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The Gold Strike Inn and sister property Nevada Landing glow at one another across the I-15 freeway.

I came back to Nevada via I-15 from Southern California. With a breakfast meeting in Las Vegas the next day, I stayed at the Gold Strike in Jean, 12 miles northwest of the California line and 32 miles out of Las Vegas. Biggish room, newish carpet, comfortable bed, good shower head, quite clean, with friendly employees and plenty of room in the parking lot — for $20. It was easily the best bargain of the trip. How can they do it?

Jean and Primm are two of the most popular cities on our website when it comes to page visits and hotel bookings, but on I-15 the traffic flows endlessly past toward Las Vegas.

The biggest change to catch my eye in Las Vegas was the progress on the monorail. Commercial service is expected to begin in January 2004.

Goodbye Algiers, hello Tuscany: For 12 years or so I've stayed at the Algiers, across the Strip from Circus Circus. It is basically a false front holding a big sign, behind which is hidden a 1950s motel. In earlier days the classic coffee shop restaurant was presided over by a beautiful beehive blonde with 3" technicolor nails decorated to match her swept-wing glasses: a walking, talking monument to the Las Vegas of the 1950s. She was the real deal and I loved staying in her little time-warped domain. But she's gone now, and much of the Algiers' charm has gone with her. So on the advice of a friend I'll stay at the Tuscany (a long two blocks east of Bally's on Flamingo) on my next trip. Read all about it.

Best meal of the trip: Eggs Rothschild — no, it's not a mob guy, it's a breakfast! — at the Island Paradise Cafe in the Stardust.

The Desert Princess

It is disturbing to see how far the level of Lake Mead has fallen — 35 feet in the past year, with another foot or two expected over the coming summer. The decline in lake level has already forced the Las Vegas Bay Marina to relocate some 12 miles southeast to Horsepower Cove at Hemenway Harbor. As the owners of the Desert Princess pray for rain in the Rockies, captain and crew are preparing to move their landing dock the three miles to Hemenway also. They'll use their paddlewheeler Desert Princess and the hotrod Velocity as tugs (with the smaller Desert Princess Too standing by just in case) and make the move themselves. Once their dock is secure in its new location, the powerful craft will again become pleasure boats and resume cruising on the sparkling and ever more precious waters of Lake Mead.

E-Mail of the Month

Jenna and the Giant Nail

I notice you have included the Giant Nail of Gold Hill among that community's attractions; here's a little background you may be unaware of.

My wife and I actually lived adjacent to the Nail in the early '80s. Unbeknownst to us it lurked just outside our little shack (which I believe now houses the Foundation).

One cold winter day in 1982 or '83 I stumbled on it accidentally while trying to tune the guy wires to the stove pipe. Since it was on the north side of the building (where we never ventured), we who stayed huddled in the warm south side of the house had no idea of its existence until that fateful day when I inadvertently discovered it half hidden by the snowdrifts.

At first I thought it was just another relic from the old Comstock days, but upon further consideration decided it was indeed probably some kind of ancient connective implement. Little did we suspect that our suspicions would be confirmed by a little 7 year-old girl.

It still haunts me.

Paul Cirac
Virginia City, Nevada

PS Do you have any information to confirm the rumors about the underground carpenter's belt which is reported to stretch from Gold Hill to American Flat? I for one would be interested to know one way or another. It would put my mind at ease once and for all. Thanks for shedding light on this.

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Overheard at Adele's in Reno: "Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure."

David W. Toll

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