Tuesday, 10/18/2011

What a great time we had tonight!  We've talked about hitting each of the casinos in order from one end of the strip to the other, so tonight we decided to start with the Stratosphere.  If you haven't seen it, it's similar to the Seattle Space Needle, only with a hotel and casino inside.  We went to the inside observation deck on the 108th floor, and when we stepped off the elevator, we could see the lights of Las Vegas spread out below us.  What a gorgeous sight.  Trying to pick out the landmarks was pretty interesting.  Then we decided to go up one flight to the outside observation deck, and that was even more beautiful.  It didn't hurt that it was about 8:30pm, temps in the 80's, with a perfectly clear sky.  At that point, we were 851 feet above the ground.  If that wasn't enough of a treat, the Stratosphere is known for several "death defying" experiences, so we were as entertained by people trying these things out as anything else.  There is a "Sky Jump" where people are tethered to a cord and do a free fall from 851 feet directly to the ground.  Yeah, right.  The scariest one for me was the "Insanity" where people sit in a car similar to a roller coaster car, and the car is launched out BESIDE the 109th floor, over the edge of the building, then "dropped" and brought back in several times.  Where do these people come from?  I told Mike I felt like I needed to scream for them - I didn't hear any of them make a sound.  Though Mike did say he thought the woman in the front was frozen in place, like she was too scared to even scream.  The other one we saw was the "Big Shot".  People sat in seats (at the very top section of the building, above us, around the structure, and were lifted at high speed (2 G's) then dropped (-1 G) - several times.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun for us, too.  We're going back on our anniversary to have dinner in the "Top of the World" restaurant.  It spins (slowly) 360 degrees while you're dining.  Looking forward to that!