If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
steve @ teslatouring.com
Click here for a slideshow of the below photos.
We all gathered in Las Vegas to celebrate my sister Shelli's Big "60" Birthday! Everyone is dressed up for our day and night out on the town, especially the birthday celebration dinner we plan to have at The BlackOut Restaurant (dining in the dark)!
My sister, Vikki, and her son, Chris, got up and were out early yesterday and today to have breakfast and to walk the strip. They seem to be the only early risers of our family on this trip. I'm usually the next one to wake up, maybe around 9 or 10 AM. That gives me some time to work on these photos and reports while Vikki and Chris are out exploring and Barbara and Shelli are still sleeping. They usually get up somewhere between 11 AM and 1 PM.
Open 24 hours at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, presented by Tylt.
We went down to a bar in the Mandalay Bay casino before heading out to pick up our sister, Margie, who was staying at a different place north on the Las Vegas Strip, not far from the Stratosphere Hotel.
Whenever I go to any restaurant, bar or lounge, I like to capture a copy of what I might order on my repeat visits. Thus, I like to photograph at least the red wine, craft beer, and spirits sections of the menu.
Since Barbara and I recently returned from a tour and tasting from all seven Scotch distilleries in Islay, Scotland, (click here to view my photos and report from that trip) we decided to order two different Islay Scotch whiskies. When we did the distilleries tour in Islay we were never able to compare Scotch from different distilleries side by side. Thus we ordered one Ardbeg and one Laphroig. We ordered them "neat" so that we would get the full aroma and flavor of each for the best comparison. We like both of those Scotch, but from this tasting decided that we both like the Laphroig better than the Ardbeg.
Both of my sister, Shelli and Vikki, ordered a White Russian. I think Chris ordered some version of a Bourbon drink. It looks like Chris has some drinking preferences in common with Barbara and me. We all like smokey and peaty spirits.
If one is sitting at the bar, which has gambling machines at every seat, the drinks are free. We might try that sometime this week. But since I don't care much for gambling, the amount we lose had better not be more than what we would have paid for the drinks or the experience would just not have been worth it for me.
3871 S Valley View Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89103, 702-960-4000
Sorry, no photos of this experience! Mobile phones, cameras, and all light emitting devices are strictly prohibited. They have you place your mobile phones and anything else you'd like to not bring into the restaurant in a secure locker before entering the dining area. You can view some photos and learn a lot more about this dining experience by clicking on this link: dineblackout.com. They are just off the Las Vegas Strip, not far from the Reo Hotel, and offer plenty of free parking.
The menu is a mystery but at the end of the meal they do show you the menu with photos so that you will know what you ate and if your guesses about what was served was correct or not. They do ask about allergies and will cater to those requirements if necessary. The server leads the diners into the completely dark restaurant by having us each place our hands on the shoulders on the person in front of us, conga style. There is absolutely no light in the restaurant whatsoever! Even when your eyes adjust to the dark, you still can not see anything! The servers wear infrared glasses so that they can see everything.
The food is gourmet, but not exotic, so don't worry about being served anything you would normally be repulsed by. The idea is to experience food only by its aroma, taste and texture, without being influenced by what the food looks like. The do provide you with a beverage menu before you go into the dark restaurant. They have wine, beer, cocktails, as well as soft drinks and water available. Barbara and I purchased the wine pairing package which features a different wine with each of the 6 first courses of the meal. The entire meal is 7 courses: 4 appetizers, the main entree, and 2 dessert items. The entire experience takes about 90 minutes.
We had a reservation for 5:30 PM but ended up arriving an hour early at 4:30 PM. They were able to seat us early. That was very fortunate as a huge very noisy party of over 20 people were seated near us just as we were getting near the end of our meal. When we arrived, I think we were the only party in the restaurant and it was very quiet except for the music and talking among ourselves. We asked the server if they could turn down the music volume a bit and they were happy to accommodate our request. For most of the meal the restaurant was pretty quiet except for our talking among ourselves. But when the huge noisy party arrived near the end of our meal, we almost wished they'd turn up the music to drown out all their rabble.
Overall, we all thought that dining in the dark at the BlackOut Restaurant was a wonderful experience and would be happy to do it again in the future. But we also all agreed that we'd make sure to come at an off hour in between lunch and dinner, maybe around 4 PM, to avoid being there when it is crowded and noisy. However, I suspect it usually isn't as noisy as it was this evening, even at dinner time. That group of 20 people was probably quite a bit noisier that the usual smaller parties that the restaurant serves at dinner time.
Open 24 Hours - Fremont Street, Las Vegas, NV 89101
I drove the 6 of us in my Tesla Model X to Fremont Street. There are plenty of garages with $20 paid parking available extremely close to the Fremont Street Experience. There was plenty of parking available in the garage but I had to drive the Tesla all the way up to level 5, the roof of the garage, to find any open spaces. The garage was totally full except for the roof level, but there was plenty of parking available on that level. We took the elevator down and found ourselves right at the start of the pedestrian only section of Fremont Street.
We heard that Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas still had all the lights like the Las Vegas Strip used to have. The Las Vegas Strip has replaced most of their lights with huge TV screens, similar to New York City and Tokyo. Actually, the Las Vegas Strip has torn down and replaced most of their original classic hotels with new huge modern hotels, many of which are as tall as skyscrapers. Many of the original Las Vegas hotels started out as little more than 2 or 3 story motels. Years ago those were torn down and replaced with ten or twenty story towers. Today, even almost all of those have been torn down and replaced with 50 to 70 story hotel buildings, often with multiple wings and towers. Along with that "upgrade", almost all of the massive light bulb Marques have been replace with huge TV screens.
By contrast, Fremont Street in Downtown, still has the character of the old Las Vegas with its millions of light bulbs and modest size hotels and casinos. The one exception is that the entire Fremont Street sits under one of the most giant curved TV screens in the world as you can see in the above photos.
One thing I found a little strange is that they don't leave the millions of light bulbs turned on continuously. Instead they have scheduled "light shows" where they turn all the lights on at a number of scheduled intervals every hour. I guess that is to preserve electricity.
The night was extremely hot and one end of Fremont Street was completely blocked by a huge crowd listening to very loud live music on the street. We had walked most of the length of Fremont Street that is only open to pedestrians so decided it was time to head back to the Tesla and drive back to our hotel.
Open 24 Hours - 702-632-9200 - All Day Comfort Food
Good food at good prices! This is one of the lower priced restaurants at the Mandalay Bay but the food is of no less quality. Though Barbara and I only had one meal today, that meal for dinner at the Blackout Restaurant was so filling that we couldn't eat much more. We just ordered a cob salad with chicken and split that. Even when we finished there was still a lot of salad left. Along with that we each had a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.
After that we drove Margie back to her place in the Tesla. I thought it was funny that no matter where my destination is on the Las Vegas Strip, the GPS always directs me to take the I-15, even if only for one exit. But if you've ever driven on the Las Vegas Strip, you'd know why. The traffic and traffic lights are so bad that it takes forever to get anywhere driving up the Las Vegas Strip. It is faster to find an I-15 freeway entrance, drive one exit, and then get off and back to the strip than it is to just drive up the strip.
I don't know if there are any other cities where an interstate highway runs parallel to the main street in the city and where people use that interstate for most local travel to bypass that main street, but that is the way Las Vegas is designed. I know there are some other back roads parallel to the strip which taxis and Uber drivers often take which avoid most of the traffic, but the GPS seems to like to use the I-15 freeway for all travel.
The Tesla is ideally suited to the driving in Las Vegas where I frequently need to accelerate to merge into the highway speed traffic and then need to quickly move ahead of cars in the slower lanes to get to the exit. The one thing that the Tesla Model X is not suited for in Las Vegas is trying to get 6 passengers out of the car in tight parking spaces. The parking spaces are often too narrow to allow both falcon wing doors to open all the way. Sometimes just one would open and everyone would have to pile out that one door. Sometimes neither door would open and I'd have to back a bit out of the parking space to allow the doors to open. The falcon wing doors look real sexy both when opening and when they are open, but in the long run, I'm not sure of the practicality. I'm not sure that much was added to the car in convenience by having the falcon wing doors. Sometimes it seems they are more often a problem than a solution. I doubt very much that Tesla will incorporate them in the design of any future models.
Click on each photo above for a larger image.
Click here for a slideshow of the above photos.
Stay tuned for more installments of this road trip to Las Vegas that should be posted sometime later this week...
