Las Vegas offers more than just gambling for locals and visitors

To our out-of-town visitors, Las Vegas means blackjack, strippers and $100 steaks. It's our civic duty to show them a side not included on casino-funded TV commercials. Following are some of our favorite places to drive them kicking and screaming (until they get there and realize we are right).

* Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, about 15 miles west of Summerlin on Charleston Boulevard, offers some of the most beautiful hiking, climbing and gawking in the United States. The wildlife includes feral horses and burros, native bighorn sheep and coyotes.

* The Las Vegas Motor Speedway, 7000 Las Vegas Blvd. North, isn't just for NASCAR anymore. On most weekends, cars can be found zooming at half the speed of sound, spinning out of control and colliding with one another. And that's just in the parking lot. Your guests should see how wild it gets on the 1.5-mile Superspeedway, 2.5-mile Bullring, 1/2-mile dirt track and two racing schools. Admission varies; call (800) 644-4444.

* Most locals associate Mount Charleston with skiing and snowboarding; most tourists don't know it exists. We recommend driving the 30 minutes northwest on U.S. Highway 95 and state routes 156 or 157 during the summer. Because of its about 8,000-foot elevation, nowhere else in the 702 area code will the temperature inside your body always exceed the temperature outside. While reveling in the luxury of not feeling your face melt off, hike around rolling hills that aren't brown, grab a bite at the New Resort on Mount Charleston, and check out the American Indian jewelry vendors in the parking lot of the Mount Charleston Lodge.

* A chimpanzee, two lions, two alligators and six Barbary apes sit across the street from Texas Station. This is not the beginning of a bad joke but a fact of which even most Las Vegans are not aware. We have a zoo. If your tourists are from New York City or San Diego, they won't be impressed. If not, the Southern Nevada Zoological Park is worth the short trip from their hotel to 1775 N. Rancho Drive. Bigger than any animal gathering on the Strip -- with the possible exception of happy hour at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville -- it houses more than 100 magnificent and dangerous creatures on its three acres, plus a children's petting zoo. Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for children and seniors, and free for children younger than 2. Call 647-4685.

* They've already dangled their life savings by a thread at the tables. It can't take much more to convince Uncle Morty and Aunt Elaine to dangle themselves 200 feet over the ravines of Boulder City. Bootleg Canyon Flightlines runs a two-hour tour of four zip lines, which zoom passengers around at 50 mph, every day at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (On the weekends, there's a night zip at 6 p.m.) Locals pay $134 each, tourists $149. Call 293-6885.

* Bonnie Springs Ranch, a replica of a mining town about 18 miles west of Summerlin on Charleston Boulevard, offers a sense of what the old West was like in the 1880s. A fake shootout begins with a melodrama in the saloon and ends in a hanging in the "Blazing Saddles"-like town square. Admission is $20 per car. Call 875-4191.

Of course, the best place to take your out-of-town visitors -- especially after you spend a week or more driving their behinds everywhere -- is the airport.

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@review journal.com or 702-383-0456.