California Day -1 Riding Around Las Vegas

I spent all day today, until 6:00, inside the Flamingo Hotel at the Airport Noise and Emissions Conference. The conference is very worthwhile. They brought in Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so there was no need to leave. The conference attendees can roughly be divided into these sets:
* Academics, who study noise and pollution from aviation. They hold the conference.
* People who work for airports and carriers, who are responsible for the noise and pollution.
* Consultants, who are looking for work from the people who are responsible for the noise and pollution.
* Community activists, who complain about the noise and pollution.

I am in the community activist group.  There was a networking session just for us yesterday, and we all decided we are each other's people, and we are the only normal people here. We have gardens and raise chickens and ride bikes. I think everyone else is probably Reptilians. Today is probably going to start making me have work nightmares again.

But at 6:00, I'd had enough, and it was time for a bike ride. The sun goes down at 6:30. I wanted to put some air in the tires (which I purposely had at fairly low pressure for their unpressurized plane ride), so I headed east for a bike shop three miles away where I figured I could use a floor pump with an accurate gauge. Unfortunately, they were closed. So I kept on going east a few more miles, and then turned west towards downtown.

I'm out of range of the tourist megacasinos at this point, and the sun is setting behind the mountains, and the billboards are now targeting the needs of the local residents.

It was pretty dark at this point, so I went to put on the headlight, which was stored in my decaleur bag. Only to find I packed the light, but not the mount. This was not so cool, since there was no way I can get back to the Flamingo before it's completely dark. 

I decided the thing to do was to ride the busiest streets possible past as many casinos as possible, and hope that all the casinos would be lit up enough for me to see. 

This plan worked, and riding around Vegas after dark is definitely the way to go.

Las Vegas has a small downtown that predates all the big casinos that were built starting in the 1960s. The big casinos are on "the strip", which is Las Vegas Boulevard south of downtown. The casinos on the strip are huge, impersonal, corporate spectacles.

Downtown is really cool though. It's on a much smaller, human scale. It has so much neon. And it leans hard into the sleaze.

Here is the road entering downtown.

The entrance to the historic Fremont Street pedestrian mall. This is the intersection with Las Vegas Boulevard.

The neon cowboy is about 40 feet tall.

And last but hardly least, the "Heart Attack Grill" where you eat free if you weigh over 350 lbs.

Tomorrow's mission is to go to REI, 10 miles away, put air in the tires, and buy a headlight. Since the conference ends at 3, I should be able to get there and back before dark.

The weather on this bike ride was perfect. It's so comfortable outside.

Here's the Strava Track: https://www.strava.com/activities/17680638828
 

California Day -2 Las Vegas Airport to the Flamingo Hotel

I got to the airport at 6:00 AM to make sure I had plenty of time to get the bike checked and get through screening. This was especially gruesome because daylight savings time started yesterday, so it was really 5:00 AM.

Checking the bike box was an adventure. This used to be so easy. You used to give the Southwest clerk the box, they charge you $50, done.

Now, though, the clerk has never seen a bike in a box before. I explained that it is a bike, and per the Southwest web site, it is "athletic equipment" and as long as it weighs less than $50 and the combined length/width/height of the box is less than 110", I can check it as baggage for an *additional* fee of $75 dollars, on top of the $35 checked bag fee. After searching around on her terminal for the Southwest web site, and using the tape measure, she agreed that I can check the bike as baggage.

The next step was a very long process of figuring out how to enter this exotic, unheard-of situation into her system so I can pay for it. After much consultation with other clerk, I think she just punted and entered it as a regular bag. Baggage was checked, and I had plenty of time to drink some bad coffee at the gate.

And my bike and duffel bag containing my loaded panniers arrive according to plan at Las Vegas.

This is by far the most stressful part of the trip. 
Will my bike arrive? Will it be damaged? Did I forget anything I need to put it back together?  Will the airport be a jerk and not let me put it together?

Everything was fine, here is the bike fully assembled and ready to ride.

When I'm actually out riding, I have everything I need to handle pretty much any situation. Including  camping gear. But when the bike is in the box in the hands of the airline, all bets are off. Who knows what will happen.

I did get some reassurance when I asked the Southwest guy at the baggage claim if anyone would care if I put the bike together right there. "Naw, it's a public space, you can do anything you want." Spoken in what sure sounded like a Wisconsin accent. 

The next adventure was leaving the airport. There is always a side road that will lead you out from the terminal. I thought I found that road but it dumps you out on this, which sure looks to me like an Interstate, even though there are signs that nobody apparently notices that says the speed limit is 35. Right. And this goes through a long dark tunnel UNDER THE AIRPORT for like a mile. In the wrong direction from my destination, which means I have to ride back around the airport on super busy roads. I have not yet seen a bike lane in Las Vegas.

But look what I stumbled upon right next to the airport! Yowza. I miss my GT500 convertible.

No sense in passing up the opportunity to add Nevada to the list of states where I've had pho when that opportunity presents itself. 

And it was very good pho, although there was no tripe.  The top song selection for the cool jazz background music was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

I am spending the next three days at the UC Davis Airport Noise and Emissions Symposium here at the Flamingo Hotel. I took the early flight so I would arrive in plenty of time for a networking session with other community members fighting airport noise, which happily came with a nice buffet dinner. I am talking on Wednesday morning.

Here is the campground for the next three nights.

 The Flamingo is one of the classic hotels on the Vegas strip. It is nice, but not so fancy anymore. 

The weather was in the upper 70s, sunny, and very low humidity. It was very comfortable riding.

Here's the Strava track: https://www.strava.com/activities/17665030290/overview