Nevada

WHO’S AFRAID? – Just west of Beatty, kick up some dust in the ghost town of Rhyolite. No staged gunfights here or costumed interpreters, just a dead-quiet old mining town, complete with a train station, a bank, and an odd old house made of whiskey bottles. Oh, and just outside Rhyolite you’ll find a just-as-spooky assemblage of modern sculptures dubbed the Goldwell Open Air Museum.

DO-IT-YOURSELF KIT – Before you leave home, download a free audio guide for your iPod of the Kit Carson Trail, a walking tour of historic Carson City. It features many 19th-century homes, the original Governor’s Mansion, and locales used in a John Wayne movie, “The Shootist.” (But not Kit Carson’s home – the famed frontiersman never lived here.) Go to www.visitcarsoncity.com/tours/kitcarson_talkinghouses.php.

STREET THEATER – The light-up-the-night signage of Las Vegas is part of the fun, and the Fremont Street Experience, sometimes called “old Las Vegas,” has taken it to the extreme. The length of the street is arched over by “Viva Vision,” a hightech video screen and light show said to be the largest of its kind in the world.