Vegas Geocaches 2020

While in Vegas, I did some geocaching. My wife and I visited years ago for the wedding of my dance partner. We found some caches on the strip. New ones have come up in the fifteen or so years that have gone by, leaving me some new opportunities. Also, I was able to get in an Arizona cache!

My first cache was Diamonds Are Forever just behind the Westgate Casino. The hotel was in the Bond movie. The casino has plenty of hotel rooms and convention space. The Dice Tower West board game convention was there, so it was only natural for me to find a cache there.

View to a kill from the cache

On Sunday, I walked to the Guardian Angel Cathedral for 8 a.m. Mass. Behind the cathedral is A Kiwi Connection - Las Vegas #2, an easy find with no muggles around so early in the morning.

The back of the church

After Mass, I walked over to the Strip where another geocache, Convention Center Dr., is hidden less than 0.2 miles away! It was an easy find as the muggle count was still very low for the area. Early Sunday morning is a great time to geocache.

It's in there somewhere

After the convention was over, I went to see Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. The structure was very impressive. The dam doesn't have a normal cache, but there is a virtual cache. During construction, the site had a stray dog show up. The dog wandered all over, becoming beloved by the workers. The dog died when it fell asleep under a truck and the driver unknowingly ran him over. The hardened construction workers wept openly at the dog's death and they jackhammered out a grave for the poor pooch. A Virtual Reward for a Dam Cool Dog doesn't have a log to sign. Instead, I posted a picture of me with the memorial as proof that I found the right spot.

At the spot for a dog not named Spot

The Colorado River is the border between Nevada and Arizona, so I decided to find a cache on the other side and add Arizona to our list of "cached in" states. A few miles down the road is The White Rock Canyon Bridge, which is indeed a bridge. It was part of a road between Kingman and the dam. A new route was built later, putting this bridge out of service. Now it's part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The bridge

Cacher in the picture

The road has gone out of use

The trail leads to the Arizona Hot Spring and Liberty Bell Arch. The hike was two miles and the sign recommended bringing food and a gallon or two of water which I didn't have with me. Also, the hike is closed from May to September because of it is a desert and far too hot for hiking.

Another hiking destination

Back in Vegas, I found a trickily-hidden cache called Beware of lights and sirens. As the name indicates, it's located by a fire department (and sponsored by that crew). I had to use the cache's hint to try what I thought might be the hiding spot.

The fire department

I tried to find Pearl Harbor Day! but the spot had some homeless guys sacked out. I didn't want to disturb them, so I left it unfound.

The geocache is somewhere in there

The nearby wash

Caching in Vegas is a lot of fun!