Weeks later, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to report for "Rolling Stone" on the National District Attorneys Association's Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs being held from the April 25 to 29, 1971, and to add material to the larger "Fear and Loathing" narrative. Besides attending the attorneys' conference, Thompson and Acosta looked for ways in Vegas to explore the theme of the American Dream, which was the basis for the novel's second half, which Thompson referred at the time as "Vegas II". On April 29, 1971, he began writing the full manuscript in a hotel room in Arcadia, California, in his spare time while completing "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", the article chronicling the slain Chicano journalist Rubén Salazar.