The Long Long Drive Part Two

So, we get into Vegas at around 6pm and get off on Sahara to go look for our motel. We drive and drive and drive up Sahara past lots of ratty looking strip malls and apartment buildings and then get up into a nicer looking area called The Lakes, with nicer looking apartment complexes and gated housing tracts. We keep driving, looking for the Best Western sign that should be on the left side of the road and don't see anything that looks like a Best Western and finally realize that we have gone way past where the Best Western should be. We finally find the right block but still don't see a Best Western and most of the buildings don't have street addresses on them, and see a shopping center that looks like it is where the Best Western should be and finally find the Best Western way back in the shopping center/office building complex. Finally.

We check in and are told there is breakfast in the morning in the breakfast room and get to our room to freshen up a little and call James to go have dinner.

We get back on Sahara and drive, drive, drive past the downtown casinos and back into even rattier looking neighborhoods with rattier looking strip malls, apartment buildings, and trailer parks here and there. We finally get to the house, which is in a rather old also ratty and rundown neighborhood and why Keith's mom just had to buy this house we still haven't figured out. And there was no way I could ever have spent the night there so I'm really glad we got a motel room. The house was dark, dingy, and full of junk laying around waiting for the dumpster to be delivered so it could all be thrown away, and bags and bags and bags of trash. Dirty dishes in the kitchen and boxes of food on the counter because the pantry was infested with bugs despite numerous fumigations of said pantry. The house is laid out rather oddly, with a sunroom (also full of junk) off of a bedroom, a living room right off of the kitchen up front, a family room in the back with a bed in it, a master bedroom with two huge walk in closets that had been full of clothes and purses and shoes. Cleta never threw anything away, down to the last piece of junk mail. And on top of never throwing anything away, she loved yard sales and would bring home more junk on a regular basis.

There is a carport on the side of the house and a garage, both full of more junk. She had about three houses worth of furniture all crammed into one small house, furniture that didn't match anything else. There were six microwave ovens, seven TVs and Keith counted 13 plastic poinsettia plants that he threw away the last time he was there.

We took James and his boyfriend Robby over to a nearby casino for dinner, there is a restaurant there that they liked and we had a nice dinner and wandered the casino for a few minutes and then went out the wrong door looking for the car and were on the wrong side of the parking lot, so we had to go back in the casino and find the right door out. I'm assuming that the casinos are planned to be confusing so you can never ever find your way out until you run out of money and they throw you out.

It was very noisy and crowded with all kinds of sad looking people sitting at slot machines that bells are constantly ringing on. I wish I had the camera with me because we saw the typical elderly casino addict as we were walking through, she was all dressed up in her casino best with her bright red hair expertly styled, her makeup in place, and her cats eye rhinestone glasses on.

We dropped James and Robby back off at the house and went for a drive down through the big casinos to look at the lights. It took us about 30 minutes to go five blocks and after sitting in the traffic and watching the craziness, we'd had enough and were ready for bed.

I hadn't been to Vegas in about 20 years and since then there are lots of new casinos and those horrible huge TVs all over the place, like you see in Times Square. I found them very annoying.

I did like the Paris casino with the Eiffel Tower, though.




Tomorrow: Back through the desert. With cats.

Road Trip to Vegas

A place that we will probably never ever go to again, and a trip that has cured any wanderlust I might have for quite a while.

We got an earlier start than we thought we would because Keith's boss let him leave after he had finished up his first project of the day, so we were on the road before lunch time and not wanting to stop at a sit down restaurant for lunch, went to the travel stop in Tehachapi and got McDonalds to eat in the car.

So, to get to Vegas from Bakersfield, first you go through some mountains.



And then you go through about a million miles of desert.


And then another million miles of desert.


And then if you are really lucky you get into some traffic going about 10mph down the road because somewhere up ahead there must be an accident.


We were in the 10mph traffic for about an hour and then did come across the accident scene, where a truck and a car had crashed into each other and gone off the road, forcing all the traffic to slow down so that they could gawk at the accident.

There are three rest stops on the way to Vegas and we stopped at each one. The towns out in the desert are few and far between so when you see a rest stop, stop even if you don't think you really need to go because it will be a long time before you find another one.

After the million miles of flat desert and passing through a few small towns with the typical desert houses with lots of junk in the yards, towns like Hinkley, which was made famous in the movie Erin Brockovich, the town that can't drink the water unless they want to get cancer, you come to some more mountains.





And more higher desert with Joshua trees.


And then you are finally at the state line where there is a factory outlet and two casinos. And then you come to the 'town' of Jean, where there is a prison and a casino. There used to be two casinos in Jean but apparently one of them went out of business and was torn down.

We stopped here to get some gas and use the casino restrooms. There was a huge empty parking lot, a huge parking lot in anticipation of the many many gamblers that the casino was hoping to lure, but gamblers just go on another few miles to Vegas, and I'm thinking that this poor casino won't be around much longer either. We parked right by the front door and then fought through the crowds to get inside.



There were more employees than customers and only two people at the bar. We looked around a little, saw a few people at the slot machines, and put $1.00 in a nickle slot, played for a few minutes and was bored to tears so as soon as I won my $1.00 back, cashed out my huge winnings. I don't get the lure of slot machines, but I guess with nickle slots you can sit there all day and get free cocktails and only spend a few dollars.

After that excitment, on down the road to Vegas. They are re-doing the main freeway through town and if it's ever finished will be really pretty for a freeway, with murals on the overpasses and some metal sculptures and landscaping. Hopefully people will get to see it before it is covered up with graffiti.

So, after about 6 hours on the road, in to Vegas.

Part two tomorrow. Betcha can't wait!