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!

Guardian Angel Cathedral, Las Vegas

Guardian Angel Cathedral is located just off the Strip in the heart of Las Vegas. The church was built in 1963 as Guardian Angel Shrine to serve the tourists and casino workers. In 1995 the Diocese of Las Vegas was split off from the Diocese of Reno-Las Vegas. This church became the cathedral for the diocese, which means it is the "home" church of the diocese's bishop. The name changed to Guardian Angel Cathedral.

I was surprised to see on their website that the church has a 2:30 Saturday Vigil Mass. I've seen 4 and 4:30 Vigil Masses that I thought were pushing the limit. The bulletin from the cathedral explains that they have a special Indult from Rome to allow the 2:30 Mass to be a Vigil Mass. With people from all over the world visiting (and the weird hours that people keep in Vegas), it's nice to have even more flexibility with fulfilling the Sunday obligation. I went to the 8 a.m. Sunday morning Mass.

The early morning sun was just behind the cathedral, giving it an interesting look.

Guardian Angel Cathedral

At the base of the outside tower is a statue of the Holy Family with a plaque at the base: "May the Holy Family bless our visitors and protect them on their journey homeward." I like the ambiguity of "homeward" which refers to both an earthly address and our heavenly abode.

Holy Family

Inside, the altar is a typical modern style.

Main altar

The cathedra, or bishop's chair, is directly behind the altar with his coat of arms right above.

The mosaic above the main altar depicts guardian angels in action. It's a bit gaudy but also joyful.

Mosaic

The crucifix is nice. The processional cross is the same (though smaller). I liked how they matched.

Crucifix

The stained glass windows follow the triangular motif throughout the cathedral. And the colorfulness too.

One of the stained glass windows

The baptismal font can do both immersion or regular baptism. The holy oils are in a triangular box at the far end.

Baptismal font

A side altar to Our Lady follows the colorfulness without the triangularity.

Chapel of Our Lady

The coats of arms of previous bishops are in the back.

Bishop's coat of arms

Bishop's coat of arms

Another side chapel has a burial area for bishops.

Grave