Thursday 10/13 AKA Nevada at Mach 0.157
This day was reserved for me & David to go driving, and Denise & her sister to go shopping or roaming around the strip some more. I dropped them off at the Fashion Mall, and headed off to the ET Highway. I had no illusions of seeing anything otherworldly, but I read that it was a nice fun drive, without much other signs of civilization. David was really snarfy in the car for the first 30 minutes or so, and I was contemplating just turning back, but he finally calmed down. US 93 had more traffic than I expected, but I was still able to pass just about everything that came along. I stopped for gas & lunch at the BP station in Alamo, NV. David was really good in the store, and we were in & out of there in about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the turn off for the ET Highway (AKA NV-375) wasn't marked, and on the atlas I had, it looked like it was a direct turn off. As it turns out, NV-318 is the turn off for about a half mile before it reaches NV-375. So I ended up driving another 25 miles too far. We ended up stopping at a BLM parking lot to eat lunch. At that point it was starting to get much later in the day than I had planned (1PM), and I had promised to be back by dinner time. I was kinda disapointed because I never got to the ET highway.
So on the drive back south, I figured if i was going to drive fast, now was the best time. At first I pushed the car up to 100MPH just to see how it would handle. Smooth. So I started inching up slowly. No problems at 110MPH either. I continued up to 115MPH, and got up to 120MPH. I could have easily gone faster, but i was kinda nervous driving that fast (the posted speed limit was 65MPH), as there was the occasional car that I had to pass on the 2 lane highway. But it was _FUN_. The road was unbelievably straight, so it was so damn easy to go that fast. I ended up cruising the rest of the way to the ET highway turnoff at around 100MPH, and since it wasn't yet 2PM, I figured I'd drive the highway until 2PM and then turn back. The only downside to driving that fast is that it used alot of gas.
I made it about 20 miles up the highway out of the 90 total. I flew past the weird white mailbox, and shortly thereafter turned back to check it out. It now had a bizarre box bolted onto the side of it labeled "Alien Drop Box". I didn't realize at the time that the mailbox was one of the turnoff roads to Area 51. I continued to drive back at a high speed, but had to stop for gas again in Alamo, since driving so fast was sucking down the gas, and I didn't have enough to make it the rest of the way back to vegas. The rest of the drive was uneventful, although I hit a nasty traffic jam just a few miles from the hotel.
That night we ate at the buffet at The Alladin. In my opinion it was an amazing buffet. The quality, variety and quantity of food was amazing. It far outstripped The Rio's buffet. They had a sushi bar that was superb, and just about everything else was delicious too.
That night we went to see the Penn & Teller show. I thought that it was ok, but wasn't worth \$70/person.