ROLLER COASTER IN THE DESERT

State Line, Nevada
From way up here overlooking the wide sweep of desert far below, you can't hear the screams...and you'd be awfully surprised to know there even was anybody down there in all that desert TO scream...

But once you get down here and across the state line into Nevada, you can start to hear the screams! On the roller coaster...

It is among the world's tallest and fastest, it'll range anywhere from 88 to 92 MPH...

Out of the first turn you're pulling about 3.8 G's. The space shuttle, when it takes off, is only 3.2 G's..."

There's over 3 areas of negative gravitational forces where you feel like you're floating.

We were a little surprised to see all this sticking up out of the desert south of Vegas in a little place called Stateline, Nevada. This place is just into Nevada after you leave California. The ride at Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino lasts about 2 1/2 minutes and travels a distance of about a mile REAL fast and will pump your adrenalin up into redline and leave it there long after you stagger away. The "Desperado," they call it, is here for one reason only, to drag people coming from Southern California in off the freeway before they get to Vegas and part them from some of their money.

According to Dan Rasmussen of Buffalo Bill's Resort & Casino: "This coaster has done just a remarkable job of pulling people in just for the...'hey, let's stop and ride the coaster' type of thing. It's only a 4 dollar attraction, they get probably the scariest or most thrilling 2 minutes 45 seconds of their life, and then...obviously from a marketing standpoint, they are in our casino."

It works pretty well. Built at a cost of ten million dollars, more than a million people rode it in the first year.

And they have to walk through one of the best themed casinos I've seen to GET on the ride...past a million dollar "Hanging Oak Tree" complete with computer animated singing cowboys...and hundreds of assorted singing slot machines. It all goes to show the effort and money gambling operators will expend to get you into their casinos and the money YOU will spend when you get there.

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NOTES:

State Line Nevada is on the Nevada-California state line on I-15, the freeway from Los Angeles.

They won't let you hold anything in your hands and you have to take off your glasses and hats to ride this monster. Make sure your wallet is secure in your pocket because while we were there shooting pictures, we were bombarded with the contents of two different wallets. We took both of them to the resort's security desk where their owners were mighty grateful to recover them.

The casino also has other attractions for kids and adults alike, it's a pretty nice place.