Starting at the beginning: Day 1, LA to Vegas
The drive from LA to Las Vegas takes about four hours. Somewhat longer when it's raining in LA, because Angelenos can't handle precipitation. (Delivered like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: "You can't handle the rain!") Auto malls, strip malls, sprawl, sprawl, more sprawl, and then an hour later you're in the mountains.
Specifically, you're in the San Bernardino Mountains, the ones that burned. How can mountains burn? The green and brown scrubby plant life on the mountainside gives way to charred black rock. Cheerful.
Not long after, we discovered the Wall Drug (official link) of California. For what seemed like about 100 miles (but I must be wrong...surely it was more like 150) we got ad after ad for the Mad Greek in Baker, CA. The Mad Greek is world-famous! Gyros! Strawberry shakes! World famous! In just 35 minutes! 30! 25!Granted a Greek restaurant in the middle of the desert is intriguing, but enough is enough. Many of the ads, interestingly, weren't on billboards but on trucks and trailers that, for all I know, were abandoned in the desert.
Baker itself, by the way, is the Bunghole of California, taking its place in Jen and Rick's vaunted Bunghole USA Hall of Fame alongside Erie, PA and the entire state of Idaho. Other over-advertised Baker tourist traps included Alien Fresh Jerky, Bun Boy (sounds dirty, but just a restaurant), obscenely expensive fuel ($2.35/gallon is the cheap stuff? Well, it beats running out of gas in the desert), and the World's Largest Thermometer. The latter is a letdown as it's digital, not mercury. What a rip.
We saw some bizarre, yet very cool, desert plants along the way, including the wacky looking Joshua Tree. Also, a mirage. It looked like a lake, but was really a dry lake. I can see how stuff like this drove the covered-wagon settlers totally insane, while Indians hid behind rocks and laughed at them.
So usually, you drive across a state line and there's no dramatic difference. Not so, when you cross from California into Nevada. I knew something had changed before I ever saw the "Welcome to Nevada" sign, because I'd seen the roller coaster. Flat, funny plants, sand, flat...giant tacky border town! You're over the line, now quick, GAMBLE, I TELL YOU, GAMBLE! Don't wait the hour to get to Vegas, just GIVE NEVADA MONEY NOW!
Ahem.
This is also about where you start to see truly incredible (in the "I don't believe it" sense of the word) sights like golf courses in the middle of the desert. But environmental/ecological waste was just one of the many aspects of Vegas I had prepared myself to ignore. I will not be a humorless liberal, I will not be a humorless liberal, I will not...
Eventually, a city skyline rolled into view, and we knew we must be almost there. The famed Vegas Strip was easy to find from the highway, as was our hotel. Which was also a casino. I know. That's just how it's done.
But first, we had to drive past some of the most ostentatious theme park wankery in the city. It was dazzling, mind-boggling, nauseating, laughable. My oh-so-clever running commentary went something like this:
"Dude. It's the frickin' New York skyline...and a giant gold lion...dude, what the f*ck?"
Of course, the real Manhattan skyline doesn't have a roller coaster. I was starting to detect a theme. It wouldn't be the first.
To be, as they say, continued.
The drive from LA to Las Vegas takes about four hours. Somewhat longer when it's raining in LA, because Angelenos can't handle precipitation. (Delivered like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: "You can't handle the rain!") Auto malls, strip malls, sprawl, sprawl, more sprawl, and then an hour later you're in the mountains.
Specifically, you're in the San Bernardino Mountains, the ones that burned. How can mountains burn? The green and brown scrubby plant life on the mountainside gives way to charred black rock. Cheerful.
Not long after, we discovered the Wall Drug (official link) of California. For what seemed like about 100 miles (but I must be wrong...surely it was more like 150) we got ad after ad for the Mad Greek in Baker, CA. The Mad Greek is world-famous! Gyros! Strawberry shakes! World famous! In just 35 minutes! 30! 25!Granted a Greek restaurant in the middle of the desert is intriguing, but enough is enough. Many of the ads, interestingly, weren't on billboards but on trucks and trailers that, for all I know, were abandoned in the desert.
Baker itself, by the way, is the Bunghole of California, taking its place in Jen and Rick's vaunted Bunghole USA Hall of Fame alongside Erie, PA and the entire state of Idaho. Other over-advertised Baker tourist traps included Alien Fresh Jerky, Bun Boy (sounds dirty, but just a restaurant), obscenely expensive fuel ($2.35/gallon is the cheap stuff? Well, it beats running out of gas in the desert), and the World's Largest Thermometer. The latter is a letdown as it's digital, not mercury. What a rip.
We saw some bizarre, yet very cool, desert plants along the way, including the wacky looking Joshua Tree. Also, a mirage. It looked like a lake, but was really a dry lake. I can see how stuff like this drove the covered-wagon settlers totally insane, while Indians hid behind rocks and laughed at them.
So usually, you drive across a state line and there's no dramatic difference. Not so, when you cross from California into Nevada. I knew something had changed before I ever saw the "Welcome to Nevada" sign, because I'd seen the roller coaster. Flat, funny plants, sand, flat...giant tacky border town! You're over the line, now quick, GAMBLE, I TELL YOU, GAMBLE! Don't wait the hour to get to Vegas, just GIVE NEVADA MONEY NOW!
Ahem.
This is also about where you start to see truly incredible (in the "I don't believe it" sense of the word) sights like golf courses in the middle of the desert. But environmental/ecological waste was just one of the many aspects of Vegas I had prepared myself to ignore. I will not be a humorless liberal, I will not be a humorless liberal, I will not...
Eventually, a city skyline rolled into view, and we knew we must be almost there. The famed Vegas Strip was easy to find from the highway, as was our hotel. Which was also a casino. I know. That's just how it's done.
But first, we had to drive past some of the most ostentatious theme park wankery in the city. It was dazzling, mind-boggling, nauseating, laughable. My oh-so-clever running commentary went something like this:
"Dude. It's the frickin' New York skyline...and a giant gold lion...dude, what the f*ck?"
Of course, the real Manhattan skyline doesn't have a roller coaster. I was starting to detect a theme. It wouldn't be the first.
To be, as they say, continued.
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