Death Valley In Double Time

You might think I envied the people on two wheels but I didn't as I had already ridden the desert quite enough for one vacation. It wasn't hot or windy or unpleasant under hazy skies but I had yet to discover the cheap rental car didn't have cruise control so I thought I was better off in the gutless Nissan Versa.

It's a two hour trip from Las Vegas to Death Valley via Pahrump ("pa-RUMP") small desert outpost not far from the California state line. Here there is gambling prostitution and legal weed and over there they only have legal weed and state income taxes. You decide.

There's small sign on the road heading west and it reads simply "Inyo County" as the quality of the pavement deteriorates. Welcome to the Golden State where my wife grew up. The roads continue long and straight and it occurred to me that Las vegas would be a rotten place to live and ride a motorcycle. Besides I like trees and I don't like dry desert air as it makes my delicate skin itch.

But it sure was fun to immerse oneself in an alien world for a few days and this is about as far from the green wet Florida Keys as you can get. It's been years since either of us was in Death Valley and this short quick trip was a reminder why certain places are set aside for the public pleasure. It is a different world within these preserved lands, stark beauty worth preserving. And paying for, twenty five bucks for a week's worth of re-entries:

This wasn't going to be a leisurely visit but we like our road trips and we decided that even if we couldn't make Dante's Overlook and Badwater (the lowest point) we would see what we could.

 Zabriskie Point was on my list of places to see and we actually made it here the day before Thanksgiving.

 Amazingly enough they encourage walking out on the trails through the badlands and there is even a five mile loop down the hillside which I dearly would like to walk. Except pets aren't allowed so scrap that. Walking without Rusty seems stupid to me. 

 My telephoto lense from a long way away:

Despite all the people these strangers were filled with silent wonder. 

The drive from there to Furnace Creek took us through the now familiar burnt plains dotted with sage bushes and not much else.

I thought it might have been nice to take a room and pause for a nap, then a short drive to the lowest point followed by dinner and some star gazing...Dream on we had places to go and things to see a hundred miles away.

My indefatigable Tripadvisor wife located Indian food which sounded just the ticket, weird fast and filling. A Tripadvisor review:
After all the disappointing meals we had in Furnace Creek, we made our way toward the Indian Taco sign. I'm glad we did. It was the most enjoyable lunch we had during our visit. Menu is limited to frybread taco, frybread without the taco, and many flavors of shaved ice. The taco was large and delicious. I regretted not getting some plain frybread to go. Highly suggest having a taco for one of your meals in Death Valley.
"They have a Key West problem" my wife reported after standing in line for a while. "Someone forgot to show up for work." Consequently the fast food wasn't quite as fast as you might think. Which wa sokay. I sat and drank a Coke we got from the Pepsi machine.

In retrospect the Frybread taco was perhaps rather more robust than one might imagine if one imagines a fusion of Indian food with Taco Bell.  I made my way through it and surprisingly suffered no ill effects if you don't count the coma I struggled to fend off as we made our way back to Las Vegas on long straight roads through the sagebrush desert.

The Nissan Versa was a base model I have not seen in years and hope never to see again. It lacked every possible amenity including horsepower for the long uphill grades through the mountains. More seriously it had wind down windows and no central door locks and no sign of cruise control either, or satellite radio. Yup we suffered but when my wife asked me to kindly turn off the preacher promising damnation through the radio I did point out that it was her rental choice. "Never again" she muttered " And this wasn't one of my famous seven dollar rentals."  I know it sounds unlikely but she has rented cars for almost nothing and this was not one of them. 

I thought a car parked at the state line was a cop so instead of blowing through at 85mph taking advantage of the downhill grade we puttered along like a couple of Florida retirees at 57 miles per hour, burning no visible gas as we went. We got back to Las Vegas with 55 miles left in the bottomless tank.

Our goal was Beatty Nevada  a small mining town that has shrunk even further after the gold mines dried up. Locals call the place "bay-dee" but I signed the guestbook anyway with my own spelling and told the nice lady at the museum that I pronounced it Bee-Tee. She mulled it over for a while.

The women at the museum were discussing plans for Thanksgiving in the town and the knotty problem of one of the city's 800 residents who lived alone and was not happy getting ham instead of turkey. My wife said it sounded like the TV show "Northern Exposure" about a small town in Alaska.

 "The Keys?" the museum woman said wistfully, "I'd like to go for a visit one day..." I sympathized with her considering the rather bleak world she lived in but I made deprecatory noises as we contemplated  the dusty landscape of this speck on US Highway 95.

We had to take a short tour of the back streets to double back to the museum which we passed accidentally in an unnatural burst of speed from the Versa. Many of Beatty's residents live lives of what looks from the outside to be hoarding squalor.  I have no idea how one makes a living out here but however it's done they don't seem to be in on the secret either. I wonder if Washington will ever see these people, no matter who is charge.

The man this town was named for the grandiloquently named Montillius Murray Beattie one of three white men in the area. He married a Paiute woman whether in deference to the melting pot theory or for lack of choice isn't clear. In the event he bought the land with the water and his buddy bought some of it and named the town for him which was created around 1905.

It was not a rich cultural landscape back then and it isn't now.  It looked cleaner back then probably because there was less junk to trash.

 The museum was a fascinating hodge podge, a diary of a town's life.

We bought a  souvenir, I signed Beattie, Key West,  and we drove off back into...the sage filled desert. Spectacular views.

Back to Las Vegas, past military installations, lonely gas stations, attaching ourselves to lines of cars rolling at 85 mph which the Nissan could hold on level ground. Racing the sunset on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, miles from festivities, alive on the road. It was great.

Las Vegas Life

I got my introduction to ride sharing in Las Vegas where my wife who likes Lyft showed me how it's done. We hung around with a bunch of other disreputable characters like players in a modern stage drama or possibly like junkies waiting for a dealer to show up with a fix. I felt rather daring waiting for a car far from the orderly world of the taxi rank at the Las Vegas airport.

Once delivered to our Hilton hotel by a  chatty civilian driving a private car for profit, with no money exchanged except by electronic devilry, we were free to wander so we did. Las Vegas lives large, twenty four hours a day and we found a Walgreens filled with fresh food and craft beer more like a Publix than a pharmacy. 

The joke for my wife was to be photographed in front of landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, a Venetian gondola so we did for fun and it was fun. 

I am not a fan of eating famous chefs' food to be honest. I am tired of the cult of celebrity in all things because I am not at all sure that working to make yourself famous makes you capable of anything except seeking the spotlight. So when my wife sought a  pause I agreed happily when I saw draught Guinness on offer at Burgers and Beer. Mario Batali is the name associated with this outfit and we shared a burger and  a tub of  shishito peppers which are slightly sweet but have a faint peppery burn if you chew them. There were too many to eat and we took half in a box. The burger really was delicious. So that puts me and my celebrity obtuseness back where I belong. Could have snarfed a whole one.

I sent this picture to a car fanatic friend  in the spirit of bargain basement Las Vegas. He declined to imagine they were selling Ferraris for ten dollars on the famous Strip. I live in hope.

Walking the strip in the evening enjoying the cool night air with no breeze at all was very pleasant. We walked a few miles but wanted to explore further afield so we called Lyft into action. You can get a ride on the street but have to find a hotel for pick up which isn't quite as easy as it sounds. I would find Lyft less intimidating if the pick up pin was easier to drop. Perhaps I'm just incompetent. My wife likes Lyft because they don't increase fares randomly as Uber does to cover peak periods and Lyft allows you to add a tip on your screen when you rate the driver, so I never used Uber.

My wife found me a Cornish Pasty shop (LINK) in Las Vegas, one of a rather short chain. They are essentially pies filled with meat traditionally or vegetarian in the modern era and I like them very much, not that I see them very often. I ordered the original and Layne had the lamb and mint. I was surprised once again how Las Vegas produced something authentic and good  in such an unlikely town. I'd go back for more not least because they have Boddington's on draught and a  sticky toffee pudding better than I'd have hoped. This is not food you eat each  day but on a visit I'll be back. Not for people who think the English can't cook, that old shibboleth...

Penn and Teller. First a proper pasty then the magic show I have wanted to see all my life. Got that one done. This show is extremely approachable and tremendous fun. What you see below is members of the audience wandering freely inspecting the props. We were snug in the mezzanine away from fear of audience participation, my buggabear, for the 90 minute show. I can't describe it but I looked for a LINK that might help. They didn't saw a woman I half though they did put an audience members phone into a fish and they did make an elephant disappear. I loved it.

And there they are after the performance hanging out in the corridor doing the modern equivalent of signing autographs.

Taking pictures...These are performers who are not too cool to ignore the people who made them rich and famous. They are the celebrities I'd like to enjoy, people with skill and a level of humility that connects them to the people who are astounded by those skills. And if I had to live and work in Las Vegas for forty years straight to make 300 million dollars I'd say thanks no, let Penn and Teller do it, they do it so well.

We both had a blast.

Then we went up 107 floors accompanied by an actual elevator attendant, not seen one of those in a  while, to the bar at the Stratosphere. 

It is like everything else absurd but worth the view.

The restaurant level rotates while the bar upstairs remains still so the effect at first induces motion sickness as your brain tries to figure out why stuff is moving. We spent $32, the cost of a Key West parking ticket and well worth the ride. Please note: no casinos involved... 

We fortified ourselves for a ride to Death Valley with a breakfast at the Egg and I, touted as the locals' breakfast diner. Poor locals. Layne's French Toast and bacon came with no discernible bacon and lots of whipped white creamy stuff and my green chili hash was a watery mush lacking the desired green chilis though it did come smothered in the ever popular chipotle flavoring. I don't do breakfast much as I work nights, maybe it was delicious and I failed to notice.

So not all food was brilliant but as my philosophical wife said you need to learn your way around. I will say that Las vegas represents quite the ethnic melting pot and we saw signs of cultures from all over the place, off the strip and celebrity-free.

The Bellagio is home to Cirque du Soleil's Eau which means water in English and is pronounced Oh. It is also home to a famous conservatory, so famous I'd never heard of it but my wife had luckily. We didn't get to see the art gallery before it closed for the night (some things have a closing time in Las Vegas) but we did get to see the extraordinary creation on its last night before being replaced with a seasonal display for Christmas. I just stood and stared, amid the chattering masses all around me. I know you think you've seen it all but not quite you haven't.

I worked Thanksgiving night so we had ours by the lagoon at the Bellagio, next to a vast body of water in the middle of this desert town. The outside world has no connection to the bubble this city lives in. Lake Mead may be down feet but the Bellagio sprays water in the air to music every half hour, come hell or no water.

And after the Cirque show, breath taking as you might imagine we sat in the waiting area at the airport reflecting on four days that I had been dreading. Suspension of reality, perhaps but a moment of privilege to be alive to see bread and circuses in action. I failed to photograph the Trump skyscraper but I wondered how exactly the Trump Revolution will change our world. I am no great fan of revolutions, I know my history and I have seen revolution close up and it is a bloody business. I voted for Clinton with no great enthusiasm, a vote of cowardice you might say, but now we are here I figure Trump's will be an administration of unintended consequences as every time he changes one thing in the intricacy of government a dozen interlocking pieces will be affected. Those who say good and bring it on should try to remember the last time they truly suffered privation, then ask themselves what it might feel like.  Living off your fat is not as much fun as it sounds, and if it all goes horribly wrong that is what we may be reduced to for a while, like our grandparents. My strategy is to keep accumulating experience and hope for the best and may the awesome power of inertia slow the  flame of revolution down. 

Perhaps I am the last person left in America who thinks this country is pretty good the way it is. I have found no better place to live yet the idea that making America great "again" finds my neighbors nodding solemnly in agreement. I blame myself for not knowing people in the middle of the country are hurting so badly they want all the building blocks of our lives to tumble down. Let them have their wish is all I can think and perhaps things will get better. Cancelling the Trans Pacific Trade pact seems a good start and maybe in four years I'll look back and say, well he was more like Teddy Roosevelt than I ever expected. Or not.

Meanwhile I have my dog and my job and whatever else happens I still have Las Vegas in my memory bank and I, liked it. I never thought that would happen. But there again I never thought Trump would either. Life is full of surprises.