At long last I was within reasonable picture-taking distance of my real first destination of the morning: the Stratosphere Tower. It's the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States at 1149 feet. And it's a hotel + casino to boot. While hard to see, the tippity top actually has two rides on it. I'll show them in greater detail later. I arrived at the tower right around the time everything was opening up (approx. 10:00) so I got tickets to go up and observe my surroundings. It was a little annoying that to get to the observation tower elevator entrance, you have to follow a winding corridor that just *happens* to pass by all the retail joints in the place. When you get there, security pats you down to make sure you aren't a terrorist in tourist's clothing. The elevator is really fast...about 3 floors a second and you traverse almost 100 floors. When my ears were done popping I began walking around the observation area. All the glass panes on the lower level are angled outwards, so in theory you could fall forward and scare the bejeezus outta yourself before your face hit the glass. I don't recommend it. The upper level is open air with only fencing to keep the jumpers inside. This is where I let my camera loose...
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