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| - I stayed at the Sahara my first trip to Las Vegas. I had a room that was on the sign from the elevator, the first room on the floor. From the window to the right I could see Paradise Rd. towards Hilton while they were building some new attraction for Star Trek fans that I would later attend the opening of on another trip & the week before that closed, as a local.
My trip was to meet a group of people who were fans of something that didn't have a name then, but now it would be an interactive websodic blog site. Sahara was undergoing construction & our big landmark by the lobby construction maze was a Red Dodge Viper you could supposedly win. That week was the U2 Pop Mart tour, which I found out too late. Too late because we were "stuck" in the casino the night of the concert, all of the taxis in town were dispatched to the concert somehow. I never thought to take the bus. This was long before the monorail, too. I think my trip was supposed to be for 4 days. I won so much money playing craps that I learned from annual weekend Reno bus trips, I was able to call back to work & somehow extend my vacation 3 more days. In retrospect, I have no idea how I pulled that off. My adrenaline was magic. I had a date that first weekend, an Arizona woman I met online months earlier from WBS chat. This World Wide Web thing got me to travel beyond the bay area & L.A. & see a world I never considered before with flashing lights, neon with no last calls.
That week I got around the strip, I saw a frame for a building with a huge ornament sticking out of the front. By the end of that week, I saw that it was supposed to look like some motorcycle jumping out of the front of what became Harley Davidson Cafe. I also tried out a club called The Beach that I wound up partying at for 3 new years eve's after.
Sahara had a $1 bar with beers & hot dogs that I remember used to be the Bra Bar, where women got hooked up when they gave it up. I remembered when the arcade used to have motion simulator movies besides the Nascar simulators. That was also a larger setup when it opened. I have many printouts from the simulator races, one was from a legendary trip with the guys & I can try to identify other printouts as using the sim as a "sobriety test" before driving my motorcycle home.
One of the few Sundays I had off I went down during Nascar to watch under RoadZilla. I bought a wristband & every time my driver was in the lead, we got a free shot. I won 5 more than "too many" free shots & got to meet a couple of girls who had a room upstairs, but they were locals & this was a longshot of a bonus to me.
I met the Amazing Johnathan & Psychic Tanya & saw their show there for the first time. I got to see & meet them at a few other shows since with some of my friends that are performers. I never go to do the GM auto drive that was behind Sahara. However, lemmie give shout outs to Record City, PT's (East) & Leatherby's delicious ice creams nearby!
I remember the 24 hour cafe well, used to be one of the best graveyard eats. I first noticed the $3 steak & egg breakfast I enjoyed for years was one of the first casualties of the worst recession of our time. I didn't see another $3 steak & egg special anywhere else since.
One of the last things we did was see that show with Buddy's kid performing as Joey Bishop, the most under appreciated member of The Summit at the Sands. That was a time, when all the shows had live orchestras. Sahara pioneered the late night lounges that had the top acts, all performing for free, all packing the house out to the hall. I'm sad that I won't get to House of Lords again, but I hope a Rat Pack's former hangout down the street will live on for more decades.
My last trip thru Sahara I'm not sure I remember because I didn't assume it would be my last. I lived off Sahara West by Palace Station & I got to walk thru Sahara from the monorail when I took it home from work. I got in a groove playing a bank of machines that according to a website paid out the most jackpots. I always at least got dinner out of it & a few beers when I partook on My Fridays.
I hope by the time Vegas gets money to build casinos again, people will realize how a wannabe whaler non-themed douche attracting McCasino is what's keeping us blue collar folk away. Yeah, us that were repeat customers who's real bucketfulls of quarters (not BS tickets) built the casinos with years of loyalty until the new managers try to bump the place up a star. At least go for a vintage classy themed casino. Even Disneyland got smart & re-themed Tomorrowland to "vintage future." My biggest hope is someone will get really smart & have a Vegas themed casino & replicate if not rescue from the boneyard a lot of the famous & infamous Nesco symbols of Vegas, from the Apache to Moulin Rouge, from the Sands to Hacienda, Silver Slipper to the Horseshoe.
They might as well change the street name back to San Francisco Ave.
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