Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
at least) are half a dozen actual houses that you wander through, hearing about
the lives of the real people who lived in them at different times in the area's his-
tory, from a Paiute twig hut village to a house lived in by men involved in the con-
struction of the Hoover dam, to a gold miner's house and a 1960s abode from the
Atomic Testing Site. As you enter, you'll hear period music as a narrator picks out
the specific artifacts you should look at closely. The houses are fantastic, as is the
1932 Boulder Train Depot that's also displayed here. Back outside is a garden with
native plants, all well marked along winding trails. Even though the museum is
close to the highway and the area is fast becoming one long stretch of boxy devel-
opments, you can still get the sense of being way out in the middle of nowhere.
Severe mountains loom in all directions beyond the barren desert plain. I found
the whole thing pretty thrilling.
The downside:
Because it is a good, long drive
from the Strip, you'll need a rental car to get here. A taxi really isn't practical.
NEON SIGNS
The grandly titled
Neon Museum
(www.neonmuseum.org),
is, in actuality, eleven
classic Vegas signs, fully restored to their original luminescence and scattered in
and around the Fremont Street Experience area. This puts them into well-trod
areas of Downtown, but unfortunately sets them up in an unwinnable competi-
tion with the massive LED light canopy that overhangs many of them. You sim-
ply can't see their true colors against such a huge light source. If you're in the area,
and have nostalgia for the Vegas of the gangster days, seek them out as you walk
Downtown. You'll see one for “wedding information,” a Genie's lamp from the
old Aladdin, a vintage liquor store sign, and so forth (each has a plaque explain-
ing its provenance). I don't think that this “museum” is worth a special trip. Much
more evocative and interesting are the tours of the Neon Boneyard, where many
more of these signs are stored (see p. 180 for more on that).
PINBALL
If you've been playing the silver ball ever since you were a young child and still
have the supple wrists to show for it, make the pilgrimage out to the
Pinball Hall
of Fame
(3330 E. Tropicana Ave., at Pecos Rd.; www.pinballmuseum.org; free
admission, games cost 25¢; Mon-Fri 11am-11pm, Sat-Sun 11am-midnight).
Set
in an obscure strip mall about a 20-minute drive from the Strip, this nonprofit
“museum” is simply a huge arcade crammed with 158 pinball games. The oldest
is a 1948 Rondeevoo; the rarest is an unproduced prototype called “Black Gold,”
and each machine has a story that the owner of the museum has scrawled on index
cards and taped to them. If you're a child of the '80s like me, you'll enjoy playing
the classic video games that are here. From Paper Boy (a personal fave that I credit
with dropping my GPA down a point in college) to Asteroids, the place holds an
additional 48 of these types of video game machines as well. “This place is one of
a kind,” Walter Day, author of the
Official Video Game and Pinball Book of World
Records,
told me. He just happened to refereeing a world championship Galaga
match when I last dropped by.
