Dining on Day Three in San Francisco.  It’s almost a ritual for me to get into town, check the group into the hotel, give them their last minute notes for the night and send them on their way until morning.

The Tour Guide is hungry and the smart tourists know to hang back to see where the Tour Director is heading.  And I am heading for the one place I know I will get friendly service as well as a great, almost home cooked meal.  Lefty O’Douls.  A gem that’s almost hidden but its not.  Easy to find just off Grant near Union Square.  It’s been there since 19 58 and I think some of the patrons have been there that long as well.

Go inside and you feel like you have been there before.  If not, you feel like you never want to leave.  The bar is on one side, the food served on the other.  Grab a tray, look for the specials or check for the regular menu on the wall.  Make your order and move on down the line as they serve it up in front of you.

Just kind of pay some attention to what is going on because the place is littered with the living history of San Fransisco and of Lefty’s colorful life.  Don’t worry, the ace is friendly, laid back and you won’t feel rushed.  With the great smell of the food being cooked and served, the friendly people working there and the covered walls, you will become immersed in it all.

Once you’re seated, you will want to get up and wander the walls.  The walls recount Lefty’s love of his hometown and his time as a famous major league ball player.   Even today, he is considered one of the New York Giants most colorful and popular personalities. Lefty played in the Pacific Coast League as well as the Major League, where in 1929 he had a .398 batting average. It was the highest average of any National League outfielder in the 20th century.

For those of us already accustomed to the place, there are flat screens all over to keep us up to date with the sports world. It is a sports bar afterall!

The nice thing is that with all the distractions, you can sit down and have a conversation.  If dining alone, the layout makes it easy to start up a conversation with a new found friend.  The food will bring you back.  Carved meats, traditional meals, daily specials and plenty of variety that is also affordable.

So if you find your tour in San Fransisco and you can’t find the tour guide?  Check for Lefty’s place and you may find him there.

Stopping off in Monterey for lunch on Day Two, I met Forest Gump, right outside his namesake restaurant… Imagine that!!

Actually, this bench is always there. Complete with shoes and a Box of Chocolates.  Today they had a look-a-like sitting there talking to anyone who would sit a spell and chat.  And they did.

In every instance, “Forest Gump” kept in character while asking questions and answering them.  Talking about him and Jenny and maybe the restaurant or whatever you asked him.  It was an amazing feat because some people tried to mix him up.  he knew his role inside and out while finding ways to incorporate him into their lives or stories.

As a professional Tour Director, I occasionally get to rub elbows with the movers and shakers of Hollywood.  Here in Hollywood, the Oger Shrek was getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and he took time out to pose for a picture with me.  Ok, maybe not stopped to pose… But we did get the picture.

The first Shrek movie came out in 2001.  Since than, the movie series have raked in over $2 billion in world wide ticket sales.  Add in merchandise sales, product and service tie-ins.  That has to be in the billions as well. .

The West Coast Tour is going well thus far and everyone is having fun.  Now we are on to lunch in Santa Barbara with the day ending in Santa Maria.  Tomorrow we head up to San Fransisco.
Have no fear, I will be back in Las Vegas on May 25.

This week, I will be off on a West Coast tour. being the west coast, you never know what you will see that makes you stop and go “Hummmm….”  The tour begins in Los Angeles and travels up to San Fransisco.

One of the firsts stops on day one was in fashionable Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  As I was searching for that elusive parking place, I spotted this: A parking meter that takes plastic!  Credit Cards for parking meters?  Next to soda machines accepting plastic, now parking meters??  What’s next?  Gum Ball machines at the grocery store??

The Hoover Dam Tour was my first professional tour ever in Las Vegas and it was love at first sight. Having led tour groups up and down the west coast of North America, you may be surprised to find that Hoover Dam remains one of my favorite tours.  This love for the tour and the Dam itself, comes from an unusual source.  A first hand account of the Dam.

Several Years ago, I lead a tour to Copper Canyon Mexico.  It’s my “tour from hell but would love to do it again” tour.  On it, I had a 95 year old lady who met her husband building the Dam.  He was a laborer and she was an Office Admin.  When she wasn’t drinking the rest of the bus under the table, she was telling me stories about life in Boulder City and work on the Dam.

The drinking part came from the fact that in Boulder City, you were on your own.  The rest of the world thought this could not be done and had never been done before.  So you learned to create your own diversions and learned to solve your own problems.  Thus, according to my guest, you learned to do two things very well, independent of each other: Drink and build a Dam.

Her point always was, that to understand Hoover Dam and Boulder City, you need to yourself in that time in American and the world history.  Put yourself in the middle of nowhere without the modern conveniences or the tools that we have today.  Than build something everyone said couldn’t be built. Or if it was built, would never work.

To look at what they did with what they had and what they had against them.  With that point of view, you see the Dam in a whole new light. To see what one project did to help restart a nation and change the world, is an amazing thing.  To understand how this massive slab of concrete came to be, the thoughts, the tools, the technology created and the people it took to complete it under budget and in head of schedule.  Including the short cuts and the advances.  You stand in awe at its magnificence and understand its proper place in American History.

While out there, don’t forget to run the toes of the Wing Figures of the republic.  Local Legend says it brings you good fortune.

Take a Hoover Dam Tour

I am about as jazzed as I can get…  My favorite tour(s) of the year has been locked in for the season.  If there is one tour I wished every Vegas Tourist could take, it’s this one.  The Four Day Canyon adventure.

You want to see the best of the West?  Here it is: Grand Canyon. Monument Valley.  Bryce canyon.  Zion National Park.  Four absolutely amazing locations in four days.  It starts and ends in Las Vegas.  How cool is that??

On the way to the Canyon, I like to stop in Seligman and visit with Angel Delgadeo.  The Angel of Route 66. Yes, I like to spend a little time on the “Mother Road”.

From there, we head into Grand Canyon National Park.  Often with an optional helicopter adventure around the canyon. Not only do you see the Grand Canyon, you spend the first nigh IN the park.  After the day-trippers leave, you have the park almost to yourself.  So bring a flashlight because it gets DARK outside when you don’t have the city lights.  It’s You, the canyon and the Mother Nature…

From there, we head across the lands and stop where John Wayne made his best movies.  A tour of Monument Valley with a real Navajo guide. Your camera will love you for this part of the tour…  As you gaze over the horizon, you can almost see the rangers or the US Cavalry coming to the rescue.

That second night, we bunk in Page overlooking Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. By this time, many people have run out of film or memory chips and need to restock on supplies.  So there is often an optional trip to Walmart for more goodies!

Third day finds us heading across the border and off into Southern Utah.   Our destination is Bryce Canyon National Park. Many of my guests say this is the highlight of the tour.  A canyon many people never heard of before but they will NEVER forget.

Here you have an opportunity to walk the rim of the Bryce Canyon amphitheater or I often offer a guided hike into the canyon on Navajo Loop and Wall Street.  Stand at the base of some amazing Hoodoo’s, see Thor’s Hammer or gaze up to the tops of some mighty tall pine trees and wonder how they survived all these hundreds of years in such a unforgiving environment.

That night, we stay right outside the Canyon.  With plenty of time to relax and enjoy the friendships you made along the way and share memories of an adventure like no other.

The final day, we travel to Zion National Park. A geological masterpiece is displayed as we travel from the top of the mountain to the Lodge at the base.  We see a variety of landscapes, ecosystems and vegetation.  Giving you time to enjoy the canyon on a free shuttle or a simple hike.

From there, we head back into civilization and the lights of Las Vegas.   The adventure has to end but the memories will live on….

I am scheduled to lead this tour on the following dates:

April 6-9  /  May 11-14  /  June 8-11  / July 6-9 /  Aug 3-6  /Sept 7-10  /  Sept 21-24

So if you want the tour with me as your guide (and why wouldn’t you??) you need to book these dates.  Otherwise you will get a different guide and things may be a bit different for him.

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Tour Details and Booking Information

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Getting out of the city is always fun.  Doing it on a private tour is even better.  So I took a couple from Minnesota out on their private tour to see Hoover Dam, the big horn sheep and Boulder City.

The first stop was the Arizona overlook.  This is a great place to get your first real look at the dam and the new bridge.  From this vantage point, you see its enormous size and arched shape.  This arch helped in its sealing with the canyon walls and added strength to the dam.

The Hoover Dam bypass bridge is the newest attraction.  Some say that it is adding to the Dam and its place in history.  Showing off America’s ability to do the impossible and create something great from nothing.  The bridge was built with cutting edge technology; similar to the new technology needed to construct the dam.

Soon we were headed back towards civilization and a slow drive past Hemmingway Park to see the sheep.  Apparently they never got my memo and decided to stay in the mountains.

From there, it was off to our version of Mayberry – Boulder City.  Visiting here is like taking a step back into time.  Streets lined with small shops, a large park and people casually strolling around, enjoying the day.

As you sit on the bench outside, looking down the street, you almost expect to see aunt Bea and Opie coming out of the little grocery store.

It ended with a stop at the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign before calling it a day.  Another successful tour and a few more people now knowing that Vegas is definitely more than gambling and expensive shows…

Hoover Dam Tours

Having completed three Death Valley tours in the last month, I can say that it is still “The most beautiful nothing you will ever see”.  Looking at the pictures, you can see there isn’t much there to see.  But what is there is amazing and can really fuel all the senses.

Death Valley’s attraction is its history.  Geological as well as human history.  Each has its own story to tell as well as the story it tells of the two being intertwined.  Death Valley cannot have one without the other.  This is what feeds the visitors fascination and attraction to such a desolate part of the country.

On one tour, we were fighting the weather.  Rain was on the horizon.  Yet that added an element of surprise and beauty to the tour.  Possible rain as the backdrop to being in the driest place on the western hemisphere.  Many of the routes were closed due to flooding.  Including Devils Golf Course.

Bad weather doesn’t stop the tour, it just gives the guests more to explore and absorb.  This is the one tour where the camera never leaves my guests hands, let alone is put away.  The low clouds, mixed with early season sunshine reflects off the rocks and shows the colors normally hidden by the blazing hot sun.

I always find the tour fun because the guests, who only a few hours ago were questioning their sanity for signing up for such a tour, are now wondering why they waited so long to do so.  And they worry they may not have enough memory or film for their cameras because their friends back in Vegas or at home, are not going to believe what they are seeing.

They love the stories told of the gold miners and the early explorers. The mining of Borax and seeing the twenty-mule team marching out of the valley.

They look around, trying to imagine why anyone in their right mind would purposely come here to live and to work.  Suddenly that desk job they have isn’t so bad.

On these tours, we exited through Rhyolite, an abandoned gold mining town that grew as fast as it collapsed.  Looking at the ruins, you can see the effects of greed, vanished dreams and hope for the future.  As much as we can see the damages of mankind and our thirst for more.

Our final route home takes us past truck stop brothels, military outposts and atomic test sites.  The things they heard so much about, but could never believe existed.  After a day in Death Valley, they now understand that anything is possible and believable.

Book Your Death Valley Tour Today

The question may answer itself.  Remember the first time you thought about traveling to Vegas?  You read the books, saw the documentaries and talked to friends who have been here.  You thought you knew what you were walking into.  Than you got here and realized that everything you saw and read didn’t really capture the Vegas you were now experiencing in person?

Same thing with a tour.  You may have seen the video on Hoover Dam.  But when you see it in person and hear it’s story, you realize just how truly incredible it really is.   Passing through Boulder City, you get a bit of a chuckle to think that this company town was once larger than Vegas.  Than you get that first look at Lake Mead and in silence wonder “They built all that out here??”  To think to yourself that maybe you should have done this first??

Or to drive a few miles out from the strip.  To see just how red the rocks of Red Rock Canyon really are.  As you stand there on the overlook, you realize there is not a camera in the world that could capture that amazing piece of geological beauty you are now staring at.  The shapes, the unique placements and all the geological and early American history tucked in one little area, so close to such a major metropolitan city?  How could you have missed that??

Even the simple walking tour of the Strip can give you a completely new perspective on everything you ever thought about when you heard the words “Las Vegas”.  You start to understand how the history and world events can shape a city and it’s people.  The reason we are the entertainment capital of the world or even the real reason why you are staying at the hotel you are staying at.

It’s all right there.  Hidden in the open for you to discover.

Take a Vegas Tour