SEPTEMBER 2003 – View along Las Vegas Boulevard with the majestic Stratosphere Tower in the center. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Here is another image from our Las Vegas trip. It shows the busy Las Vegas Boulevard on a sunny and clear morning. In the back, the majestic Stratosphere Tower (which is now called The STRAT Hotel, Casino & Tower) dominates the center of the frame. On the left, cropped off, the sign of the Stardust Resort and Casino is visible. (It was closed on November 1, 2006.)
Las Vegas being Las Vegas, the city is always looking for the best of the best attractions, and the tower is a good example for this quest. It was opened in April 1996 and featured High Roller, a steel roller coaster at the top of the tower! On the outside! Here is a video of this attraction. I was slightly afraid of heights already back in 2003, so I knew that I would not want to visit the top of the tower. Not even its observation deck.
However, some described the roller coaster as ‘tame’ because the top speed reached ‘just’ 30 mph, so when the fun ride had to be refurbished and modernized, the decision was made to remove it from the tower. The last ride was on 31st December 2005. More than one million paying customers had used the attraction over its lifetime. As always, Wikipedia has more details.
Here is a 1:1 crop of the image above that shows the wagons of the fun ride in action.
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | 21-SEP-2003 |
| Location | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| Camera | Canon AE-1 Program |
| Image Source | Fuji Slide Film |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 3975 x 5962 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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