So, we're cruisin' along into Las Vegas on the last leg of the '96 Coast-2-Coast Coaster Tour. It had been a long, harrowing drive from California and we'd just had our butts kicked by Desperado not more than 45 minutes prior.

With the warm Nevada night drying the sweat off our brows, the car began to hiccup and cough and then melodramatically died at the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard.

The sun had already gone down and the visibility was not so good as I hopped out of the car and began to push. The huge, black Chrysler LeBaron was being unreasonable, and with the horns of impatient gamblers chiming like some sort of robotic opera and more than a few offers of where to go and how to get there, I look up and see, like some sort of surrealistic vision from Heaven, these red tubular steel tracks rising up out of what looked like.....

...a skyscraper?

Turning my attention back to the car, we managed to get the beast off to the side where it was discovered that vapor lock had indeed killed it. While the problem was remedied, I headed down to the Holiday Inn Boardwalk where we had booked a room for our short stay. We actually had no idea that it sported a roller-coaster motif and even had those non-moveable framed pictures all over the room that depicted carnivals and white wooden monsters. It was later that I got a better look at the budding coaster. One of the big attractions at the massive New York, New York Resort and Casino . This Togo "mega-coaster" is 203 feet high, boasts over 4500 feet of track and has a top speed of 67 miles per hour. The first drop of 144 feet heads into a huge loop and then into a unique element called a "heartline twist and dive" which creates a full two seconds of air-time while dangling precariously above the strip. Yum.

The ride times in at around four minutes long and provides quite a scenic tour of the new resort and the ever-growing paradise that is the Las Vegas Strip. Another fine addition to the coterie of coasters in Sin City.

Hunger descended upon us and we fervently sought out food, zipping up and down the strip until we decided upon the Excalibur Resort and Casino. Finding a lovely 24-hour cafe called Sherwood Forest, we settled down to some good grub at around 2:00 a.m. before heading back to get some shut-eye. Tomorrow would be a hectic day.