Museum Day in Las Vegas - Southwest USA 2018 - 13
Tuesday, 2018-05-08 - Museum Day in Las Vegas
After two days of driving, this will be a quiet day. I get up later than usual and finish my notes from yesterday. Before going for breakfast, I walk over to Mandalay Bay to see what kind of decoration they have this time. Most of the umbrellas are gone and have been replaced by some banners. The motto of the flower garden is Japan. Quite nice as usual.
I take a brief look at the animals of the Flamingo Casino (my favorites, the cranes are gone) and decide to take breakfast here at the garden restaurant.
Now I'm ready to go for two special museums. Number one is the Carroll Shelby Museum. Shelby was a famous race driver who decided in the early '60s to build cars. Their production site or better their workshop is here in Las Vegas. They attached a small museum where you can see some of the famous cars, but some of their newer builds that are for sale, too.
I arrive as the free tour just started and listen to the guide for quite a while, taking pictures in parallel. Through a glass front, you can watch the workers tuning the cars. The tour would also go behind the glass (still separated by a low wall from the production), but as the guide is telling stories about nearly every single car on exhibition this takes too long for me and I leave early.
Museum number two is also a special one: The Pinball Museum. Here an enthusiastic guy collects pinball machines, but also old arcade and other games. Some of them are more than 50 years old, some are quite new. All of them are standing in long lines right next to each other in a low, dark hall.
It's like traveling back in time. The best is that nearly all machines are working and you can play them. Most of the machines ask for 50 cents per game, some of the older ones are at 25 cent and the most expensive ones are at 1$.
Of course, I cannot resist and 3$ or so are "donated" by playing some of the machines 😉.
Except for one visit later in the afternoon, these have been the topics on today's agenda. So, I take a look at some of the outlets in the area.
At 5:30 pm I go to a place called "Seven Magic Mountains" some miles south of Las Vegas. It's an installation of Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone and shall become the new icon of Las Vegas. If you see the long lines at the Las Vegas Welcome Sign, no matter what time of the day, there is a long way to go. But at least 10 cars join the parking lot with me. Unfortunately, most of the visitors are Asians of the "make a picture of me when I'm right in the middle of the rocks" type. So, it's impossible to get an undisturbed photograph of the whole scene. But I manage to get some non-standard views of parts of the rocks.
Later I go to the Strip for some shots I've planned before, but I return after two hours (much earlier than planned) as it was still too hot and humid outside. Max today was 104°F (40°C) and the weather app claims that it's still in the 90s (~35°C).
