When it’s time to do a special something for your special some one forget about giving yet another set of shedding flowers and stale chocolates. Spot Cool Stuff recommends a fab new tactic d’amour: skip the Whitman’s sampler and use the cash to get you and your baby to Vegas. Because nothing says love like Barry Manilow, friends.
There’s a little ‘Copacabana’ at the core of every good love story (the passion! the danger! the ostrich feathers!). And thankfully, the Paris Las Vegas Casino & Resort knows it.
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Picture outdoor travel in the upper midwest of the United States and an image probably comes to mind of flat forests and flat fields—if anything comes to mind at all.
In fact, the region is home to a variety of unexpected natural treasures,. Among those: the world’s largest freshwater dune system.
These dunes scattered along the shores of the five Great Lakes—Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario—were formed 3,000 to 6,000 years ago (recent in terms of geological terms) when the water level of the lakes was 40 feet (12 meters) higher than it is today. Every U.S. state and Canadian province that borders a Great Lake has at least one sand dune preserve area, including Indiana where there are some wonderfully scenic dunes not far from the powerfully unscenic blighted industrial town of Gary.
Arguably the coolest place to experience the Great Lakes dunes is at the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area in western-central Michigan.
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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! it’s . . . dinner?
For an experience that brings cuisine to new heights check out Dinner In The Sky. The Belgium-based company will hoist you and 21 guests up in a dinning platform for a gourmet meal. The hoisting is done by a giant crane!
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Oregon’s natural beauty has been celebrated ever since Lewis and Clark first paved the way. With its epic coastlines, towering redwoods and undulating sand dunes, it’s no wonder manifest destiny brought Americans here.
But underneath Oregon’s beautiful exterior, lurks a completely different world. A world of bizarre, off-beat and downright odd roadside attractions that will challenge, disrupt and send askew any previous opinions you held about the state. Here are five of the best:
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Constructing the upside-down house was so disorientating for the builders that they could only work in three hour shifts
˙uʍop ǝpısdn plɹoʍ ǝɥʇ uɹnʇ ʇɐɥʇ—puɐloԀ puɐ ɐıɹʇsn∀ ‘˙∀˙S˙∩ ǝɥʇ ‘ʎuɐɯɹǝפ ‘ɐpɐuɐƆ ‘uıɐdS uı—sǝɹnʇɔnɹʇs uǝʌǝs ǝsǝɥʇ ɟo puoɟ ʎllɐıɔǝdsǝ sı ɟɟnʇS looƆ ʇodS ʎɥʍ sı ɥɔıɥM ˙ʎʇılɐǝɹ uo ǝʌıʇɔǝdsɹǝd ɹnoʎ ǝƃuɐɥɔ uɐɔ ʎǝɥʇ :ǝɹnʇɔǝʇıɥɔɹɐ puɐ lǝʌɐɹʇ ɥʇoq ɟo ʇɔǝdsɐ looɔ ǝuO
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Grandiose casinos, towering hotels, enormous buffets, larger-than-life stage productions and extreme neon are not all Las Vegas takes to excess. The swimming pools of Sin City are outrageous in their size and opulence too. And they are an often overlooked joy of travel here. After a night of gambling, partying, taking in stage shows, drinking, more gambling and whatever else you did (we don’t want to know; or, at least you don’t have to tell us) there can be nothing better than relaxing and recovering by a Vegas pool. Here, in rank order, are our top seven selections:
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The Villa Pisani maze is the world’s most difficult to solve. Napoleon himself is among those who have been flummoxed by it.
The world “mazerific” is thrown around a lot these days. But we’ve found eight mazes that really are superlative, either for their size, history or quirky features.
Check out our review below . . . and try not to get lost along the way.
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The Monte Carlo Hotel & Casino has, arguably, been the most underachieving property in Las Vegas. The hotel has a near-perfect location in the middle of The Strip, a superb theater space and one of Spot Cool Stuff’s favorite Vegas sports books and poker rooms. And yet the hotel has never generated much of a buzz or loyal following. Somehow the property falls into that lost space between being too expensive to be considered for budget accommodations and too bland to be considered luxurious.
The Hotel32 could change that . . sort of . . . maybe.
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