I have always wanted to view an implosion of a casino in Las Vegas. The Cast Aways was imploded just before we arrived. We saw a sign that Flamingo Road would be closed from midnight to 4:00 a.m. on February 14 and then heard a VERY brief mention on television that the Bourbon Street Casino was going to be imploded. That is very near where we are staying right now and our corridor looks over it, so I got very excited that I might finally see one and have a bird's eye view at that! The only problem was that no one else had heard it and no one seemed to be talking about it. Finally, after waiting for several days and not getting an answer from anyone that I had asked, I finally emailed the weatherman, the weekend anchor, and the traffic reporter at that television station. I figured I would hear from one of them. I was shocked to hear from all of them. The actual time of the implosion was secret and was not to be announced, but each of the television folks told me that it would happen around 2:00 a.m. Harrah's now owns the property and they did not want crowds of people because there was really no safe viewing area (The site is one block off the Strip). They did announce approximate times on the 11:00 p.m. news on the 13th--preventing people from getting down to see it at the last minute.
We all (the two of us and our friends from Washington) set our alarms for 1:30 a.m. and put a chair and the camera (of course) in the corridor on the opposite side of our condo to watch it. It was an unbelievable experience and we're glad we had a chance to see it. Our view was spectacular.
Photos: The first three are of Bourbon Street during the day of the 13th. The next one is the daytime view from the corridor beyond our condo. Following that is a photo of the site just before the implosion--testing the camera. Then--"There she goes!" followed by the rubble when daylight came.
