Beginning and Vegas

While reading these ramblings, you can hold the mouse pointer over any picture to get a description or click on it to see a full size version.

Near the beginning of "Moby Dick" there's a passage which goes something like this: "Whenever I am feeling down of spirits, whenever I find my self passing the time ... whenever I find myself following funeral processions and looking through the obituaries page enviously... I go to the sea..." I think that I feel the same way about the road. Sure, there are certain road-related hardships (no showers, sleeping in a car-seat, traffic) and about 3-5 hours into a trip I usually have second thoughts. When I still have 1500 miles to go and I can't stop looking at my clock (10:15, 10:22, 10:23, 10:23 still?), the thought of driving 28 more hours is quite frightening. But then I settle down, start to get more into the book (on tape), and stop the car less and less. During the first few hours of a jik road trip, any stop will do: historic rest stop, souvenir shot glasses, world's largest ball of twine, etc. Once I get up to speed, however, I'll squirm for an hour before I'll stop for the bathroom. The coordination of fuel and restroom breaks becomes more and more important to me. My average speed (including stops) goes from 55mph to nigh on 65mph.

Sometimes living on a plain really sucks. Those of you doomed to the Midwest know how uninteresting the driving can be. It took about 840 miles before I got to Colorado and the transition was amazing. One moment I was in the flat, dull, plains of Nebraska and the next I was charging up hills and coasting down into valleys of scenic Colorado.

16 hours of driving got me to Denver, and through exquisite timing or shear dumb luck, I arrived just as the sun was setting. It was amazing. The sun and clouds conspired to make those cool little fingers of light spread across the mountains - it was so gorgeous I felt like was driving though some hack painters' canvass. I took a lot of pictures by holding my point and shoot camera with one hand and firing out the window - it'd be nice if some of them come out, but I'm not over hopeful. The earth spins, and the sun disappears behind the edge of our planet. I was like a man running the wrong way on a treadmill, hurrying up the mountains as they tried to obscure my precious sunset. So, because I was driving west, the sunset lasted about an hour. Amazing. The red tint of the sunset made everything seem to have a sort of supernatural glow. The red in the rocks looked as if they might be back-lit fogged glass. And the green glass seemed ultra green in the warm bath of the red sunset. It was pretty nice.

I slept in the mountains (rest-stop of course) and in the morning I was running away from the sun so the sunrise lasted extra long. After about 28 hours I arrived in the humidity-free Las Vegas. The entire time I was there I don't think I was ever properly hydrated. The temperature was a pretty consistent 103, but the combination of 30mph winds and the ability of the air to suck any moisture off your skin made it feel quite nice. I stayed at the historic and, relatively, cheap Tropicana. It's right next to the MGM Grand, Luxor, Excalibur, and New York, New York. So I hung out in the cooler and much more swank hotels. To get there I used the escalators: The outside escalators. The hotels on the "The most exciting four-corners of Las Vegas" got together and built these huge walkways across the street (which is ALWAYS jammed with traffic). But the neat thing is that they have uncovered escalators to take you up to the somewhat scenic walkways. I was thinking, "it has to rain sometime in L.V., do they bring out tarps?" I don't think escalators were designed to have water poured on them... Did you know the 99cent buffet has all but disappeared from L.V.? It's true. The last time I was in Vegas Huda and I ate all-you-can-eat breakfast for mere pennies. Now it seems that the casinos are no longer content to lose money on food in the hopes you will gamble - now the prime rib buffet costs $11.95.

A few words about Las Vegas casino architecture: Every hotel/casino was designed as if there would be nothing around it. As if this monstrous castle/pyramid/tower was the only thing around for miles. And they might look impressive if the huge thing next to them wasn't obscuring all the cool views.

I had to bike ten miles away from the strip to get a neat look at the Luxor. Some might say that a 3.5 hour bike ride in 104 degree heat was a poor idea, I just called it good fun. I road out into boom town. They are building houses everywhere. There has got to be 5 or 6 development sites just in the part of town I zoomed around. I got some cool pictures of half built houses in the foreground with the strip looming behind. I also saw the brand spankin' new Las Vegas High School. Looked pretty ultra fly... I wonder what salaries are like in Vegas? On my way back into town I stopped for like the 4th time for an injection of sports drink. I poured out some water on the pavement, turned around to get my bike, and noticed that in the space of a few seconds the water had mostly evaporated. Yipes! Like I said: no humidity at all.

Around 1am I was feeling a bit peckish, so I had a New York Strip steak brought up to my room. Very cool.

As I was leaving Las Vegas, I reflected that this town is the essence of America. There's a long time myth of social mobility in the U.S. of A. that seems to be at its most base form in Vegas. Everywhere you turn unlimited wealth unlimited wealth beckoned. Sure the odds are long, the losers all about you, of course it's rigged, but you could technically pull a lever and never have to work again. And if that isn't the American dream, I don't know what is.

I stopped by the Hoover Dam on my way out of town. It was amazing... I can't really describe how much I was impressed, except to say that the Hoover Dam is what we all want "big science" to be.