#48. Death Valley and Caesar’s Palace (Tuesday, December 19, 2023)
What was your best day…of doing two things that couldn’t be more different?
The title of this one pretty much says it all.
This was Day 5 of a six-day trip to Vegas—and first one alone (#119). The motivations for this trip and the details of Day 1 are best left for another entry, but suffice to say Days 2, 3, and 4 had already given me the classic Vegas experience. Namely, the buffets: highlighted by the Cosmopolitan, with its bone marrow and tuna tartare. And the nightclubs: Tao at Venetian, Hakkasan at MGM, and Marquee at Cosmopolitan, each one better than the last. (My mathematical mind wouldn’t let me do any gambling.)
But today I’d be going all-in, starting in the earliest hours of the morning—as I make the short walk from my room at Luxor to the pick-up zone at Excalibur for the 4 AM start of the Death Valley Day Tour. It’s a small tour group: just seven of us in a van with our guide James. And with my pick-up being first, I get to ride shotgun.
Once we escape the Vegas lights into the pitch-black desert sky, James starts explaining the interesting, way-too-detailed history behind the military sites in the area. I soon find out he’s been doing this freelance for twenty years and knows literally everything about Death Valley. A few times, he points to a speck of colored light from far away and tells me he still has no idea about its origin (implying some covert government operation, since we are near Area 51). I’m so enthralled by his tales that I don’t even bother taking a nap like I should.
The sun starts to rise when we reach the Area 51 visitor center1, and from there we go to Rhyolite, one of the many ghost towns in the area. Rhyolite in particular had an unprecedented boom with the gold rushes in the early 20th century, with a train station, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange (preceding all but a few of the largest American cities). All of whose abandoned remains were there to be seen and photographed. Exactly what I came here for.
Then it’s to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes: where we enter from the side most tourists don’t know about. (James tells me that even after twenty years, he’s still finding new spots to explore in Death Valley; and regularly updates the travel itinerary with them.) There, I feel a chilling emptiness: with nothing but waves of sand and small patches of dry vegetation for miles on end.
After a buffet lunch at the Toll Road Restaurant, it’s on to the Visitor Center (where a sign commemorates the Earth-record 134 Fahrenheit recorded there in 1913) then an hour at each of Death Valley’s notable geographic landmarks. Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, with its unique salt patterns. Artist’s Palette, with its multicolored rocks. Zabriskie Point, with its unusual folded canyon formations. And finally Dante’s View of the whole Valley below (which today is unfortunately obscured by cloud cover).
All the while, James is awesome. With great enthusiasm, he continues telling us some hidden backstory of every single building or landmark we drive past, with an interesting follow-up story ready every time I ask him a question from the front passenger seat.
(Another insane story: one night he was just looking at the desert sky when he saw a flashing light streak across like an airplane, then make a straight ninety-degree turn—beyond impossible at that speed for any known human-made flying object.)
I arrive back in Vegas at seven, but the night isn’t over. Not by a long shot. After dinner and a flight of seasonal drinks on the balcony at Paris (with a perfect view of the Bellagio Fountains and entire strip), I cross the bridges and tunnels to my final nightclub destination: Omnia at Caesar’s Palace.
And following the pattern, Omnia is even better than the previous three. It’s an expansive circular space, with a humungous dance floor and several raised platforms on the side, all highlighted by a set of giant spherical disks right above that shift up and down and twist around and change color in tune with the music. And the contrast of this rocking, uncontrolled nightclub to the desolately beautiful desert surroundings I just came from only adds to my indescribable excitement as I step in ready to go.
And, as with Tao, Hakassan, and Marquee, once the space fills up at around eleven and the party starts, it passes by like a blur for the next three hours. Deafening dance music, an unrestrained mass of jumping and screaming people just like you, plus the occasional blast from the fog machine that gets everyone going again; all that epitomizes the entertainment capital of the world.
If I wanted a break from reality on this trip, I sure got it on this day. In more ways than one.