[Day 3] [Home] [Travel] [California 2004] [Day 5]
The long and not so winding road; mile after mile of highway stretching through the desert; the occasional town springing from nowhere, seeming only to serve the needs of passing wayfarers -- such was the landscape on my drive from LA to Las Vegas. I stopped in downtown Santa Monica to buy some batteries for my camera and set off along the I-10 at about midday. In Ontario I took the I-15 North (right by the speedway as a matter of fact -- maybe I could have planned better and avoided this retracing of steps).
The drive was a lot of fun. At first the road had to get past the mountains to the East of LA. As they loomed ahead I wondered how it was going to achieve this: over, around or through? In fact it was a combination of over and between, through some dramatic mountain passes. Cruise control really came into its own on this drive, most of the time all I had to do was sit back and occasionally adjust the steering. I got bored of the Octane and Alt Nation satellite radio stations, and the car radio does not pick up local stations very well, so for a while I tuned to a station called Bluegrass. Think Soggy Bottom Boys from O Brother Where Art Thou. Listening to lyrics like, "you ain't gonna cut a highway through my home" was quite apt as I passed what appeared to be trailers in the middle of the desert with old cars and tractors and junk scattered around.
In fact America makes a lot more sense when you take a journey like this. The distances between cities affects the culture of the nation. Cities sprawl because they have the space to, the gaps between the cities are the opposite, extremely rural and remote. Rural folk are more removed from day to day politics and are perhaps more likely to have a healthy disdain for government and be indignant about such property violations as compulsory purchase for highway building.
City folk on the other hand are crowded together and often come to see the behaviour of other humans as a problem. So they create eloborate rules and regulations, hence all the authoritarianism one sees in cities such as beach curfews, smoking laws and even gun control.
Meanwhile Europeans complain about Americans and their gas guzzling cars. But you simply wouldn't want to drive between cities in something that isn't a decent size, with an engine that can do a million miles without breaking down (cars out here are sold with 100,000 mile warranties), with powerful air conditioning and soft bouncy suspension that can handle the bumps in the roads (when miles of road per capita is high, cost of maintaining the roads is high). So American cars are simply designed for the job they do, and that's not likey to change soon.
Around 100 miles from Vegas I noticed that the traffic going the other was was more or less stationary. These people were returning after their holiday weekend. The tailback stretched over the horizon. It was hard to imagine this many cars *fitting* in Vegas. The queue was not this bad for the whole 100 miles, but on and off it was quite bad. I was glad to be going the right way.
I knew I was in Nevada when I came across a town that seemed to consist of two gas stations and a casino and hotel with roller coaster. I stopped for gas and a snack and continued on my way. About 50 miles later I started seeing signs for Vegas. Then I could see the backs of the hotels. I made my way to the visitor centre, determined it was closed and found somewhere to stop to study my guidebook.
I'd intended to find somewhere for about $50, but I tried the MGM Grand to see if they had special offers. Surely all those people in the traffic queues had just vacated hotel rooms. They offered me a room for $80. After some consideration I decided to treat myself to a decent room in a well known hotel.
I made a reservation, then spent some time driving up and down the strip to get my bearings. The south part of the strip is where all the big, spectacular casinos are. The north part is a bit more...real. I found my hotel, located the front desk in the vast marble floored lobby, and made my way to my room. The room is not oppulent but pleasant; it's furnished in what I think is a '50s style, so it's all shades of brown but there are marble surfaces where appropriate and plenty of space.
After settling in (i.e. dumping my stuff and watching Friends), I changed into a shirt and went down for dinner. The hotel is vast. The part with the rooms is cross shaped, each wing stretching for a few hundred yards and the elevator shafts in the centre so you have to figure out which arm of the cross you want to find your room. There are about 10 different places to eat, the usual gym facilities, loads of shops, a lion habitat (really), and a casino.
After expolring the hotel I set out to explore the strip on foot. By now it was dark so things looked as they should. It was also oppressively hot. I walked up and down the interesting part of the strip and got through three bottles of water and a bottle of orange juice. Walking around is interesting though. The buildings are all fascinating. At times you have to go up an escalator and cross a bridge to get across the road. These bridges offer some good views.
Before I got very far two guys thrust wads of leaflets into my hand. As a result I now know how to get girls of my choice to me within 15 minutes, and that Laci and Sandy are lonely and awaiting my call. After this I quickly learnt the skill of ignoring someone *really hard*, even when they really want to give you something.
When I got to the Bellagio I stopped to take a picture of the fountain in the large lake in front of it. Then the fountain turned off, but this seemed to attract an even larger crowd. I stuck around, thinking of that comedy sketch where the guy points up at a building and before long there is a huge crowd all looking up at nothing. But sure enough after a while some music started up and -- well lets just say it's amazing what you can do with some music, some spotlights and a couple of hundred electronically pointable and squirtable water jets. It was a vast, powerful dancing water display and it brought a big silly grin to my face.
Way down at the other end I also saw the Sirens of Treasure Island show. This is the thing where the pirate ship sinks. It was jolly good fun and there were some spectacular pyrotechnics. At one point I could feel a blast of heat from two flamethrowers.
My flirtation with gambling was undramatic. I went into Ceasar's Palace, found a $0.25 one armed bandit, fed about 15 quarters into it and got nothing out of it except a printed slip for $0.50 which I was to embarassed to redeem. They missed a trick there: some cha-chink cha-chink action and the could have made another zombie slot machine addict. As it was I found the casino a bit dull. I think blackjack might be more fun -- I've played it before at the pretend casinos at office parties. I just don't think it would be a hundred bucks worth of fun from the ten or so minutes it would take for me to lose it.
So I headed all the way back up the strip and back to my room. My feet hurt.
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