Another full day at Las Vegas. It's late again and we are beat, so another abbreviated post again tonight.
We started the morning touring the Mob Museum - National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. It is located in an old US post office and court house and walks you through the history or organized crime, which is directly related to Las Vegas and gambling. The significance of the location is that this is the same courthouse that hosted the Kefauver Committee hearings which confirmed the existence of a national crime syndicate and revealed lax enforcement. They have artifacts from syndicated crime, law enforcement and related areas. A few pictures:
After the Mob Museum we drove to the nearby Container Park but it was not yet open form the day so we walked down Fremont Street. It has been years since we have been here and a lot has changed! It is covered now and has zip lines going down the street! Our go-top casino, the Four Queens, is still there though! Brings back memories from years ago.
Back in the late 70's or early 80's Doreen and I and our good friends Mark and Michelle Mulford came out here on a getaway and had a blast! Doreen had $20 and I had $20 and we were going to gamble a bit at the Four Queens. This was back when you still fed coins into the machines, pulled the handle, and got coins in return if you were lucky. So I liked to play Blackjack and Doreen liked the slots. We each split up with our money but knew generally where each other would be. I sat at the $2 blackjack table and played for an hour or more - no sign of Doreen. I was up a bit and down a bit, but just having fun playing Blackjack, but I started getting worried about my bride of less than 10 years, so I pulled my chips and went in search of her. I saw this group gathered around a slot machine all cheering and such, and wondered what was going on. Sure enough, in the center of it all was Doreen! She has befriended the casino employee lady that was working the group of $1 slots and was giving her advise, and Doreen was hitting! She had stacks and stacks of $1 coins in front of her. She finally cashed out and from her initial $20 she had won hundreds of dollars! I remember her hands being blackened from the coins! So much fun!
So today we walked down Fremont Street, reminisced a bit, stopped into a bar for a cold drink, and watched the folks walking by. They had the friendliest police officers here! You could even get your picture taken with them but they wanted a tip to do that. Their department budget must be really 'tight' as they did not have much for uniforms!
Much has changed on Fremont Street but much is the same. We enjoyed the walk and the trip down memory lane!
We had lunch there and it was very good. From there we headed back to the FamCamp and tended to Liberty a bit before we headed out for the evening.
Later we headed south on I-15 towards a downtown area near Flamingo Rd where the BattleBots arena is located. BattleBots is an American robot combat television series and company created in 1999 by Greg Munson and Trey Roski. Teams build very complicated robots and then they compete against each other in an enclosed arena surrounded by bullet-proof glass. The robots has integral weapons that inflict damage on their opponent. May the best robot win! It has evolved quite a bit but now shows on the Discovery Channel and is a show that Doreen and I both enjoy. This year is their 12th season! One of the show hosts, Bil Dwyer, hosted tonight's event in the arena.
We departed the campground two hours before showtime, but the traffic in Las Vegas was grid-lock and I really thought we were going to miss the show. The tickets were VERY expensive so I was stressing but we ended up arriving in time for the show and we had an outstanding time!! Some photos:
That's it for tonight.
Tomorrow we plan to visit the Shelby auto plant, the pinbox museum and the Welcome to Las Vegas iconic sign
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