In January 2002, I made my first trip to Las Vegas on a work trip. I stayed at the Imperial Palace hotel right on Strip where Linq is today. It was not luxurious but it was convenient to everything else and cheap. I got to experience the horrors of a Las Vegas buffet first hand long before Gordon Ramsay ruined it with $20 hamburgers.
I was able to steal away some free time. I took a bus out to see Hoover Dam. I was not able to go inside as this was just a few months after 9/11 and things had not yet started to normalize. This was a time before the bypass highway was built and people would drive right on the dam as the path of the highway.
I also hiked out to the Hilton. I was there for the NATPE Conference & Exhibition that was being held at the Convention Center adjacent to the Hilton. At that Hilton was The Star Trek Experience. It was intended to be a museum of Star Trek memorabilia in what was coined as the History of the Future Museum. Star Trek Voyager was on the air so the exhibits featured things from that show, Deep Space Nine, and The Next Generation.
The main attraction was the Klingon Encounter where actors dressed in full costumes ushered you from once scene to another as if you were actually on a space station being attacked and boarded by Klingons. It was top notch interactive theater, like you used to get at Universal Studios. Eventually we’re led to an escape shuttle flight simulator ride. Afterward to could go have a drink at Quark’s with a model of the Enterprise overhead.
Years later I went back and it had all bed remodeled as a Borg invasion.
Please excuse the image quality. I was using a Sony DCR-TRV330 8mm Digi 8 Camcorder to take pictures to a Sony Memory Stick. It was only capable of 640×480. Soon after this I would finally give up on 35mm and go digital.