COMDEX 2002 / Vegas 4X4 Trip
I had been looking forward to the COMDEX Vegas trip for a long time! I made plans to leave town as soon as I got off school on Friday November 15th. I had everything packed and ready to go, and so when I got off school, I came home just long enough to trade cars and I hit the road for Vegas. A friend from school, Chris Iske came along for the trip. It was his first trip to Vegas.
This trip was the first time that I used my laptop to map the route that I was driving. I designed a car mount that seatbelted my laptop into the passenger seat, and held it at an angle to me so that I could view it while I was driving. I was then able to link it to my GPS so that I could see where I was on the map at any time. While this is just like the newer onboard navagation systems that are available in cars, I use the National Geographic Topo maps so I can see the terrain as well as the roads. This was great when we were exploring in the desert, as we could quickly set up routes and waypoints, as well as review where we had been and where we were going.
Warren had just come back from Hump and Bump at Logandale, and was anxious to go and play with the new Rubicon, so first thing Saturday monring we headed out into the desert.
Vegas is a great city! This picture was taken from just East of town, and you can see all of the colors of the strip casinos.
On Saturday we headed out to the Red Rock area. There is a trail off of the back of the red rock loop that we had not done in many years, and when we were told that it was impassable, it just made us want to try it even more!
This area is full of great colors and rock formations.
Again, rock is the theme! We had a ton of fun playing in the various rock gardens.
We got some really cool videos of our trucks going up and down the formations.
Warren had a good day, but put the second dent in the new Wrangler Rubicon.
The first was from a High-Lift Jack that fell over and hit the side, the new one is from him hitting the rear bumper after going through a small ditch. The best thing about the new dent.... it's on film!
Here is the first (but most likely not the last!) body damage I did to my truck!
I was making a sharp turn on a trail and thought I would clear the rocks on the side... I was wrong.
Comdex is shrinking as the years go by. One possible cause is the internet. While companys used to unveil their newest products at Comdex, now they do it on their web sites.
Attendance this year is estimated at around 75,000 people, down from around 200,000 in it's peak years.
As usual, Microsoft had a large area.
This is the Fremont Street Experience. The canopy of lights is 90 feet above the street, goes for 4 blocks, and has 2.1 million lights, a 540,000 watt concert quality sound system with 218 speakers, and is controlled by 36 computers.
It is a great show, if you get to Vegas you should check it out! Shows run at the top of every hour in the evenings.
Vegas is always a great trip... so much to do and see!
We are already talking about our next trip there!