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"My timing is perfect!"
When I left Circus Circus, I left Las Vegas and headed to the Southeast. As I was on my way to Los Angeles, that was quite clearly the wrong way to go. In fact, it was even the wrong way to go to get to Primm. But from Las Vegas, it is exactly the right direction to get to Boulder City.
Boulder City was a company town...or more accurately, a Six Company town...founded in 1931 by Six Companies specifically to provide a home for workers who were involved in the Federal Bureau of Reclamation's Boulder Canyon Project. One of the largest engineering projects of the time, the Boulder Canyon Project (actually built in Black Canyon) involved diverting the Colorado river through tunnels carved through the canyon walls, then constructing a 727-foot-tall concrete dam across the canyon to block the river. Completed in 1936, the "Hoover Dam" provided controls for the Colorado river, created Lake Mead, and through its massive hydroelectric facility supplies power to three states. Being the sort of geek that I am, naturally I had to go and take a look...and more important, to take the tour of the powerhouse.
It appears that construction is underway on a bridge over the canyon downstream of the dam. I presume the idea is to close the dam to vehicle traffic for security reasons, although the structure is so massive that it is unlikely that anything carried in a vehicle could do much damage to the dam. For now, traffic actually flows over the dam, though I didn't actually go that far. Instead, I parked in the garage embedded into the cliff face, and walked down to the new visitor center. There I went through the airport-style screening that has become typical for Federal attractions these days. For $18 in parking fee and admission, I got my tour.
Of course, the sheer magnitude of the dam is impressive. Going down into the side of the cliff and into the powerhouse is also impressive, particularly for a geek like me. But what is perhaps the most impressive feature of the facility is the way that it was built. In the powerhouse, for instance, are terrazzo floors inlaid with native American symbols and other artwork. The railings are smooth surfaced stainless steel. Even though this is an industrial facility, it was constructed to be attractive. Even the dam itself has dramatic decorative elements on top which serve no mechanical purpose, but are there to make it look good. It's particularly telling to look at the difference between the original visitor facility and the powerhouse, and the tunnels and the new visitor center that were built in 1985. The newer facility is much more utilitarian, not nearly so refined as the 1930's structures. From an artistic point of view, perhaps the most impressive feature is the star chart that serves as the dam dedication monument and accurately shows the positions of the stars on the date of the dam's dedication, September 30, 1935.
I took much of this in, took some photographs (most of which I unfortunately lost, meaning I have to go back again...) and then made my way back to IR-15 via Las Vegas, ready for the ride down to Primm.
Primm, NV, is really little more than a wide spot in the road, but it's worth a visit just because of the big yellow piece of steel that snakes around the hotel there. The hotel is "Buffalo Bill's Casino and Resort," and I noticed that it doesn't seem to follow the design of the Las Vegas strip hotels. I parked the car out front, below a yellow support column, and went inside. Above the front door, Disneyland-style, is a station for some kind of monorail or other transportation system that apparently crosses IR-15 to another facility across the road. Across from the door and off to the right is the hotel desk, and spread out to the left is the casino. A river runs through the casino, and in the back and off to one side is a corridor featuring a food court and some small shops. Once away from the gaming area, the look is atmospheric, looking a bit like an urban street at night in a Western town. Way back in the back, next to a large plate-glass window (!), is what looks a bit like a fast-food service counter, complete with queue rails and a menu board. Only the menu items were:
Of course, I started by going up the carpeted stairs to the Desperado boarding platform. It doesn't look like a coaster platform at all, just a carpeted platform with railings around it; from the casino floor you'd think it was a perfectly ordinary balcony until the train pulls in. Desperado is an Arrow Runaway Train coaster, built on the scale of Magnum XL-200. I thought I might have a good idea of what to expect, so I started my rides with a trip in the third seat, my favorite place on both Magnum XL-200 and on Mamba. It turned out to be a reasonably good choice. I sat down, fastened the seat belt, pulled the lap bar down to the usual spot, and started to take note of my surroundings. The train is basically the same as the Magnum train, but really has more in common with Kings Island's Adventure Express. The seat back has the wide cutout as on Magnum, but the side padding is more like Adventure Express and the lap bar has a checker handle on the outboard side. Meanwhile, the train slides out of the station and out of the building, and starts up a couple hundred feet of lift hill.
I had not studied the layout of Desperado before I rode it. As a consequence, I pretty much didn't know what to expect. I'm conditioned to think that a 200-foot-tall Runaway Train coaster is going to be a series of tall hills, probably a more or less out-and-back configuration, or a back-and-forth arrangement. After all, that describes Magnum XL-200, Wild Thing, Mamba, Apollo's Chariot, and even Raging Bull. As it turns out, Desperado resembles these rides in pretty much no way at all. Instead, Desperado has a lot more in common with the older Runaway Train rides. It meanders (is it proper to use the word "meander" for something travelling at 70 MPH?) all around two or three sides of the building, and through a helix in a large artificial mountain. It's a Runaway Train on steroids, with the usual collection of turns and helii stretched out to accommodate the higher speed. The train could use a lot more padding on the sides, but apart from that, the ride really works. I'd heard a lot of complaints about it being borderline unrideable, about it not being a very good ride, and about it just not being worth a stop. One person actually identified it as the "worst Arrow coaster ever built", a claim I can refute with the invocation of a couple of Mid Atlantic rides. In fact, I rather liked it, and I was happy that I had bought the POP, which let me take three or four more rides, in the front, in the back, in the middle, and yes, in my favorite, the third row.
Out on the course, I could see that things were changing in Primm. A section of Desperado actually passes over what looks to be a limited boneyard, with what looks to be a lot of molded plastic seats as you might find on a bus. Surrounding the building, especially inside the mountain, there are shadows of what looks like it used to be a railroad track. And as the coaster re-enters the building and approaches the loading platform, to the right there is a service area where the Desperado's other train rests in pieces. Except for Manhurtin' Express, whose popularity absolutely mystifies me, single train operation seems to be typical, and perfectly adequate, for casino coasters.
Beneath the coaster station is the boarding area for a flume ride. It looks to be a standard Arrow-style flume, mechanically. On boarding, each rider is handed a little plastic pistol. The ride exits the building for the typical flume lift and drop with splash, then it comes back in and snakes through tunnels behind and inside the casino. Along the trough are several dark-ride type scenes, along with illuminated targets. Each target can withstand three or four hits, and responds to a hit by changing its light pattern. It became obvious early on that my gun was totally dead. At the end of the ride, you can point your gun at a special target on the unload platform, which will tell you your score. I got no score, as my gun wouldn't trigger that target, either. Overall, it isn't much of a flume ride, but as a dark ride it's halfway decent, and if the gun is working, it looks to be a better shoot-em-up than most of the Sally interactive dark rides, although the scenes don't react when you hit the targets.
I'd been in Primm for about an hour, and I decided it was time to get going. I returned to the car, set up the computer, dropped the top, and started on the final major driving leg of my trip, heading for Thousand Oaks, California.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Next: Six Flags Magic Mountain
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