I WAS THERE! On the spur of the moment at 5:00 a.m. on Monday morning, I decided to do a wild and wacky thing.... I booked a flight to Las Vegas via the Internet and within hours, there I was flying down to Las Vegas just for ONE DAY, so I could see the IMPLOSION of the STARDUST! Just got back tonight. And all I can say is that it was worth every cent to go and see this! This wasn't just an implosion .... this was a LAS VEGAS implosion! And at precisely 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning as scheduled, the Stardust indeed became DUST and its memories and history descended up into the STARS!Stayed at the Royal Resort right across the street and from my room, I had a perfect view of the whole Stardust area .. however I chose to go down on the streets to experience the implosion with the crowds gathered there from all over the world. I had planned to have dinner before the implosion, however many restaurants around that area were closed or serving non-hot food from a pared-down menu. The Denny's across the street was completely shut and the Peppermill had to stop serving hot food as they had to close/tape off the chimneys and vents because of the dust! They even had menu items named after the implosion!As some of you may know, I am a freelance writer for a local newspaper, and I had a fantastic time interviewing people down on the streets, and having them sign this huge STARDUST memorabila book that I had purchased when I stayed at the hotel the last weekend it was open last October of 2006. Now my book is full of wonderful comments and stories written by people from all over the United States and the world telling of their connections with the Stardust. Soon, I will be writing an article for our newspaper about how I got so involved with the Stardust. In fact, it all started at last years Fan Club Meeting in 2006, when I won a 3 day stay at the Stardust from a Timesharing company., which coincided with our Fan Club meeting dates. Having never stayed at the Stardust before, I was really sceptical and expected it to be a dump since I was only paying $19 for 3 nights! However, not only was it NOT a dump, I fell in love with this wonderful old-Vegas hotel. And it became even more endearing to me upon realizing that it was where S & R performed for 3 years of their first days in Las Vegas, and where Bernie Yuman first became involved with them and subsequently became their manager.Three weeks after our Fan Club Meeting, upon finding out the Stardust would be closing at the end of October, I turned around and flew back down to Las Vegas to stay there for the final weekend! I got to see the final show in the theater starring Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and after the show, ran into Norm Clarke, the society columnist from the Las Vegas Review. I went over to say hello to Norm, and after remembering me from being up on the podium the day S & R got their star on the Walk of Fame, he invited me to come partially backstage for the after-show party. http://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/la/ladygold/NORMMEx.JPG I didn't really get into the REALLY private party, but I got far enough backstage to where I got to meet Steve & Eydie, shake thieir hands and see other celebrities such as Frankie Avalon. Steve and Eydie closed down the theater in a grand style to many tears and cheers. Well, that final weekend endeared me to the Stardust even more. It was now a full blown love affair! The whole weekend was a tear jerker with old-timers and all sorts of people gathering there who loved the Stardust. It was like a grand reunion and many people were hugging and crying, sad that the Stardust would be no more. So going to the implosion was just the final something I had to do. I had to go and say goodbye. I was blown away (literally!) by how this implosion was done. An implosion of a building is awesome enough in itself... But this implosion was done - A-La-Las Vegas style! Astounding fireworks, music, laser lights, and a timed countdown was built right into the demolition dynamite itself! You could hear a multitude of people muttering 'YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING' when they saw how this implosion was being done! The big implosion itself was so loud and awesome, that it rocked and shook the depths of your soul. People were screaming and crying and laughing and jumping up and down. Translation: Mindblowing! There isn't a nightclub show in Vegas that could have rivaled the implosion of the Stardust!After the implosion and a small delay, a HUGE dust cloud, that resembled a giant MONSTER, began billowing and rolling over that whole area of the Las Vegas strip. This post-implosion dust cloud was a just a teeny small example of what 9/11 in New York must have been like. Of course, nothing could ever be as severe and as bad as that, but this did give everyone a small taste of what that must have been like. The dust cloud overcame us, chased us, covered us and lost us. You literally could not see the person in front of you for about a half hour to an hour after the implosion. The dust permeated EVERYTHING. People had their mouths and noses covered with scarves, coats or whatever they could grab. People were wandering aimlessly around, not able to even see the sidewalk, while trying to find their way down the invisible Las Vegas Strip back to their respective hotels! It reminded me of the Night of the Living Dead!! You could only see vague shapes moving in slow motion that resembled some type of alien beings appearing out of a space fog! The whole scene was downright SURREAL. After it was all over, I traipsed back down to the Riviera Casino to try and find something to eat. And what really got to me was that the monster cloud of dust even permeated the Riviera Casino and completely engulfed the INSIDE of the air-conditioned casino!! It was downright weird to enter the Casino, and see people at the slot machines coughing and trying to wave the dust away, and neon lights dimmed by the dust!I finally got back to my room about 4:30 a.m, with a luke warm hamburger! My clothes were covered in dust which literally was flaking off my clothing when I got back in my room! About 5:30 a.m. as I sat there trying to enjoy limp, cold onion rings (!), I glanced out my hotel room window and saw the most eerie and strange thing going on. A caravan of trucks and cars began to drive up on Convention Drive and were then lining up and pulling into a huge parking lot. They seemed to drive around in circles and in various directions. I also noticed that there was a person stopping at each car's window to talk to the driver of each vehicle. At first i thought it might be some kind of car club gathering in Vegas or some such. But more and more and MORE trucks and cars kept filing into this parking lot. It was a never-ending cortege of vehicles, and in the dusty pre-dawn night, with the cars' headlights dimly shining through the dust, it almost looked like some strange ritualistic vehicle ballet! From my vantage point, they looked like a bunch of ants going in every which direction. Then finally, as I saw the drivers of these vehicles emerge and start walking down the street, I began to realize what it was! Each indvidual had on a hard hat and carried a cooler or ice chest..... THESE WERE WORKERS COMING TO DO THE CLEANUP AT THE STARDUST LOCATION!! Thousands of them!The next morning when I looked out my window of my hotel room, all there was left of the Stardust was a huge pile of grey matter. It looked like a huge crumpled up piece of paper. 49 years of history, now a wadded up piece of twisted metal.I probably will never see anything quite like it again in my life, and I am so glad I became a little teeny bit of Stardust history.

Here's what seeing the implosion of the famed Stardust was like. (see links below). http://www.reviewjournal.com/media/video/stardust1.html
http://www.reviewjournal.com/media/video/stardustcountdown.html
http://www.reviewjournal.com/media/video/stardustdemo2.html