Over the Hill and Far Away……….

Dontcha just hate it when you wake up with a stinking hangover in your Las Vegas hotel room and realise that the night before you got married to a total stranger in their tawdry wedding chapel. And the bride doesn’t even speak English! I ought to hate Mark for setting me up but apparently his best man’s speech was excellent, so I think I can bring myself forgive him. It will probably be easy enough to get the marriage annulled once I get back to the UK.
Apart from that, last night in Vegas was fascinating. We went out to try to find somewhere good to eat and walked down the Strip. The place was full of tourists milling about but there were still people begging for spare change and sleeping on the streets.
After wandering aimlessly for a while we found an Italian place. It was only a door in a blank wall and would have passed it by but we happened to see some people just coming out and who recommended it highly, not least because of the free wine with each meal. We had a really nice meal there and met a group of Canadians who were in town for a pool tournament. They were determined to make the most of the free drinks and happily shared some with us!
Walking back along the Strip we became aware of people handing out cards offering girls who could be delivered to your hotel room in 20 minutes. It seemed funny at the time to take the cards but it was a little embarrassing in the morning to think what the cleaners would make of about 20 of them in the bin in the room when we left.
All in all we found that Vegas, although survivable and occasionally fun, was a fairly ghastly experience and we fled screaming early in the morning. Just about every place we passed through in Nevada after that had its own mini casino and even the gas stations had rows of slot machines.
From Vegas we made our way to the delightfully-named town of Pahrump (outside of which we stopped to take some pictures but didn’t linger for long as there were a couple of guys shooting assault rifles at targets in the desert just to the right of us). From there we went to Death Valley Junction which is home to an Opera House and not very much else. Just before there we crossed from Nevada to California.
The ride through the valley was challenging to say the least. Although there was some fantastic scenery the very high temperature took its toll. We stopped off to take in the views at Zabriskie Point (there’s a 1970s film named after this place but I’ve never seen it). The whole area of Death Valley was under water millions of years ago so we were actually riding across what had been the bottom of an ancient lake. Just a bit further on, at Furnace Creek (and there’s a reason for that name) the temperature reading was 108F!
At a gas station in Pahrump we had noticed a group of Italians in Maseratis who were test-driving the latest model. They appeared again in Death Valley. The new cars had a sort of disruptive pattern paint-scheme and their model badges taped over to prevent anyone publishing details about them before their official launch. So it you were thinking of buying the latest model Maserati, you saw it first here.
There’s only so much baking desert that can hold your interest and after about 100 miles, it was becoming a bit of a slog. It was hard work going through at 60-70 mph in those temperatures so it’s incredible to imagine how the first pioneers coped when struggling along at walking pace.
We covered just over 250 miles today and the last few miles had the fuel warning lights flashing so we were very glad to reach our destination at Ridgecrest, a town that no-one has ever heard of and whose name even we struggle to remember. However it has provided a very nice hotel and what would have been an excellent meal at the local eatery had it not been smothered in some sort of lethal chemical agent masquerading as barbecue sauce.
Tomorrow we’re hoping to get to the Pacific coast.