New Years in Nevada

Being rather conservative we spent New Year’s Eve in bed asleep. Ah well, living in probably the number one party town in the world we just skipped it all again. The estimate was for only a half million people out on the Strip to see the end of 2009, with quite an impressive fireworks display off the tops of several big hotels. Downtown under the canopy were a few hundred thousand more, serenaded by tribute bands. So when we got up feeling nice and chipper on New Year’s Day B thought we should explore someplace new, and wanted to drive down to Searchlight. For those of you not from Nevada, Searchlight is the home of one of our politicians, Harry Reid. Driving up from LA on the interstate we pass one off ramp that directs you to this town, but wanted to see it for ourselves. It’s about an hour drive from our house, and Wikipedia lists it as a Census-designated place (CDP), which means basically it’s a wide spot in the road. Population 513 in 14 square miles, a former mining town now home to two casinos and two gas stations.

So big we didn’t even stop to take a picture. But we continued on another half hour do Laughlin, another place we had not been to (yes, another CDP). This is on the Colorado River, another wide spot in the road. It seemed that everyone lived across the river in Arizona, no homes to be seen just a lot of trailers and casinos. It is a town created by Don Laughlin when he opened a casino there in 1964 with 12 slot machines, two tables and eight motel rooms. Wow. The most interesting casino there is in the riverboat theme, though on dry land and not in the water.


Inside it just looks like an old casino, but on New Year’s Day every slot machine was taken, and the minimum age to gamble looked to be about 65.


It is on the river, where you can get a river taxi to take you over to the other casinos. Across the way is Bullhead City, Arizona.


For those of you in the cold, it’s supposed to get to 61f here today, and remembering back to last June 23, looking at the thermometer in my car. (you can see I was stopped when I took the photo)



Thinking of you Twilight fans.