my room.
This is the bedroom.
The bathroom (shower on the left, toilet in the back left room, jacuzzi and sink). There was also a restroom in the entry hall.
I enjoyed the jacuzzi each evening before bed.
Outside my window you can see the resort's pools and hot tubs.
On Thursday evening we had a dance party with Hollywood stars, or at least they looked like Hollywood stars. Robert De Niro was the best. Madonna didn't look like her, and we were convinced she was also a meth addict. I didn't see much of Elvis. We also had a magician that blew me away with a couple of card tricks, including one where he asked a woman by me (a coworker's girlfriend, so not a plant) to pick an imaginary card from an imaginary deck and then replace it. He then pulled out a real deck and asked her what her imaginary card was. She said the eight of clubs. He fanned the deck, and the eight of clubs was in the deck upside down. How did he do that?
I left the meetings Saturday afternoon and ate lunch at a ramen place called Monta, which I found via Google.
It definitely had the right atmosphere for a Japanese ramen shop: small and crowded with just a few tables and counter.
The soup was really good. The pork was thick and tender with a nice Chinese-like BBQ flavor I've not tasted before. The gyoza were really good and authentic. The only things I didn't care for were that the noodles were too skinny, and the portion was a bit skimpy, though meal was filling with the gyoza side dish.
This is the Pawn Stars (reality show on the History Channel) shop. It is really a dumpy place in a dumpy part of old Las Vegas. I didn't want to wait in line to get in and buy nothing or a cheap souvenir, so I left. I'm thinking I'll go back sometime with Randy or someone else who's interested in going inside. Interestingly, Chumlee, the goof-ball from the show, was in a tussle in Las Angeles over the weekend when he was approached by someone who insisted on taking a ride with him and his entourage in his Rolls Royce. That's what a TV show does for a small-time pawn shop.
The bouncer outside the pawn shop kept people in line and the endless line of taxis out of the parking lot.
On the way home, I turned off I-15 and took the back way. Much more interesting, and more comfortable for driving with the top down. The temperature was also down into the 90s.
I stopped in Ely for fried chicken at the Sliver Something restaurant.
Then to the whole reason I like to go through Ely: the drug store with an old-fashioned soda fountain. I love to eat banana splits here. This place is usually closed when I pass through late on a Saturday or Sunday, but it's now open until 8 p.m. on Saturdays.
While I was enjoying the banana split, a couple of high school girls and a boy came in to get a drink in the middle of their walking 20 miles for a cancer cause at the park. They mentioned that Verizon was sending text messages to all its customers warning of flash floods in the area. I said that I was planning to drive to Wendover (then to Salt Lake) that night, but I didn't want to face flash floods on the two-lane highway in the dark. The server lady added that there are also wild horses along that road that make night driving dangerous. So I decided to camp out at the Motel 6 in Ely rather than finish the ride home Saturday night.
Sunday morning I stopped for a few minutes at the East Ely train station and museum.
I need to come back sometime and ride this train.
This is called a speeder, and Rick on the History Channel's American Restoration restored this one. I asked one of the yard hands if they give rides on it (I'd heard on the TV show that they do). He said, "Sometimes on special days we give rides on this and on the trailer it pulls." I said, "You mean like the Fourth of July and other holidays?" He answered, "Well, on special days, we pull it out." So I have no idea how to plan a trip here on a day when the speeder is giving rides, because I couldn't figure out what a "special day" is. The guy also couldn't open the "paint shed," where it's kept for me to take a picture, because his foot was hurting and he didn't want to walk over there.
I zoomed right through Wendover and got home in time for church.
