February Rain

I remember the day I shot this photo, it was mid-February 2003 and I was using an Olympus C700 which is a fairly low quality camera (2 megapixels but with 10x zoom) compared to what's on the market today.

I had been walking along the strip near Paris & Bally's when it began to rain. I thought that was a good time to head downtown - Fremont Street is covered by a canopy. I hopped into a taxi in front of the Paris casino and told the driver to take me downtown.

The drive seemed to take a long time. While I wasn't a Las Vegas newbie and knew about being "long hauled through the tunnel" from the airport; I was less aware of the other potential long hauls (long hauling is when a cab driver intentionally does not take the shortest route to your destination, so that the fare will be higher.)

This driver took the freeway (I-15) from Paris to Fremont Street. Las Vegas Blvd. would have been a more direct route, but also has more traffic. So I'm still not certain if I was long hauled or not.

Upon arriving downtown I learned a valuable piece of information: the canopy over Fremont Street is not solid. I had never looked closely at it before. If I had, I'd have seen that it's kind of a latticework that lets the rain fall freely upon your head.

I visited some of the casinos, shot 20 or so photos, and when the rain stopped I decided to walk to the Stratosphere to ride the elevator up to the top. Most of my fellow tourists were wearing shorts and t-shirts, but I had checked the weather forecast and wore my waterproof hooded raincoat and waterproof hiking shoes.

With my camera slung over my shoulder under my waterproof coat, I headed south for the two mile walk to the Stratosphere. As luck would have it, the rain started shortly thereafter. I wasn't worried though, since I was waterproof. I thought.

After a few blocks of walking I felt cold water on my neck. My waterproof coat was leaking!

By the time I arrived at the Stratosphere I was like a drowned cat. Luckily my camera did not get wet enough to quit working. And that's the story behind the image posted above - a view of the downtown Las Vegas casinos from the top of the Stratosphere.