click to enlarge (it looks really cool)
part 2 of my trip to the
middle of nowhere...
Arriving
in Page, AZ long after dusk, we quickly found a fantastic out-of-the-way
motel to stay in; Bashful Bob's, a great
and funny place to stay where the super cheap rooms were the
size of large apartments
(we each had our own bedroom!) complete with our own front and back yards!
The man in charge (Bob - duh!) proved to be a real character too. But with
much time later to peruse the wonderful fake
wood paneling and Wall Mart art on the walls (not to mention the hysterical
patterns in the bedrooms - my comforter had a great repeated lion's head
design in loud colors), we instantaneously sped out in the Geo to find
the perfect open desert field to spent our millennium celebration.
However,
that wasn't until after Michael threw
an unexpected temper tantrum because he suddenly wanted to see the
"vast coverage" of harebrained New Year's celebrations that were being
covered all over the world by all the TV stations (was he suffering big
city withdrawal?), the consecutive "midnights" of which would be happening
once an hour all night long (and the Times Square celebration happening
two hours before Arizona time). So, I sat in front of the television (which
represented everything I had come on this trip to purge myself of - at
least temporarily), and tried to endure. I put all reservations on hold
and hoped for would be at least something interesting, trying to block
out the real world, which was right outside our doorstep. So there was
Katie Couric giving glib conversation to Mayor Giuliani in front of Times
Square, the very backyard I was trying to escape. I don't even remember
a thing I saw on the screen for those two hours - that's how memorable
it was. Michael kept earnestly asking me "Ohhhhh... I'd like to see what
the PBS coverage is like right now - do you mind if I change the channel
back and forth real fast?" I kept shooting back blank stares that seemed
to eloquently say "I DON'T GIVE A FUCKING SHIT!!!" Michael seems genuinely
confused by my eye rolling dismissal of entertainment institutions like
Oprah and Entertainment Weekly and "Rent". Whatever. Turns out it was the
only part of the trip where we disagreed - pretty good huh? So with Michael's
cravings for crap satiated, we set out to meet our destiny...
When
I got the idea in my head a few years ago to escape the
serpentine, hyper violent, numbing, zillion-firecrackers-in-your-face stimulus
overload, autonomous freak-show-circus beast that is New York City
and spend the much hyped New Year's Eve 2000 in a remote, desert area as
far away from civilization and ballyhoo as possible, I imagined a once-in-a-lifetime,
spiritually rejuvenating moment. I thought it would be a quirky and memorable
adventure that would be significant due to the fact that it was the polar
opposite of whatever everyone else was trying to do at that time, and since
I had been "...partying like it's 1999" for the better part of the last
fourteen years of my life (especially the last nine) I thought it would
be the perfect time to symbolically shock my worn and beaten psyche into
a more peaceful plateau of harmony and happiness.
Now
while I hardly expected the skies to open up at midnight, with angels pouring
out of the glowing heavens playing golden sitars and singing John Denver's
"Rocky Mountain High" in glorious falsetto, (see here)
I did at least expect to laugh and bond (and get drunk) with a few die-hard
New Yorker friends under a dazzling milky way sky with a zillion miles
of zero in all directions. Maybe we would even make a campfire! Neat! What
I got instead was an abandoned junkyard that turned out to be someone's
vast front yard, a very loud barking dog, a freaked out neighbor who had
911 on speed dial, imaginary chain saw murderers lurking behind every tumble-weed,
and a near serious head injury after bashing my head open on a NO DUMPING
sign as we were trying to out-run the Navajo/Arizona Police a mere 2 minutes
after midnight.
"...Rooooockyyyy
mountaiiinnn hiiiiiiiighhhh... la... la... la..."
So
- with brains alert, eyes peeled, expectations high and headlights on high
beam - we peeled out of Bashful Bob's parking lot and jumped onto the road
we had come in on. We were just SURE we had seen the perfect place while
in a rush on the way into town. After a few false leads (including the
all night clerk at Big Lake Trading Post
who became suspicious after we hurriedly ran in buying flashlights and
loudly asked her directions to '...a place near town that was in the middle
of nowhere where no one would be able to see us') and the discovery of
two baby wolves inside an abandoned refrigerator (who
were mysteriously gone the next day) we finally settled on what looked
to be THE PERFECT location. I repeat: THE PERFECT LOCATION! Well, it looked
perfect (so beautiful and picturesque) in the total darkness at least.
It might have been a medical waste dumping ground for all we cared - but
in the pitch black of night, and all we had been through - it was pure
Ansel Adams. They say what you don't know won't hurt you and we weren't
about to let ourselves get hurt! If there is anything I've learned from
my 50's generation Republican parents - it's that denial is bliss. And
right now we were denying my way into pure heaven! Ahhhh... thanks mom
and dad! Oh, look... there's even a little dirt road leading off the paved
road into the unspoiled terrain, how convenient! And look at that: a "No
Dumping" sign, how quaint! So... holding our breath, we creeped our car
into the wild black void of gorgeous nothing... stopping several
hundred yards away from the road...
We
stopped the car in the middle of dirt and tumble weeds and God knows what
else, turned off the headlights, shut down the engine - and were
greeted by inky blackness and total silence. How quiet! How peaceful! How
totally... scary! There is this certain eeriness to the black night
desert that is hard to describe unless you've experienced it. I think it
may have to do with some pre natural instinct buried deep within our brains
that gets intensified very quickly when combined with total darkness and
no sound (kind of the equivalent of being temporarily blind and deaf).
With nothing else to bombard our senses, and a little apprehension of the
unknown lurking in our subconscious, our brains went on overdrive. I suddenly
thought of my friends tucked away in their Manhattan cubicles, ringing
in the new millennium with their cats. But I didn't want to be them - no,
I was doing this to be different and spiritual and... what was that
GODDAMN NOISE?!?!
You've
seen the Blair Witch Project movie, right? Well, we exhibited every cliché
from that film shamelessly as we tried to pull our shaky but spiritual
selves together and get out of the car. "Don't click the doors too loud!
We don't wanna alert the Chainsaw-Massacre families living out here!" and
"Lights out! Lights out! No flashlights from this point on! I mean it!"
oh, and this one about every five seconds; "What was that?!".
Creeping
out of the car like two shivering, plucked chickens, we felt like Shaggy
and Scooby Doo venturing into the haunted desert (with Thelma's logical
lesbian brain nowhere in sight). It was now 11:00pm and we had a whole
hour of sheer terror to look forward to until the glorious new millennium.
What a party! We decided to venture down what LOOKED LIKE a small dirt
"road" for lack of anything else to do. As we crept along the winding path,
our eyes started to adjust to the inky black darkness. Our eyes were now
the size of basketballs and our mouths were tight as button holes, ears
cocked and ready to detect any subtle sound or motion that was probably
nothing but might just be a lunatic power drill murderer asylum escapee.
Ahhhh... nature! I should have brought a gun.
Just
as I started to relax ever-so-slightly, and my fantasy of a spiritualistic
new millennium experience started to look like it might happen - our spirits
and ears were shattered by the piercing sound of an elephant! Yes a screeching
elephant. Actually it sounded more like a barking dog, but it might as
well have been an atomic bomb judging by the way we reacted. Have you seen
that movie "An American Werewolf in London"? You know that scene where
the two guys are lost on the mores and are being circled by the werewolf?
That's what this was like. First we tried to figure out which direction
it was coming from, then once we did, we untangled ourselves from each
other's arms and sprinted, tripped and bumped into each other, in a dead
run, all the way back to the direction of the car. Oh it was a sight that
would have made the Three Stooges proud!
Well,
to spare you the pathetic/hilarious details - to make a long story short,
midnight eventually came. We were far from the car (and far from the wild
dog - whom we finally decided wasn't coming after us), and were smack in
the middle of a large open expanse amongst total silence. We were
both lying down in the sand face up, staring at the milky way - which was
glowing like mad zillions of miles above us. When the time came, I counted
down the clock "..three...two...one..." and then said "It's the year 2000."
It felt like I was speaking to the whole universe - and those three seconds
are a moment in my life that I will never forget as long as I live. Despite
all that I had been through up until that point on the trip (and in the
last hour), the moment I had waited for had come and it couldn't have been
more exciting for me.
Well,
as it turns out, the bliss wouldn't last for long. As Michael and I were
dusting ourselves off and slowly making our way back to the car, we were
greeted with what we first thought was a UFO, then realized it was a police
searchlight slowly scanning the field. We went into full Three Stooges
mode again as we tripped and stumbled over rocks, tumbleweeds and each
other, trying to run, look inconspicuous AND think logically at the same
time (this is sometimes difficult). "Get down on the ground and cover ourselves
with sand!", "No just tell them what we're doing out here!", "No! They'll
scalp us!", "Act like we're just going for a walk!", "No wait! They'll
never believe us get down again!", "No wait! Get back up again!". The intelligent
discourse flew like wildfire as we got up, then down, then up again. I
think we must've looked like those moles that pop up and down out of those
little holes in the Whack the Mole game, you know where you whack them
with the rubber mallets?
Well
our brilliant strategy to appear as stupid and bumbling as possible (and
therefore obviously not a threat to anyone) must have worked - because
for some inexplicable reason they simply drove away. Did they actually
not see us? Didn't care? Got another call? A ghost police car? ...we'll
never know. Weird. We stumbled back to our car, got in, and drove over
the desert (headlights out) until we hit the road, and then high-tailed
it back to Bashful Bob's.
The
next day we decided to just hang out in Page and spend the day around Bashful
Bob's and Lake Powell, etc. While Michael drove off to take pictures of
(the ultimately disappointing) Lake Powell, I opted to stay
in the hotel room and watch the news channels
(big contrast from my mood the evening before huh?) for all the terrorist
actions that were supposed to have occurred over the course of midnight.
No bombs? No Jerusalem shootings? No suburban mall freak outs? No mad scientists
releasing anthrax on the subway systems of New York? I scanned every channel,
desperate for carnage ...and there was nothing. I was starting to get depressed.
There is something about the day after you finally accomplish something
you've wanted to do, or been looking forward to for a long time, that is
very depressing. I'm sure there is some post-something-syndrome name for
it and I don't know what it is but I'm sure had it. Plus the fact that
I was trying to drown myself in hyped-up, post millennium apocalyptic news
disasters (that weren't happening) was just compounding everything. I realized
that I had been subconsciously looking forward to watching the news the
day after New Year's for some Columbine High-ish thrills. And since there
were none, I was in a deep funk. I AM evil!
Well
Michael eventually popped that bubble of scary self pity by bursting through
the door and announcing that he had discovered this amazing area of water
eroded, orange rock landscape that was totally amazing and he wanted to
go take pictures of it quickly (as dusk was approaching). As
we were climbing in the car, I said to Michael "Did you know there
was not one single terrorist action anywhere in the world last night? No
one freaky story on any of the news channels!? I've been watching them
all day!". To which Michael just shot back this very strange look. I decided
not to bring it up again.
The
area Michael had found was pretty cool (see panorama shot at top of this
page). It was next to Lake Powell and was made up of all these wind and
water eroded rock formations that stretched as far as the eye could see.
It was kind of like a giant bed of ocean coral without the water. We discovered
these really weird round stones that were imbedded
in the rock like chocolate chips in cookies. So it was an ocean-coral-y,
chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-y kind of expanse. It appeared that as the
rock slowly eroded, these little stones, which were harder that the rock
they were imbedded in, would kind of dislodge and collect on the lowest
points of the landscape. Or would form little pockets in the rock to rest
in. Here are some that I took home.
See how some have little holes in them? I think something lived in them
at some point. Michael thinks they were called "Apache Tears", but since
we were on the Navajo reservation, we decided to call these "Navajo Tears"
Damn the facts!! This spot was really cool,
and we once again watched the sun disappear
over the horizon. This is where the series of photos I used to make
the
collage at the top of this page were taken. It was, once again, glorious.
There was also this huge factory to the east of us which had vast walls
of steam coming out of it's chimney's. It gave the terrain this extra-surreal
quality. I later learned from detail obsessive Michael that this area was
not called Navajo Tears as we dubbed it, but is officially called "Antelope
Point".
Oh,
and along the way back we stopped to find the area we were in at midnight
the night before. And here it is. Hahahahahaha!!!
WOW! Nice NO DUMPING sign huh? How spiritual
is that? And see this? It's the trailer of the
person who obviously called 911 when we caused their dog to bark. It WAS
somebody's property! Kind of like when you meet someone really hot in a
club and then once you get outside you see what they REALLY look like huh?
But trust me, in total darkness it looked like the most glorious, endlessly
beautiful plateau imaginable. And I will ALWAYS REMEMBER IT THAT WAY. Now
let us never speak of it again.
That
night we decided that we had had enough of spectacular nature and wanted
civilization, civilization, civilization!!! So the spilt decision was made
to leave early the next morning and high-tail it along the northern rim
of the Grand Canyon - straight for superwacky Las Vegas. As it turns out
we would take the loooooooong way there, finding ourselves pulled into
one spectacular setting after another. This was one of the weirdest sprawls
on the whole trip because we hit so many various types of terrain. Instead
of a blank transport between point A and point B, it was more like an Lewis
Carrol journey where the surreal stage settings kept drastically changing
all around us as we tripped along.
We
were driving full speed along endless flat field after endless flat field
when we suddenly approached a mountain area where the road started to wind
and twist and disappear behind cliff after cliff. As we turned one final
cliff, the space opened up in front of us and dropped into a HUGE valley
way beneath us. It was kind of like reaching the end of the world where
everything just drops off into space. It was pretty impressive, from this
distance you could really see for zillions of miles - and it really let
you see how vast the land in this part of the country really is. This
is where Michael took the panorama shot that you saw at the beginning of
this article. In this part of the country whole cities, whole counties
can be sitting on vast flat areas that you think are at sea level but are
actually much higher - and if you travel far enough.... aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!
You can drop a whole mile at once. Everything is a series of vast steps
and cliffs and levels. "It's all about levels Jerry."
We
later learned that this vast valley was called "Vermilion Cliffs", and
it was big! We kept driving and driving and driving. This area was similar
to Monument Valley in that objects seemed to one size when you were approaching
them from miles and miles away - but when you actually reached them they
were much, much bigger. The only station we could get on the radio in this
valley was N.P.R., which was playing "Sunday Afternoon Baroque". And we
couldn't quite get it in all the way. So we drove amongst this vast tundra
listening to scratchy, wobbly Mozart. It was pretty hypnotic.
One
really cool place we did encounter inside Vermilion Cliffs was called "Cliff
Dwellers". Here's what part of it looked
like from the road. Here it is from
the top of that cliff you just saw - looking down at the car (it was
an easy but filthy climb - everything is made of bright, rust colored dust).
Isn't
it strange? The whole area we had been driving in that day is made
up of these kinds of rock formations - it's just that the people who owned
the hotel on the other side of this cliff went to the trouble to make little
Flintstones-like
houses out of some of the rocks. Here's another one. And was this rock
found this way or was it placed there for
a photo-op? Hmmm... We actually did some "rock climbing" here (heh...
heh...). Look at me climbing this two-mile-high
cliff! OK not really. Here
I am climbing another giant mountain. OK
just kidding again. This was actually really hard! Look: graffiti!
Because of this graffiti, I named this rock "Bonnie". Here I am on
top of Bonnie. The rock had these weird limestone deposits in parts
that looked like a Jackson Pollock
painting. Here's me liking the rock formations
at the top of the ridge. It said to do this in the guide book! Yep.
Look, someone made another little house out of
this rock too. It was kind of funny and fun - but after Monument Valley
it seemed kind of lame. Still it was spectacular in a dreamy way. Look
- don't I look like Godzilla in this shot
- looming over the valley and the road?
After
more driving (while covered in orange dust) we eventually reached the mountains
on the other side of the valley (almost an hour later), and as we snaked
our way up the side of the first one, we started to notice there was a
lot of snow around. As we finally reached the top (in no time at all in
our Geo!), we realized that it was snowing!!! A lot!!! It was also a lot
colder!! I know... well duh! But it was so surreal how we had gone from
the desert, which was pretty warm, to a snow storm in a matter of minutes.
I got out of the car and walked into the snowy
expanse, crept into a
peaceful quiet nook, and turned around to see that Michael
had been snapping photos the whole time. I
got out and made snow angels at one of the lookout points. See
the desert right below us? The sun was out! It was pretty weird. Really,
really strange.
We
thought we had seen the worst (or best!) of the snow - but it turns out
there was A LOT more. A LOT, LOT, LOT, LOT more! Tuns out the north rim
of the Grand Canyon was closed due to a severe blizzard which we
had just unexpectedly hit. How convenient! Driving along winding roads,
the snowfall got heavier, and heavier, and heavier. It
was getting so intense that we couldn't see even with our high beams on!
Isn't that insane? WE WERE JUST
IN THE ROCKY DESERT! At one point we had to pull the car over to
the side of the road because of the severity of the storm. We sat in the
car, enveloped in luminous white and pin-drop silence. What a contrast
from where we had been not two hours earlier. As the blizzard subsided
a bit, we got out and walked around the
vast, velvet-y forest, snow up to our waists in some spots. It
was fucking amazing. It was so serene,
poetic.
It was exquisite;
glorious,
resplendent,
splendid,
sublime,
superb. It was beauteous, quiescent, resting; undisturbed, tranquil. Don't
you love the internet thesaurus? Or should I say internet the·sau·ri
/-'sor-"I,(plural)?
So
to break the almost deafening peacefulness of the whole situation, and
being on vacation, we decided to take all our clothes of and run naked
through the snow, screaming. Talk about exhilarating! Have you ever done
this? Your bare feet can stand about one minute of the freezing snow -
then this really strange and severe pain starts to set in.
I think the name of this pain is F-R-O-S-T-B-I-T-E. Needless to say, it
was a brief moment. Hey, you only live once. So having another Three Stooges
moment trying to put our socks and shoes over our rigor mortis feet, we
crawled (literally) back to the warm safety of our car. Here's
me. Here's Michael.
Then
we saw some yaks! Real ones! Are
those yaks? Hey I don't know if they are really yaks or wildebeests
or abominable snow creatures or whatever. I'm from New York. Fuck you!
I guess if we had frozen to death while snow streaking we could have killed
them for food (with our bare hands of course!), then cut them open and
crawled inside them for warmth like Hans Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back"!
So,
despite all this - we pressed on. With the snow subsiding a little, and
the feeling coming back into our toes (and orange dust still in our hair
and eyes), we drove and drove and drove through the "Arizona Winter Wonderland"
(sounds like a contradiction, right?) and eventually
came out the other side. Down, down we went into yet another dusty
orange valley of sand and rock formations, the frozen forest we had just
experienced seeming like a bizarre dream. We passed a lot of quaint towns
and strange 7-11/Taco Bell/truck stop hybrids (where you could buy a scorpion
belt buckle, a burrito, a box of Ex Lax, and the latest Dixie Chicks cassette
all in one stop! Cool!) But to be honest, our souls were really longing
for civilized Las Vegas (sounds like another contradiction right?). "WE
NEED PAVEMENT!!!" became our mantra. Hard to believe we were throwing snowballs
at each other and freezing our asses off (literally) a few hours earlier.
Our
last glorious nature encounter was a dizzying pass through the enormous
cliffs of the Virgin Mountains. These are these giant mountains that have
been cut straight through to make way for transport. They
are REALLY BIG. There was nowhere to stop along the tunnel-like freeway
(and traffic was moving really fast), but Michael wanted to take some photos
through the windshield anyway. "Take another picture!" I kept shouting
to Michael (who was driving). "I promise I
won't squirt the windshield fluid again!" We were being very safe and
cautious drivers as you can see. These mountains would turn out to be like
some mythological gate that would allow us into the ancient Rome that was
Las Vegas.
After
we "broke on through to the other side" to beheld the glorious city in
the distance, I think the fire in both of us kind of died a little. Hitting
the highway straight into the heart of it all - the sun directly in my
eyes and the amount of cars around me growing by the second, I felt like
I was traversing on the fast moving, crowded by-ways of Los Angeles (my
second favorite metropolis... mmmmmmmmmm... Los Angeles).
After
some really creepy inquiries into some of the grossest hotels we could
find (one which we were sure was a front for crack smuggling), we finally
decided on the Holiday House Motel - right
across from the "super-fantastic" Las Vegas Stratosphere. What a day we'd
had!
Now
I
had been to Las Vegas a few times before dancing. I remember the first
time I had visited I was blown away by the Tokyo/Osaka-pop-culture-on-overdrive-Disneyland-on-acid
feel to the whole place. And I had spent the years afterward hyping it
up to all my friends as a "must-visit". But after the super sensual, super
visceral nature experience we had suffered, er... I mean ENJOYED the week
leading up to Las Vegas - it ultimately proved to be a let-down. I dragged
Michael all along the "new" Vegas strip the night we arrived - the both
of us exhausted. "Oh this will blow your mind!" "Oh my God check out how
twisted this place is!" I kept spouting as we dragged our exhausted bodies
around and around and around the weirdness of all of the theme Casinos.
We were exhausted, and approached everything with stone faced indifference.
The famed Sands hotel (the original cylindrical one) that I had stayed
in was gone, the trapeze show at Circus Circus was on hold, the Egyptian
mote water ride that used to encircle the inside of the Luxor had been
torn down, the Sid and Marty Krofft-style Wizard of Oz display that had
inhabited the MGM Grand was long gone; one-by-one all of the wild things
that I used to remember about the twisted town of Las Vegas proved to have
vanished. We just wanted to go back to hotel room and sleep for two days
(which is the length of time we had given ourselves to stay - thinking
we would need that much time to take it all in). And that is practically
what we ended up doing - save for some brief moments of inspiration where
we ventured out.
High
points of Las Vegas:
1.
The
Liberace Museum - of which mere words cannot describe (the museum or
the man). Plus a visit to Liberace's famed
Las Vegas home (which is now a bank or something) and who's only remaining
touch of personality (at least on the outside) are a
few iron cursive "L's" on the surrounding gate. I tried to jump the
fence to see if there were remnants of the piano swimming pool in the backyard
(was it even at this house? I should have paid more attention at the museum)
but this proved impossible. Here's a scan of the plan of the whole "Liberace
Museum Plaza" complete with map which describes where each artifact
is and what it is. Sorry for the large file size (be sure to scroll down),
but I wanted those that wanted to read it all, to be able to do so - and
it is fascinating!
2.
The new "New York, New York" casino which we thought would be lame but
is actually a pretty interesting. The outside is an impressively massive
"recreation" of the island of Manhattan (who knew the Chrysler building
was so close to the World Trade Center? And that the Brooklyn Bridge runs
right
in front of Radio City Music Hall? Convenient!) - the rooms of the
hotel are actually some of the windows of these buildings. The inside of
the casino has a brilliant and highly detailed "recreation" of downtown
Manhattan, complete with winding streets, street signs, fake stores, and
manholes with disco smoke "steam" coming out of them. Seeing overweight
tourist families sitting down to a feast of Pizza Hut surrounded by fake-Chinatown
ambiance with fake manhole "smoke" choking their smiling faces was one
of the highlights of the Las Vegas experience. Here
are two shots of me wandering around fake New York. Like the blurry
shots? Well, Michael was on vacation you know. The fake downtown
was really neat because it spared no detail, no matter how obnoxious. The
"windows" of the "apartments" on each street had props in them that reflected
the "color" of the various neighborhoods; Canal Street = hanging skinned
ducks and kung-fu trophies, Christopher Street = rainbow flags and Tiffany
lamps! They also had a roller coaster running through the inside and outside
of the whole place (is that supposed to be the subway?). Here
I am going into the Christopher Street 1/9 subway station (heh heh).
We were so burned out that I kept fantasizing that this re-creation of
New York would be so convincing, so thorough, that through some Twilight
Zone-type metaphysical spell, we would just keep walking through it and
would eventually really be in Manhattan, would hop in a cab, go
to our apartments (complete with rainbow flags and Tiffany lamps) and simply
go to sleep in our own beds. Ahhhhhhhh... the convenience of out-of-body
transference. One day. Look at this bizzare model
of the hotel I found on the internet, and yes that is what it really
looks like now (except when we were there the water around the Statue of
Liberty had been drained). The new Las Vegas strip is looking pretty funny
these days. It's inspirational! Here's
this neat Quicktime website I found that let's you take 360 degree
views of the strip from all different locations - just click on the "Las
Vegas Strip" link on the left when you get there. It also has views of
the Freemont Street area that I discuss below. Be sure and come back! Sniff...
3.
The Stratosphere hotel and casino's zillion-mile-high roller coaster. This
is a very lame roller coaster made super scary by the fact that it sits
atop of the outside of the peripheral of a super-high Seattle Needle-style
tower. It was pretty intense/hysterical. Imagine riding a normal roller
coaster except every time you zip around a curve or are thrown over a hill
you look down and it's so high up you feel like you are skydiving. It was
like a roller coaster on top of an airplane. Now that would be cool.
Here
I am immediately after the ride still in the car (about to throw up).
This is one of those tourist traps that takes your pictures while you're
screaming on the ride and then they quickly arrange it on a little video
screen and then... viola! - it's ready and developed and they are already
hawking it to you inside a cheesy cardboard frame (for twelve dollars)
before you even step off the ride! They can even print it on a T-shirt!
Of course we would never fall for something so ridiculous. Here
it is. This was fun. Here we are inside
the Stratosphere tower looking out over the city, and one shot of me outside.
Aren't we so easily entertained? At one point I actually lost Michael
in this tower - did he fall off?
4.
Taking a long jog while Michael was asleep in the room through the outer
burbs of Las Vegas. Most of the houses in the town share Los Angeles' sense
of style when it comes to architecture and landscaping. How about a Frank
Lloyd Wright imitation house (except scaled slightly down),
complete with pink synthetic grass and a fountain with dyed-blue water
in the front yard? Ahhhhh... junebugs hanging around the dusk street
lamps, squished-flat and sun dried bullfrogs in road, a 7-11 around every
sidewalk, immaculate lawns, the sound of kids playing in the distance,
an endless sprawl of clean lines and newer-than-you smooth surfaces that
would make Jaques Tati proud... I wanna move here!!!! Waaaaaaahhhh!!!
5.
Michael votes for the dancing waters outside the Bellagio hotel/casino.
A choreographed water fountain display set to Celine Dion! Super cheesy
but genuinely impressive...
Low
Point:
The
"roof" placed over the famed/historic old Freemont Street casino strip,
which is the famed strip of the "old" Las Vegas you remember from all those
70's detective movies. It was placed there (I think in 1998?) to compete
with the "new" Las Vegas Blvd. strip (it's supposed to have a laser light
pattern running on the underside of it which is apparently hardly ever
on). This idea might have sounded good on paper - but what it ends up doing
is enclosing the whole street in what looks like an airplane hanger. See
it in the top of this photo? It turns the whole historic district into
what looks like a depressing outlet mall. Everybody say L-A-M-E!!! Here
I am inside of it.
It
turns out the old Las Vegas style still lives and gives just east
of the famed and now lame Freemont Street strip. We walked east as far
as we could on Freemont Street past the famed strip and ran into some brilliant
trashy/cheese-o-la casinos complete with left-over 60's and 70's architecture
(kept sparkling new!), bingo halls, old style slot machine (they have penny
slots in this district!), motels with hourly rates... and some of the most
hysterical/brilliant characters we've ever had the pleasure of being in
the presence of. Remember that sun-burned, plastic surgery, raspy voiced
character Doddie Wexler from Mad TV? We saw her. You know the chinese lady
"he looka lika man" from Mad TV? She was there... permanent cigarette in
hand - one hand on slot machine, the other continually flagging down a
cocktail waitress. Remember the Dr. Smith-style bar-fly who was the sugar
daddy for that hunky bartender in the new movie "Magnolia"? He was there
too. I think we might have seen the ghosts of Joanne Worley AND that old
lady with the hair net and lethal purse from "Laugh In". Charles Nelson
Reily, Tammy Fae Baker, Richard Simmons... the ghosts and germinating spawns
of all these people are breeding like wildflowers in the smoky, orange
and beige hallways and neon bus stops of the last dying gasp (smoke rasped
no doubt) of un-believability that is just east of the historic Freemont
Street strip of old Las Vegas. Michael and I both give it twelve thumbs
up (Michael is all thumbs). If you think you've seen it all, come here
to be blown right out of your Pradas.
Here
is Las Vegas' Gay and Lesbian center,
isn't it quaint? The guy there was really helpful. We checked out some
of the bars and clubs there that night (of which there are quite a few,
spread all over the city).
The
Caesar's Palace/Mirage hybrid hotel casino still wins in my book for the
funniest, most dazzling (and endless) interior. The Luxor is pretty hysterical
(and a trip to it's upper floors has a sphincter-clenchingly high view
of the miniature 'Egyptian' city below - at one point I almost thought
I was having a stroke!). The whole new Las Vegas strip truly has to be
seen to be believed, but after the previous week, Michael and I were seriously
under-impressed (living in fantasmigorical Manhattan probably had something
to do with that too, but saying it would make us sound like poseurs...
oops!).
Sleeping
in the hotel room, gigantic ice cream cones, endless walking through noise,
firecrackers and bells... chickening out at Karaoke, liquor and souvenir
stores and bad T-shirts were what occupied the dreamy/dreary/blurry next
day.
The
EXTREMELY blurry early next morning where Michael had to drag ourselves
out of bed, pack all our rocks, sand and flotsam and jetsam together, return
the car and catch a ride to the airport so we could return to Kansas, I
mean... New York City was like a Three Stooges skit all over again,
but this time in slow motion.
When
we returned the car to Rent-A-Wreck (a great company! I love you Rent-A-Wreck!
I'm such a nerd), the salesman checked out our Geo (we were gonna miss
it!) and everything was in fine condition except for a lot of orange sand.
When he read the odometer he said "OK, let me check your mileage... let's
see now... WHOA! 1313 miles in five days?!?! Geez where all did you guys
go off to?" As we stood there, luggage-drenched, blurry-headed and puffy-faced
we were barley able to articulate an "...um, uhhhh...".
As
he handed us our receipt, he simply smiled and said to us; "Well whatever
the case, it looks like you two sure covered a lot of territory."
Yep...
