Over the Hill and Far Away……….

Today has been a day of contrasts, both in relation to yesterday, and in the things that we have done in the course of the day. Yesterday was mainly about getting a few miles further along whereas today has been a kaleidoscope of different experiences.
We left Kingman in a leisurely fashion as we only had about 115 miles to cover to get to Las Vegas. Taking Highway 93 heading north, most of our journey was through the Mojave Desert – a fairly bleak landscape with roadsigns pointing to deserted mining towns up in the hills to the left and right of us. The wind wasn’t so bad today although there were a few gusts that made our past life flash before our eyes.
Out of curiosity we stopped off at Chloride, a mining town which can’t quite decide whether it is a ghost town or not. It seems to be a mixture of disused buildings and others which have been converted into gift shops. There were quite a few people about taking pictures and generally mooching around. We didn’t stop long and got back on the 93 to the Hoover Dam. The road began to climb and we could see the Colorado River down below us in landscape that resembled a mini Grand Canyon.
The Hoover Dam was very busy, with lots of people at the various viewpoints and walking across the dam itself. We stopped first at the viewpoint over the lake behind the dam and met a large group of French bikers on hired Harleys who were doing Route 66. We got talking to one of them who spoke no English but seemed very keen to show us his tattoos and advised us that Chicago was “tres dangereuse” before wishing us “bonne journeee”. Moving on from there we rode down to the dam itself and crossed it. Having viewed it from that perspective, we went back over it and got the view from the front looking back.
After that it was only about 30 miles to Las Vegas. We passed through Boulder and decided that we’d rather not walk from Boulder to Birmingham despite what Emmylou Harris might say.
The ride into Vegas was overwhelming. After the emptiness and tranquility of the desert we were suddenly confronted by the towering hotels and electronic billboards of the city. We both, independently, suffered something akin to a panic attack and wondered if we should just keep going! We are staying in the Paris which, perhaps unsurprisingly, is modelled on what Walt Disney might have thought Paris looked like about 100 years ago. The ground floor is vast and is set out as a Parisian street would look if it was full of American shops, restaurants and one-armed bandits. The French theme is further accentuated by putting “le” or “du” in front of the English description (as in “le gift shop” etc). There is even a model (and when I say model, this thing is about quarter life size) of the Eiffel Tower in the grounds by the swimming pool. We have a room up on the 31st floor which is just about as high up as you can get! We have tried out the fitness suite and the outdoor swimming pool (both very good although the latter actually has jets spraying perfume into the air!) but we have not yet had cause to use the Wedding Chapel on the second floor.
We also discovered that nothing is cheap here – like being charged $15 for every device we want to connect to the Internet! So I’ve had to write this post on an old manual typewriter connected to the interweb with string and paperclips. Everywhere else we have stayed the Internet has been free.
Having found ourselves here, we think we might as well go out and explore the place although the hotel seems designed to make it unnecessary ever to set foot outside it. Assuming that we survive the experience then further updates will follow tomorrow.
We plan to ride through Death Valley in the morning in an attempt to purify our spirits after the excesses of today.

After watching the weather forecast this morning predicting high winds we scrambled to set off early and got on the Interstate 40 just after 9.

As I checked out of the motel the manager/desk clerk actually smiled at me and wished me a good day. I felt rather guilty as we had just comprehensively trashed him on Trip Adviser. Perhaps describing him as imbecile, the bile-spewing spawn of a scrofulous prairie dog (or something to that effect) was a bit extreme in retrospect.

The first part of the route went through the same country as yesterday and was very similar except for being a four lane road. We went up through the pine trees of the Kaibob National Forest up to the high desert which took us to Kingman. The Interstate differs from UK motorways by having a very wide central reservation and at times the lanes running in the opposite direction are not even visible. The wind was very strong and gusty which made for a very exciting experience. We stopped for a break after about 130 miles and felt like we had been beaten with baseball bats throughout the journey.

At the service area where we stopped we came across an elderly chap in biker gear including leather chaps, who was riding a bike with the word “chaplain” printed on its windshield, He wished us a safe journey and set off on his own, leading us to wonder what exactly he was the chaplain of and whether leather chaps were appropriate legwear for a man of the cloth.

Along the way we saw the usual quota of big RVs with a car or jeep in tow. We noticed that some of the towed cars actually had bikes on racks behind them. It was a bit like the automotive equivalent of Russian dolls.

We got to Kingman just after 2pm and checked into the Holiday Inn. After a session in the pool and “fitness suite” we got a taxi to the Dambar and Steakhouse, a traditional roadside eatery and saloon where we sat at the bar and ate unfeasibly large quantities of steak and ribs. All the staff seemed to be pregnant and everyone seemed to be related to each other. We got talking to a couple of guys at the bar, one of whom was a biker in the usual bandana and leather vest. We were asking about whether motorcycle helmets were compulsory out here and the non-biker explained that, whether it was guns or helmets, people pretty much did whatever they liked in Arizona. The biker then recounted a tale of his father (who he admitted was not a particularly nice person) who, when falling off his bike without any protective gear, had dragged the narrator’s step mother off the passenger seat and ensured his own safety by surfing her to a stop by the roadside. Apparently both of them survived the experience although the marriage was never quite the same again! After that the conversation faltered somewhat.

Tomorrow we’re setting off for Vegas which will serve as a base for a trip through Death Valley and back into California.