Sights in Southwest
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Atomic Testing Museum
Recalling an era when the word 'atomic' conjured modernity and mystery, the Smithsonian-run Atomic Testing Museum remains an intriguing testament to the period when the fantastical – and destructive – power of nuclear energy was tested just outside of Las Vegas. After visiting the museum, it's almost possible to imagine that during the atomic heyday of the 1950s, gamblers and tourists picnicked on downtown casino rooftops while mushroom clouds rose on the horizon. Don't skip the deafening Ground Zero Theater, which mimics a concrete test bunker.
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Ethel M Chocolate Factory & Botanical Cactus Garden
This chocolatier’s self-guided ‘factory tour’ won’t take you more than five minutes. Grab a free sample then visit the pleasant, 2.5-acre desert garden outside with more than 350 species of succulents, such as teddy bear cholla, organ pipe, beavertail cacti, and crazy octotillo. It’s not worth a special trip, though.
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Walnut Canyon National Monument
Sinagua cliff dwellings are set in the nearly vertical walls of a small limestone butte amid a forested canyon at this worth-a-trip monument. A short hiking trail descends past many cliff-dwelling rooms. The monument is 11 miles southeast of Flagstaff off I-40 exit 204.
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Black Rock Desert
Outside Gerlach, world land-speed records have been set on the dry, mud-cracked playas of the Black Rock Desert. Although most people only visit during the Burning Man festival, this vast wilderness is primed for outdoor adventures year-round. Drop by Gerlach’s small museum for information and advice before heading out.
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Fountains of Bellagio
With a backdrop of Tuscan architecture, the Bellagio’s faux Lake Como and dancing fountains are the antithesis of the desert – although they do recycle and use reclaimed water. The fountain show’s recorded soundtrack varies, so cross your fingers that it will be Italian opera or Ol’ Blue Eyes crooning ‘Luck Be a Lady, ’ instead of country-western twang.
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Temple Square
The city's most famous sight occupies a 10-acre block surrounded by 15ft-high walls. LDS docents give free, 30-minute tours continually, leaving from the visitor centers at the two entrances on South and North Temple Sts. Sisters, brothers and elders are stationed every 20ft or so to answer questions. (Don't worry, no one is going to try to convert you – unless you express interest.) In addition to the noteworthy sights, there are administrative buildings and two theater venues.
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Tucson Botanical Gardens
The 5.5acre (2.2ha) landscaped, wheelchair-accessible terrain of the Botanical Gardens is in a reasonably busy part of the city, yet man-made noise fails to penetrate very far into the garden's pleasant groves of native dry-land plants. The organic highlights of a day-dreamy meander through the grounds include a tropical greenhouse and a small herb garden.
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Bryce Canyon National Park
The Grand Staircase, a series of steplike uplifted rock layers stretching north from the Grand Canyon, culminates at this very popular national park in the Pink Cliffs formation. It's full of wondrous pinnacles and points, steeples and spires, and odd formations called 'hoodoos.' The 'canyon' is actually an amphitheater eroded from the cliffs.
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DH Lawrence Ranch & Memorial
In 1924, Mabel Dodge Luhan gave DH Lawrence’s wife Frieda this 160-acre ranch, now administered by the University of New Mexico, where the Lawrence-obsessed can pay their respects to the famed author of such classics as Lady Chatterley’s Lover. While you are free to wander the grounds, you can’t go into the cabins.
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Fitzgerald’s
South across the train trench, rub a Blarney Stone for good luck before heading inside Fitzgerald’s, with its dopey ‘lucky leprechaun’ theme and the cheapest buffet in town. It’s near the landmark Reno Arch, built in the 1920s, which proclaims Reno the ‘Biggest Little City in the World.’
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Maynard Dixon Home & Studio
In Mt Carmel, the Architectural Digest –noted Maynard Dixon Home & Studio is where renowned Western painter Maynard Dixon (1875–1946) lived and worked in the 1930s and ’40s. Docent-led tours are by appointment only. Look for the house at Mile 84 on Hwy 89, about 6 miles south of Glendale; it’s easy to miss.
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Arches National Park
One of the Southwest's most gorgeous parks, Arches boasts the world's greatest concentration of sandstone arches. Just 5 miles north of Moab on Hwy 191, the park is always packed in summer. Consider a moonlight exploration, when it's cooler and the rocks feel ghostly. Many arches are easily reached by paved roads and relatively short hiking trails.
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Wildlife Habitat
Slip away from the madness inside the Flamingo’s wildlife habitat, out back behind the casino. Over a dozen acres of pools, gardens, waterfalls and waterways are filled with swans, exotic birds and ornamental koi (carp). Here Chilean flamingos and African penguins wander around, and palm trees and jungle plants flourish in the middle of the desert.
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Utah State Capitol
The 1916 Utah State Capitol, modeled after the US capitol, cost an amazing $2.7 million to build back in the day. After six years, and 500 cherry trees, a full renovation of the building and grounds was completed in 2007. Look for colorful Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals of pioneers, trappers and missionaries adorning part of the building's dome. Free hourly tours (from 9am to 4pm) start at the 1st-floor visitor center.
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Tingley Beach
Tingley Beach is connected to the aquarium and botanic gardens. This beloved open space includes fishing ponds stocked with rainbow trout, a children's pond and trails. You'll need a fishing license but fortunately they are sold onsite at the gift shop. A little train connects the zoo, aquarium/botanic gardens and Tingley Beach; it runs approximately every half-hour.
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Springs Preserve
On the site of the natural springs (which ran dry in 1962) that fed las vegas ('the meadows'), where southern Paiutes and Spanish Trail traders camped, and later Mormon missionaries and Western pioneers settled the valley, this educational complex is an incredible trip through historical, cultural and biological time. The touchstone is the Desert Living Center, demonstrating sustainable architectural design and everyday eco-conscious living.
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Hinkle Family Fun Center
If the weather is not cooperating and you need to burn off some of your little one’s energy, visit the Hinkle Family Fun Center, which keeps little ones of all ages amused with bumper cars, laser tag, mini-golf and a huge ‘jungle play area’ where kids can crawl and climb and slide around. Check online for almost constant promotions.
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Bandera Ice Cave
- New Mexico, USA
- Sights › Other
Visit the privately owned Bandera Ice Cave, known to Pueblo Indians as Winter Lake, located 25 miles southwest of Grants on Hwy 53. Inside part of a collapsed lave tube, this is a large chunk of ice (tinted green because of Arctic algae) that stays frozen year-round – the ice on the cave floor is 20ft thick and temperatures never rise above 31°F!
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Capulin Volcano National Monument
- New Mexico, USA
- Sights › Other
Rising 1300ft above the surrounding plains, Capulin is the most accessible of several volcanoes in the area. From the visitor center, a 2-mile road spirals up the mountain to a parking lot at the crater rim (8182ft), where trails lead around and into the crater. The entrance is 3 miles north of Capulin village, which itself is 30 miles east of Raton on Hwy 87.
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Neon Museum
Experience the outdoor displays through a fascinating walking tour ($15) of the newly unveiled Neon Boneyard Park, where irreplaceable vintage neon signs – the original art form of Las Vegas – spend their retirement. At press time, the museum was expanding their digs and hoped to add a self-guided component in 2012; until then, be sure to reserve your tour at least one to two weeks in advance.
Stroll around downtown come evening (when the neon comes out to play) to discover the free, self-guided component of the 'museum.' You'll find delightful al-fresco galleries of restored vintage neon signs, including sparkling genie lamps, glowing martini glasses and 1940s motel…
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Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park
Near Texas Station casino hotel, this small zoo takes care of Canadian river otters, African fossas, ostriches, swamp wallabies, Barbary apes and every type of venomous snake found in southern Nevada. Kids can feed some critters (not the snakes, of course), while adults look over the rare bamboo, cycad and gem displays. Go online for discount admission coupons.
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Palazzo
The Venetian's pretty but less interesting kid sister, the Palazzo may be younger but she's hardly the scintillating life of the party. The decor exploits a variation on the Italian theme to a somewhat predictable effect, and despite the caliber of the Shops at Palazzo and the star-studded dining – including exhilarating ventures by culinary heavyweights Charlie Trotter, Emeril Legasse and Wolfgang Puck – the luxurious casino area somehow exudes a lackluster brand of excitement.
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Fremont Street Experience
Streaking down the center of Vegas' historic Glitter Gulch gambling district, this five-block pedestrian mall is topped by an arched steel canopy. Hourly from dusk until midnight, the 1400ft-long canopy turns on a six-minute light-and-sound show enhanced by 550,000 watts of wraparound sound and 12.5 million synchronized LEDs. The shows are ridiculously cheesy, but mesmerizing enough to stop passersby in their tracks, especially drunks.
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Pinball Hall of Fame
Next to a discount cinema east of the Strip, this interactive museum is more fun than any slot machines. Picture 200-plus vintage pinball, video-arcade and carnival-sideshow games dating from the 1950s to the '90s.
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Joseph Smith Memorial Building
East of the Brigham Young Monument is the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which was, until 1987, the elegant Hotel Utah. Inside, there's a large-screen theater with eight daily screenings of the 65-minute Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration, about Mormon beliefs.
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