Welcome to Part 3 of this Las Vegas trip report series! In this installment, we’re going to Las Vegas the city to experience the Atomic Museum, Fremont Street, and maybe even do a little bit of gambling. So grab your favorite snack and prepare for another installment of this trip report series!
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In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room
We woke up at 7am on Sunday, feeling a bit exhausted after our full day yesterday. But we were eager to get out there and explore more of what Las Vegas has to offer. We quickly got ready and were out the door by 8am.
Today we planned to explore Downtown Las Vegas. For those of you that don’t know, the Strip isn’t actually in Vegas but in a nearby city called Paradise. The city of Las Vegas is a little ways away from the Strip and has a lot of cool attractions you should definitely make time for. So off we went to our first stop of the day: a bar.
That’s right, we went to a bar at 8am. But it wasn’t any bar. It was a tiki bar! I had never been to a tiki bar before so I was pretty excited to be heading here even though it was so early in the morning.
We got to the bar at around 8:20 and quickly made our way inside. It was located in this strip mall and had a nondescript door. This totally contrasted with what was inside because once you walk in it’s like you’ve stepped right into a pacific island.
The design of the bar was so detailed and well themed. Tiki statues and other memorabilia littered the entire bar. It was overwhelming but so immersive at the same time. Luckily too, we were the only ones there so we got to sit anywhere we wanted.
We entered a booth and, after looking over the menu, decided on what drinks we wanted to try. They came in about 5 minutes as we were the only ones there. I ordered a drink that had mango in it since I love mango juice. It was very refreshing and wasn’t that strong.
After drinking our drinks we walked around the bar for a bit, taking in all the little details scattered throughout. It really was such an interesting space. We then paid our bill and headed out to our next stop of the day.
Oppenheimer In Real Life
We drove about 10 minutes until we reached the Atomic Museum. This museum is associated with the Smithsonian in Washington DC and is about nuclear testing, how it influenced America, and its effect on Nevada and Las Vegas.
When we parked there was no other car in the parking lot as it had just opened, so we basically had the whole place to ourselves for a while. We entered the building and showed our tickets to the front desk. The lady at the desk pointed us to the atom bomb room and said we should start there.
That room was very interesting. It had some pretty unique artifacts including roof tiles that survived the Hiroshima explosion, as well as some rocks that had been recovered from the Trinity Test site. A replica of the atom bomb was right in the center of the room. After touring that room for 20 minutes we proceeded to the main exhibition halls.
If you know anything about me, I love history museums more than art museums. I like being able to learn things I didn’t know before, and this museum did just that. It went from expounding on why the Pacific Islands and Nevada were picked as nuclear test sites, to explaining the nuclear test’s impact on popular culture.
I also learned that, when above ground testing was banned, they started building tunnels that would go over 200 feet into the ground and started detonating bombs there. There apparently was also an agreement that called for a complete ban on testing which, according to the museum, the USSR broke so both sides ended up testing weapons again. Finally, all testing stopped around the time the cold war ended.
The museum’s exhibits were thorough, although sometimes they would jump back and forth between events and time periods. That would be my only complaint about the museum. It also featured a room where you could watch a 12-minute documentary on the Nevada testing site, as well as an interactive exhibition on the periodic table and its elements.
Overall it’s a good way to spend an hour to 90 minutes and I would highly recommend coming here if you’re a history buff like me.
Pizza ROCKS
After the museum we decided to have an early lunch. We were in the mood for pizza and found out that one of the most highly rated pizza restaurants in the country, named Pizza Rocks, was in Las Vegas City near where our next attraction after lunch would be. Obviously, we couldn’t say no, so we headed straight there after the museum.
We drove for a bit, found parking, and waited outside the restaurant for it to open. It must be really popular because when we got there, a line was already forming outside. We were the third party in line and we waited about 15 minutes for them to open their doors. We were then ushered to a table at the corner of the restaurant.
We ended up ordering two pizzas. Our food came in about 25 minutes and, let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS. The crust was tender, the cheeses were amazing, and everything about those two pizzas was divine. I don’t know if I was feeling this way because I didn’t have breakfast, but we gobbled those pizzas up in record time. We would highly recommend coming here if you’re in the area.
Once we were stuffed, we paid our bill and headed to nearby Fremont Street.
The Sensory Overload Street
Fremont Street Experience, which is what this part of the street is called, is billed as Vegas’ second most famous strip. I remember seeing the street in the movie Anora, but had completely forgotten about it until I saw the iconic LED canopy.
When we entered the street, I was just overloaded with the amount of things going on. People were ziplining above us while street performers littered the street. Huge neon signs were all competing for my attention, giving the whole street a glow even in the daytime. And of course, as mentioned, the huge screen canopy above us was showing different patterns and videos. It all felt a bit disorienting and overwhelming, but in a good way.
We walked up and down the street, just to take in the different shops and casinos. We then decided that we wanted to gamble, so we headed into one of the nearby casinos.
The Black Jack Kings
Neither of us had ever played anything at a casino before, so we were lost with what we had to do. We figured out that we needed cash, so we quickly withdrew money from an ATM and began by playing slots. We, however, started losing money quickly playing slots. We only withdrew $20 dollars and were now down to $15. So we decided to play Black Jack at these Black Jack machines.
And that’s where we started to feel like kings. Nobody told me that Black Jack was this much fun to play. We ended up tripling our $15 dollars. At one point we had $55 dollars in our tab, but before we cashed out we lost $10. We basically took turns playing each hand, with each of us winning and losing some hands. When we got down to $45, we decided to cash out to leave as winners and because it was almost time for our next museum stop.
Las Vegas City Itinerary Conclusion
And that’s the first half of Day 2! The next installment will focus on the second half of the day where we visited the Mob Museum, the Neon Museum, and went to THE MOST lively late night Vegas spot.
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