Sin city and beyond
We
left Kachina Lodge in Grand Canyon Village with Tina behind the wheel and drove
straight up to the neighboring El Tovar hotel, so I could check out. When I got
back, Tina was in the backseat and not behind the wheel. Her vision was
disturbed somehow, and she didn't want to drive. She thought that she had looked
directly into the sun, and after half an hour the disturbances had passed, but
Tim and I continued to drive the rest of the day. We left the national park by
the south entrance and headed for Williams, which is located off I -40. Halfway to
the city we refueled the car , but besides that, we didn't stop
until we reached the interstate. We continued west on I-40 to Seligman, where
we left the interstate and used the old Route 66 to Kingman. F We made one stop along the way
within the boundaries of the Hualapai reservation, to use a restroom and to have
a cup of coffee.
From Kingman we contimued north on U.S. Highway 93 towards Hoover Dam and
Nevada. We didn't stop here either. Tim and I had visited the dam on earlier
vacations, and Tina was in a hurry to get to Las Vegas. Why? Well, she knew that
there were two outlet malls in Las Vegas, one in the north end of town and one
in the south. She was very keend visiting at least one of them, and as this was
about the only time she would have time for shopping, we let her :-). We had
studied the map and as the southernmost mall was just off the freeway, by which
we were entering town, we decided on that. We drove to the mall and left Tina
there. While she was shopping, Tim and I would do some shopping of our own in a
Radio Shack where Tim needed something for his iPad , and we also shopped for
water and stuff in a Walmart. Finally we checked in at Stratosphere, the hotel
we had booked from home.
When
we had been in the room for approx. an hour and a half, Tina called as we had
agreed and Tim went to pick her up. When they got back Tina showed us the five
dresses, she had bought for herself, and the gifts she had bought for Carsten,
her boyfriend. Suppertime was now approaching and we decided to eat at the hotel
buffet, which proved to be great, with lots to choose from. After dinner Tim went
up to the room to read while Tina and I walked over to the monorail which
terminates not far from the hotel. We stayed on the train to the other terminus
at MGM Grand. Tim had been there before and did not think it was worth the
effort. MGM Grand is a large hotel, once the largest in the world, and we took
our time getting out of there, but eventually left for The Strip and the heat.
Even here at 9 pm, it was about 100 degrees! We walked up the Strip and enjoyed the
people and lights and took some pictures. Tina wanted to see the Venetian,but we
agreed that it was too far to walk, so we walked to the nearest monorail station
and took the train to the station closest to The Venetian. From here we walked
through Paris casino, where Tina got to see a Parisian urban environment with
streets, shops and cafes - everything inside the hotel. After that, she decided
not to visit The Venetian after all, as she wanted to play the roulette at our
own hotel.
We therefore went back to the station and drove back to the
terminus at the Sahara (now demolished). From here we walked back to the
Stratosphere where we first went to the room to get Tim. Tina took a quick
shower and put on one of the newly acquired dresses, and so we took the elevator
20 floors down, walked around 250 yards inside the hotel took the stairs up
one floor - and then took the elevator up to Stratosphere Tower, 108 floors up.
Tim and I visited the tower in 2010, but it was the first time we had been up
there in the evening and it was impressive to see the city with the lights on.
When there were no more we wanted to see,m we took the elevator down again. Tim
went to the room, while Tina and I went to the casino. Tina to play, I to take
pictures of her while she played. As it appeared that I was not allowed to
take pictures, I also went up to the room, and approx. 10 minutes later Tina
arrived. She had spent all the money she had set aside to play for - and she
claimed it was the first time that she hadn't won just a single game of
roulette, but it had still been fun to try.
Aliens and the valley of death
After the visit to Las
Vegas we had another day of just driving. The goal of the day, was Barstow,
California, and we could takenb I-15 all the way, but decided otherwise. We took
it easy this morning and left Las Vegas around 9 and headed north out of town.
We soon located U.S. Highway 95, which begins down at the Mexican border near
Yuma and leads all the way to Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho, but we didn't go
that far :-). The first
part
of the road was a freeway, but leaving the Las Vegas metropolitan area it
becomes a four-lane highway and later looses two of the lanes to become a 2-lane
highway, of which there are a lot of
in USA. We stayed on the road for 75 miles to the small Nevada Road 373 ,
which runs from the highway in a southwesterly direction. On our way north we
passed a state prison, which was a little off the highway. Here we warned on
signs that we shouldn't pcik up hitchhikers. I wonder why not? Another
interesting phenomenon, not on the road, but the area around was the many
small, probably private airports with just a single runway that we passed. More
than 10 just on the stretch from Las Vegas to NR 373. In the town of Indian
Springs is even an Airforce Base with a fairly large airport . Here we made our
first stop at a gas station so I could get coffee, but we didn't stay long
because there were too many wasps - Tina thought - and there were also quite a
lot of them I have to admit.
Just before we left the highway in the small settlement of
Amagosa Valley we stopped once more at a general store/ gift shop/gas station
for a biological break before we entered Death Valley, which was the goal of this part
of the trip. The place was called Area 51 Alien Center, and there were pictures
of assorted aliens both inside and out. Next to the store was the Alien
Brothel and Bar! I don't know if it's a brothel serving aliens, or a brothel
where you are served by aliens, as we didn't visit? The alien interest is due to
the proximity of "Area 51", located in the desert, around 50 miles north of
Amagosa. For many years folklore "knew" that an alien spaceship and maybe even
surviving aliens were examined here. Later it was revealed that it was actually
a secret CIA base, used for developing and testing spy planes like the U2 and
the Blackbird. Despite these revelations there are a great many who maintain
the idea of the area covertly being used to work with alien technology. A rather
new novel, Library of the Dead by Glen Cooper, has a completely different story.
Here, the area contains a huge library with exact dates of birth and death of
everybody that has ever lived, and will ever be born!
But
I digress. After the visit to the gas station, where we actually didn't meet
neither aliens nor working girls, we headed south on NW 373. After a while we
should turn due west, but we missed the spot and drove a few miles too far
before we discovered it, and returned to Nevada Road 190 which was very small.
It leads into Death Valley National Park, and it was the whole purpose of the
side trip. Death Valley National Park is the largest national park in the
contiguous 48 states and a 1.5 times as large as Yellowstone, which is the
second largest, and there was a limit to how much of the park, we had time to
visit. We therefore decided to drive directly to the Badwater area in the
southern part of the park. Here we made a stop. Badwater is the lowest point in
the U.S., 282 feet below sea level. The specific point is several miles away, somewhere in
the "lake" where you can't go, but it's only a little lower than
Badwater Spring near the road, where a sign is posted. So we walked to the
spring, and Tina was duly photographed next to the sign. Tina and I went for a
walk on the part the lake bottom, where you are allowed to walk. On the way back we
took some pictures of the rock behind the lake, where a painted line high up on
the rock indicates where the sea level would be if it had been there.
In Death Valley the highest air temperature ever recorded in the world was
meassured in 1913 with 135 degrees. The average temperature in July is however
"only" around 116 (and these temperatures are measured in the shade). It wasn't
that hot when we were there, as it was rather cloudy, so the temperature
probably wasn't much over 105, which almost felt cool compared to Las Vegas.
When we had finished out visit to the Badwater Basin we continued towards the
park's south entrance, even though you are actually driving in an arc to the north
to get to it. On the way out of the park it started to rain, but it wasn't that
much. It's actually a little strange that besides the thunderstorm in Jackson,
Wyoming, all the rain we got on this trip, hit us while we were in deserts, like
Moab and Death Valley.
Well out of the park we met California Road 127 and within a few miles we got to the
small town of Shoshone, where Tim three years earlier bought the cowboy hat, which
he dumped this time in favor of a newly purchased Stetson. Here we made another
stop and bought something to drink. Fortunately, we didn't need gas, as here we
found the highest gasoline prices on the entire trip, namely $ 5.78 per gallon.
We continued to the highway (I-15), which we took west. We passed the road with
America's weirdest name, Zzyzx Road (pronounced sai six), and the ghost town of
Calico before we reached Barstow. We found a hotel and got a room. When we were
accommodated, we discovered that the place had only one washing machine, and
that it was busy. Using our GPS we located a launderette, and while Tim who didn't need to do laundry, stayed at the hotel, Tina and I drove
there. On this random launderette on a random afternoon in a small California
town we met another Danish family who was also doing laundry. We didn't exchange
many words though, but wished them a continued good trip, when they left
sometime before us.