Las Vegas Inside, Outside, Upside Down: Not Another Travel Guide

By Bob Campbell

Lock up the credit cards, stash enough cash to get home back in your hotel room, ditch your significant other, and - well, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea - come along on an epic photographic journey up and down Las Vegas Blvd to experience The Strip like only Not Another Travel Guide can dish up Vegas for the intrepid reader.
Sure you'll find lots of normal views of some of the big names of Vegas, but also what we hope are the details that make the experience complete: whether you're actually in town and dodging detritus or comfortably snuggled up far away, dreaming of your next vacation.
Check out the range of fun and frolic with a gander at the book contents:
Las Vegas Visitor's Center
The Strip, Up and Down
Hotels & Casinos On Our Path
Ballys
Bellagio
Caesars Palace
Circus Circus
Excalibur
Fashion Show
Flamingo
Four Jacks (Jackpot, NV)
Hooters
Luxor
Mandalay Bay
MGM Grand
New York
Palazzo
Paris
Silver Sevens
Tropicana
Venetian
North Strip Mini-Shots
Time Share Terror
There's even several hotels where we'll show you a typical 'low end' room (Paris, Hooters, Silver Sevens, and Four Jacks)... not just because we're cheap, but there's no sense in you fearing the discount room without reason. Hopefully we'll provide you reason, or not, to either stay at one of these four, which includes a 'Best Bargain in Nevada' rating from our discerning panel of judges (all two of us).
Almost all of the above hotels and casinos we'll attempt to give you the real scoop on the extent of the theme or promised experience (with telltale photos), even if what we found failed miserably; or shocked the heck out of us because it's not one of the big names often mentioned in travel guide circles.
For the writer or virtual vacation fantasy traveler, the images attempt to put you right there, either saving you the trip or providing fodder for your break-time happy-moment that gets you through the day.
Those planning on their own trip to Las Vegas will find we try to emphasize some strategic points to ponder and other aspects to be wary (be afraid, be very afraid) to smooth your travel plans.
Others not fitting the above categories can marvel at our literary skills at avoiding telling anyone what the picture is really about, and our subtle mastery of hiding snarky and snide comments about facilities (like how in Paris, "free" means "$12" added to your room tab without you knowing it). When necessary, we've even provided a real French person to help translate things (if by "real" you mean, "not really").
A long way to say: everyone should be able to find something to entertain, educate, or elucidate within the confines of this marvelous collection of images from The Strip... Las Vegas Inside, Outside, Upside Down.
(Guaranteed to confound your poor mother-in-law who agreed to proof read an early draft of the book. Because her family and book group will never let her hear the end of it knowing she had a hand in this.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Campbell
• Release date: Nov 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463758946

Bob Campbell

The short of it: over-educated, unemployed, and annoying with a camera. Quite possibly a dangerous combination.The long of it:I've been snapping pictures for over a quarter-of-a-century on equipment ranging from a Pentax k1000 to Canon SX700hs - but nothing fancier. In fact, after they retired my Kodachrome 64 film, I hung up the 'real cameras' and settled for "digital pocket snappers." It seems ninety percent of the challenge to taking pictures is to remember your camera (would seem obvious, wouldn't it? But look around at the folks with large, fancy cameras - no wonder they claim the phone-based lens will be the death of real photography). So I do my part and pack it almost everywhere.I was a latecomer to photography, though, so I had time to grow up in many different parts of the country with my formative stage in the South, but junior high and onward in the Pacific Northwest. The last set of initials after my name tacked on by the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine - making the 'highest degree attained' line of the survey read Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.I still live in the state of Washington with my lovely wife of over two decades who continues to be an invaluable accomplice. For any hazard I manage to avoid, our son does his best to ensure we'll see an early grave.Having spent a little time teaching, I've grown to miss a captive audience to inflict my photography upon, so thank you Smashwords for providing me a forum for dispersing my imagery pain to be loosed upon the world.

Book preview

: Table of Contents :

Introduction

Las Vegas Visitor's Center

The Strip, Up and Down

Hotels & Casinos On Our Path

Ballys

Bellagio

Caesars Palace

Circus Circus

Excalibur

Fashion Show

Flamingo

Four Jacks

Hooters

Luxor

Mandalay Bay

MGM Grand

New York

Palace Station

Palazzo

Paris

Silver Sevens

Stratosphere

Treasure Island

Tropicana

Trump Tower

Venetian

Wynn - Encore

North Strip Mini-Shots

Time Share Experience

Conclusion

Master Index and Free Samples

Other Works by Bob Campbell

About the Author & Contact Information

Introduction

Welcome to the wonderful, wacky world of Las Vegas. Yes, that's Lady Liberty wearing a Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey jersey (Vegas made quite the splash as an NHL hockey team, threatening to win the Stanley Cup championship their first year in the league) smashed right into the New York skyline nestled onto Las Vegas Boulevard: The Strip. ( 11/8/2018 07:23AM, 1/1000s, f4.5, ISO80... and in honor of the Las Vegas apostrophe prohibition, which you'll learn about later, I'll do the same with the parenthesis around the camera information which I include throughout this book. In Vegas fashion, on a rare instance, I'll toss them back in. Otherwise, here's your last parenthetical close to my Sony HX80 (yes, a little, automatic pocket snapper) camera settings: )

Live the Not Another Travel Guide Life

In typical Not Another Travel Guide fashion, I'll try to bring you not just the usual views and musings of other Las Vegas guides, but allow you the chance to see some of the details many folks miss. (No, the photo above is not supposed to look that clear. Yes, it's intended to look like a painting. No, I didn't use digital blur or 'painterly' effects (except for eliminating a white annoying reed poking into the frame - and un-killing the lily pad - I didn't do digital tweaking).) You can find this at one of the two Caesars Palace wedding chapels (apostrophes not included), by the grand pool area, but buried off to the side against the buildings where multiple hidden alcoves conceal additional statuary, pools, ponds, and koi. Although I don't want to bad talk Caesars, but, um, you folks might check for dead fish... you've got quite a few (this particular one was alive). 11/7/2018 09:31AM, 1/60s, f5, ISO3200

Time Travel!

An additional aspect in the images and information to follow, you'll note some dimensional rifts, shifts, and temporal oddities. That's because unlike most of the Not Another Travel Guides, this one really wanted to be organized so you could get the feel of any one hotel or casino all off one buffet table and not need to wander hither and thence (Wow... it's been years looking for a place to use those words). Plus, Nevada is home to the Extraterrestrial Highway, Groom Lake / Nellis Air Range, Britney Spears, and other oddities, so I presumed it made sense to present it this way. (I'll spare you the discussion about how humans, confined to living in the fourth dimension and experiencing / manipulating three dimensions can affix a different plane to see time by setting X, Y, or Z to a set point, then manipulating t (Time) forward or backward as needed. If you're interested, it's a really fun discussion while traveling to and from Las Vegas (check out our Jackpot to Las Vegas Not Another Travel Guide: High Octane) for other ways to spend your time, either in-flight to Vegas or terrified-nails-digging-into-the-dashboard vehicular travel. Spaceship not included). (View of the impressive grounds of the Palazzo (which is French for Eeediot! Dees eez italien!) looking down a mostly hidden traffic-packed Las Vegas Blvd toward the odd-ovid-capped Fashion Show... April 25, 2015 at 11:26AM, 1/640s, f4, ISO200 on a Canon SX700.)

(Warning: Heresy Follows)

So put on your I can't believe in the 23rd century Star Fleet couldn't afford them seatbelts, while Chewie pushes it into hyper-drive (unless you've read the original canon Star Wars expanded universe books and know Han lives, Chewie dies... which is obvious, because Aurrgngh! can only be typed into a novel so many times before his dialogue stales; versus Harrison Ford got way too expensive and busy in film to keep him in the movie trilogies). Las Vegas, here we come!

(Eeediot - even French people know, you don't meex Star Trek and Star Wars idioms in zee same paragrapheek.)

About the shot: taken on our journey down to Las Vegas, just outside Jackpot, NV (need I mention: check out the companion book to this one) using old-school, in-camera, single frame photography fun and teeth chattering for way too long in sub-freezing temperatures waiting on a semi-truck to come by so I could get this image... see? The distances I won't go to provide help in seeing the world all-around that one might miss. 11/5/2018 05:01AM, 30s (thirty seconds open shutter), f4.5, ISO400... all manual settings on that Sony pocket camera previously mentioned. Try it on your own camera: you just have to get up the nerve to deactivate all the automatic stuff.

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: Table of Contents :

Helpful Las Vegas Hint #1: LV Visitor's Center

The Sands Expo Center (almost attached to the Pallazo, and next to the odd-roofed Fashion Show building) is on a curve of road leading off-strip to Paradise (gotta love Vegas road names: Yes, go Strip to Paradise), which following it to the north-northwest (don't try to walk this - it's a long way) should take you to the Las Vegas Convention Center - which now houses the Visitor's Center (An entire desk. Which is too bad, because the gentleman working the counter is extremely helpful and ready to provide lots of information... but deep down, you can tell it's a little bit of a letdown to lose a building or even a room and just get plopped out in the middle of a convention center... oops, wait, that'd be too glorious... they shoved his desk under a stairway (I wish I were kidding - it's on the first floor - don't try to go to the second floor with the more impressive looking large offices, rooms, and administrative buildings. Just a two sided counter shoved under the stairs). Don't let that fool you, though, the information available is vastly useful - along with suggestions catered to your individual interests (and possibly a book of coupons, certificates, and other money saving tidbits). Too bad Las Vegas doesn't value the folks that provide this service, just shoving them under the stairs at a kiosk hidden from the world. Being the smart traveler: seek it out. Look lost and ask nicely and the folks directing parking out front, especially if you