Day Six (Or: The Hoover Dam is Dam Amazing) (hee!)

Got in to Las Vegas at about 7:30 PST, 10:30 Eastern and man, I was so tired.  But that's the last part of the tale...

Hi from Sin City, land of forced opulence!  I could feel the energy (and money) slipping away from me from the minute I crested the final ridge on Highway 93. 

Next to Santa Fe, Albuquerque looks like Beijing.  Jennifer, the proprietor of the Inn where I stayed last night in Santa Fe, told me at breakfast that there about 3 million residents of New Mexico and about 1 million of them live in Albuquerque.  It's big, noisy and kind of ugly, but it has some charm for all of those reasons.  I dig big, noisy and ugly because, after all, where would the Bronx be without those things?

The continental breakfast at the Inn this morning was the finest I've ever had: fresh fruits, yogurt, oatmeal, toast, hard boiled eggs, granola and every kind of Tazo tea there is (OK, I admit it: I pilfered).  There had been two women sitting in the common area when I had first arrived and at breakfast we were formally introduced.  They wanted a recap of what I did, where I'd been and what I'd seen, so I gave them the abbreviated version with four-part harmony and full orchestration--Jeez, I can't get off the Alice's Restaurant jokes this week, huh.

So, anyway, I told them about the snow in West Virginia, the Nashville skyline, Memphis and depressing Graceland, eating real catfish for the first time, Loretta Lynn's ranch and going down to crossroads.  That's when one of the ladies asked, in jest,  if I felt some kind of connection with someone who'd sold their soul for their talent.  I replied, "I'm not that talented," and they laughed.  The other lady said "I don't think we know her well enough to ask that question," to which I said, "It's far more interesting because you don't know me."

Later on, I realized that I wanted to give some dramatic answer about soul-selling because I thought it would make for a more interesting story, but I didn't have one.  I think part of me wanted to go to Clarksdale because I so badly wanted to believe something like that could be true.  And while I felt totally creeped out while I was driving around, I'm pretty sure the idea of souls and spirits and ghosts is still an open issue for me.

Anyway, we had a great time and they sent me off with some tips about Seattle and driving up from Portland.  They wished me luck and I got in the car and headed back to I-40.

I stopped on the Continental Divide to buy some postcards and use the bathroom. All day I had been driving up and down and up and down at all elevations.  Later, I would tell Nora that if there was a kind of weather that existed on this planet, I experienced it today.  The snow through Arizona was weird, beautiful and completely bracing--it was high altitude snow and it didn't stick to the road, but I have to admit that some of those 6% grade drops in the road made staying alert the only thing I focused on.  

I highly recommend taking Highway 93 up from Kingman, AZ, if you have the choice.  As the gypsy cabdriver says in "Planes, Trains & Automobiles": "There's nothing to see on the Interstate except In-ter-state."  93 goes up through the mountains into Las Vegas via the Hoover Dam, and even at night, it was unbelievable.  I had no idea what to expect and had thought it was going to be mostly dark and unspectacular and I couldn't have been more wrong.  Had it been daytime, I might have been more nervous with the hairpin turns around the canyonside, but because I couldn't see down, it was gravy.  It was the single best unexpected part of the trip so far.

So Las Vegas bored me and here's why: I'm barely interested in anything that makes the place famous.  I've never been into drinking and debauchery (although I had a glass of champagne with my expensive Craftsteak supper to celebrate the fact that I hit the 3000 mile mark today); I don't like gambling, so casinos make me nervous.  I'm not a fan of Celine Dion, I don't "get" Cirque du Soleil, and the appeal of Wayne Newton, Siegfried & Roy, and Barry Manilow has never made sense to me.  (Actually, I like the scenes in National Lampoon where Wayne Newton woos Ellen--it's like he's so naturally schmaltzy, he doesn't have to actually do any acting.)

I have some grudges against Vegas, too: Elvis' Vegas years were his worst and the city contributed to his decline, so that's kind of annoying; whenever they show "Casino" on TV, they have to overdub all the cursing and it makes the movie virtually unwatchable--that's not Vegas' fault, but the movie primarily takes place here so guilty by association; Cartoon Network wasn't one of my 150 TV stations on either of my trips, and you can imagine how I feel about that.

Unless Kathy Griffin is in town, the only thing you'll find me doing is eating.  I love the restaurants here, love that the prices exceed New York prices for no conceivable reason, love that they don't seem to know what to do with someone eating alone. The prices at Craftsteak were at least 20% higher than at the Craft in New York, but like I said, I was celebrating the 3,000 mile mark.  I chose the restaurant for two reasons:

1. Top Chef
2. It was in my hotel and required no walking or navigating of any kind.

I sat next to a couple who were from (of course) Long Island.  I began to look around and I thought, "Everybody's from Long Island, Long Island is the world.  The Universe is Long Island."  Which sounds awfully similar to some of my father's more crackpot (sorry, Pop) theories.  His latest is that the world is a dream and, he says with some latent terror in his voice, "What happens when we wake up from the dream?" Cue my mother rolling her eyes.

Anyway, after I ate, I went back to my suite (thank you, Expedia!) and ran a bath in the full-size air bath tub and stretched out in the steaming water.  I saw a lot today: the sun coming up over the hills in Santa Fe, souvenir shops on the Navajo reservation, the Continental Divide, Texas longhorns trudging through the Arizona snow, four fat old horses standing together in the rain at a bale of hay, a large Native American family eating lunch at the Cracker Barrel I stopped at, the valet at the MGM Grand who sang, rather than spoke, directions for how to retrieve my car when I check out.  It was a busy day.

I have more or less no plan for California tomorrow.  I searched for a hidden deal on the internet, but I didn't see anything that struck my fancy, so I think I'm just going to wing it.  I was going to go to San Francisco, but I don't want to spend the money for a room there.  Tahoe was the next possibility, but it's too far from Portland--it would take about ten hours of driving on Tuesday to get there.  So we'll see where I end up.

Misc.:

• You can see the orange haze of the Las Vegas lights from about 100 miles away on Highway 93.
• Tumbleweeds really do blow across the road in western New Mexico.  I swerved to avoid one before I realized what it was and then I was like, "I wish I could've gotten a picture of that!"
• Here's a tip: if you go up 93 to Las Vegas, get gas in Kingman, because there isn't another filling station, or anything, for another 60 miles.
• Gillian Welch's "I Dream a Highway," which, at over 14 minutes long is like her "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," is absolutely the perfect song to drive in the total darkness toward LV.

Day six:

Santa Fe, NM - Las Vegas, NV

Mileage: 627

Total Mileage: 3,122

I woke up on the roadside, dreaming about the way things sometimes are.

Idiot Wind - Bob Dylan

I wish you knew me, Jack of Diamonds

Fire-riding, wheeling when I lead 'em up

Drank whiskey with my water, sugar in my tea

My sails in rags with the staggers and the jags

I dream a highway back to you.

Gillian Welch - I Dream a Highway

My kinda country...

OK, so I can say I drove on Route 66 for like five minutes.
On top of the Continental Divide.
My ears hurt.

Holbrook - Holbrook.  Clearly, this is the nexus of the universe.
The Painted Hills, which I've waited my whole life to see.




Hope your weekend was great!