Sunday, November 27, 2016

The last great road

The roads bristle with purposeful traffic and insane visual distractions shouting a last strident look-at-me as we make our way out of Last Vegas. From fairy story turreted castles to rather elegant mule silhouette public artwork on the 10-lane highway, it just keeps defining itself as no ordinary town.

As we hum across the big flat sprawl of residential Vegas, I’m thinking beehive. Those commuter suburbs accommodate a vast population of workers who keep that buzzing city turning over. Just croupiers, dealers and waiters alone, not to mention the army of maids cleaning the hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms.

We pause at Henderson for petrol before heading through new road constructions out into a stark desert plain dominated by powerlines.

It is a bit unloved looking although the power pylons do their best to look grandiose.

Little tufty bushes are the meagre groundcover with fabulous mountains in the distance and a massive solar array which looks like

a big, black sheet across the landscape.

Cars and caravans are dotted out on the plain in large cleared expanses. I can’t quite work out why. Do they do speed tests out here? Race quad bikes? Fly drones?

More solar arrays out there and what looks like sagebrush. Rather elegant and sophisticated power lines lead off into the distance looped from pole to pole.

The sun is hammering on the car.

Mist hazes the panorama. Occasional rude-looking little knobs of cactus dot the plain. Small yuccas, too, increasing in number as we drive west.

There are mountains on both sides, creosote bushes now on the land, and joshua trees increasing in number.

Glorious primitive contorted sculptural creatures they are. This landscape is turning truly majestic. It is like a well-established desert garden complete with rocks and sands and pebbles.

We pass a little town with the quaint name of Searchlight tucked in

amid all this beauty.

Prominent in the town is Terrible’s Roadhouse. One just has to wonder.

Liquor stores, a casino, boats, advertisements for honey and jerky - and Searchlight is gone.

Now Route 95 heads out beside sharply serrated distant mountains, a ribbon of road heading straight for the horizon.

No more joshua trees on the land. It looks a bit scruffy out there.

We’re at 2550ft elevation a sign informs us. Oh, and what a neat little town approaches.

Cal-Nev-Ari.

I never saw a town name like that. Huh?

I reach for Google and discover it is the southernmost town in Nevada and it is a three-state town and hence name = California, Nevada, Arizona.

It has an airport and was set up as a fly-in town for pilots and their families.

Almost immediately a sign welcomes us to California.

The road narrows and presently has many dips. Five miles of dips. Sigh.

But the arid-lands vegetation has improved. There are little yellow wildflowers, white trumpet flowers, chollas in bloom, yuccas.

This is good habitat for snakes and lizards, says Bruce. Jack rabbits and ground spiders, too.

Rings of mountains continue out

there and the road is a bit on the treacherous side with lots of trucks.

For some blissful reason, when a junction appears, the trucks all go one way and we go the other. Cheering to have the road to ourselves.

Signs advertise pistachios, stuffed olives, and avocados.

We swing back onto Route 40, the old Route 66. And it is truck hell all over again. They are end-to-end.

Damnation.

A town called Needles. Hoardings, trees, mini storage, roadworks. Oh, my god, they are repairing the most hideous damage to the safety rail. Something ghastly happened here.

We pull into the Needles Maccers to gobble something down and use the facilities.

I try a McDonalds breakfast burrito, Ugh. Was I mad? Never again.

An arrow points to the Desert Information Centre.

Look as we may, we can see only desert.

Mojave, says another sign. It is a big desert. We must have reached the edge of it.

There’s a caravan park with eucalyptus trees.

Low scrub, greeny brown bushes.

Ocatillo cactus start to appear. Bruce is delighted, albeit sad they are not blooming. They are pretty stick-like. But the chollas are blooming. They look haloed in the light. Gorgeous.

Mountains are still out there, line after line of them, jagged silhouettes.

We pass the Chemehuerin Indian Reservation with its casino. The road is really busy.

We check out the radio which tells us that we need to buy a gun now while we still can. Every person must be a first-responder, the gravel-voiced jock lectures us. This is radio shotguntalk.com There are new guns out which are curved to fit around the body. We all need one in the event that something happens. You have to be able to take care of yourself. What is the most effective gun? It’s the one you have with you.

The land is still flat, vegetation stunted but there must be a watercourse out there, since there is a line of trees.

There are also lots of rocks. It looks like an Aussie gibber plain out there.

We turn onto 95 south. A funny little junction. Its 24-hour garage and motel is for sale. We wonder what life would be like running such a place in the middle of nowhere, for this is indeed, a nowhere sort of place. Not even a daisy chain of trucks is to be seen. Just open road.

Eventually a fenced yard of caravans and junk turns up. It has prominent security warnings. It looks so unncessary out here. No one would want the protected contents.

There is an Indian settlement nearby, dwellings dotted about the landscape. They don’t like to crowd each other, these native Americans.

The landscape reminds us of the areas around Port Augusta at the foot of the Flinders in South Australa. Arid. Sparsely settled.

Then a sign announces: Deer Crossing.

The Colorado River Community is announced with mountains close, rugged and mighty.

Lost Lake? How do you lose a lake?

The vegetation of dense low scrub and winding, undulating road suddenly gives way to an area of massive cultivation. Hidden Valley is lush and green and irrigated.

But over there by the edge of the mountains, I can see sand dunes. What fascinating landscape.

And now a big, beautiful river, palm trees, The Water Wheel Resort.

We follow the winding ribbon of water, incredulous that we are suddenly in some sort of river resort area. There’s a jet ski high up on a pole. River shacks. A river community. It’s the Colorado River. Mini storage. Of course. There’s a boat for sale at the roadside and a caravan park called Paradise Point which does not look at all like paradise.

Here come the river crops. The Palo Verde dam. Cotton crops. Rice crops. Alfalfa fields. Huge cubical stacks of baled alfalfa.

Another riverfront community. This one called Hidden Beach Resort.

At the town of Blythe we turn onto the 10 west interstate.

Blythe is a town of palms and more palms. Big, relaxed, a desert rural town. Solar panels. Crops. Green alfalfa bales waiting in the fields.

We turn onto California 78 west and realise we are plum in the middle of a California food bowl, the Imperial Valley. Lush farmlands. Brassica crops.

Ripley, a tough working agricultural town, a huge ploughing machine producing clouds of dust out in the fields.

We’re on the back roads

of the Imperial Valley - big irrigation canals, chocolate brown ploughed fields. The town of Palo Verde is not just sleepy. It is comatose. The life is on the land. Serious working farms. No animals, though.

A gate bears the label. The Other Side. Hmm

The landscape rolls softly. There are still mountains out there. The sky is soft blue, very pretty, with just a sleek streak or two of cloud. I see mica glinting from the soil. It is dry and barren, otherwise.

A sign warns that speed is enforced by aircraft.

I’ve seen a few of these around the country. Never saw any aircraft, though. I reckon it’s a bluff.

Ah, cactus are beginning to reappear on the landscape. We must be hitting that sweet altitude spot they love. Chollas and ocatillos. Bruce is purring at the sight.

And now a huge cyclone fence materialises. An alien sight out on these vast desert plains. And things are growing more alien. Behind the security and clear signs of excavation and rearrangements of the land the name Vista Mine is posted. I Google madly. My suspicion is confirmed. This is a bloody great gold mine. Vista Mine otherwise
known as Mesquite Mine is one of the largest gold mines in the USA.

It’s one of those great ironies that gold is a pretty thing but gold mines really quite grotesque.

As we speed on our way, we pass one of those completely mad people who cycle alone across the vast no-man’s land of wilderness America. Fat little panniers, hunched intensity from the lonely laboring rider way out here in the Mojave Desert.

He does not look up. I wonder what he’s thinking. Next breath, next breath.

I see sand dunes again. Big ones. There’s a little settlement called Glamis. It touts itself as The Sand Toy Capital of the World. Who knew?

The toys turn out to be

dune buggies. They are all over the place and the massive dunes are patterned by their tracks. For miles and miles. But only on one side of the road. The other side is virgin dune. There is a certain environmental sense to that, I suppose.

These are most imposing dunes. Sensational. Or should I say sandsational.

We pass a little town of trailers lined with cheerful flags - and lots of buggies.

Proper name is Glamis

Dunes but it is also known as North Algodones Dunes Wilderness north of the road.

And now, heaven help us, we’re beside the Salton Sea.

It’s a salt lake.

This wonderful road forges forth back into agricultural territory. Pecan and date orchards.

Alfalfa.

Stockyards belonging to the Mesquite Cattle Traders.

Our progress has been slowed by a lumbering chain of caravans. Not that we mind. This is wonderful country.

However, we are not sorry to find that they branch off onto another road. They are not going to San Diego.

Bruce announces that it is 88 degrees F outside. We have had pretty gorgeous weather throughout our six month road trip. Bruce hoped it would work out that way when he planned the route - taking the cooler northern states in the peak of summer and leaving the hotter southern states to the moderating temperatures of autumn.

It’s snowing today in New Hampshire, he gloats, where we spent seven lovely days in August.

We are now surrounded by impeccable farm lands. Fields and crops. Neatly husbanded. There are cotton bales and alfafa bales in the fields. A date farm.

We are very close to Mexico, says Bruce. We turn on the radio and sure enough, radio Mexico all over.

We enjoy some cheerful Mexican music and identify the California Coast Range as the mountains appearing ahead of us - crops on either side of us.

We cross the San Diego County Line and turn onto California 111 South.

Flat open road. Massive stockpiles of alfalfa bales are stacked by the roadside.

Billboards start appearing. Date Shakes. Local Honey. Local Olive Oil. Local Dates.

This is El Centro, says Bruce.

Nearby Indio is the date capital of the USA. We’ve been there before many years ago.

The road is good. Lots and lots more alfalfa bales and even some hay are stashed in mountainous blocks.

Fields now are of solar panels. The landscape is drying out.

We’re at sea level and we are back to bare undulating desert around us, reminiscent of the Badlands of South Dakota, but covered in bike tracks. There are a lot more people out here, I suppose.

A wind farm and then another. Giant turbines on the top of a ridge of mountains, rolling slowly.

Now a mountain which seems to be made entirely of boulders. Spectacular formations. Perilous as we climb into the range.

In among boulder hills, cactus are growing.

Giant electricity pylons are taking the wind power across the landscape. I love these gracious, grand pylons. They are pretty ladies in metal lace.

More cactus, cholla now. More rock pile mountains. Jacumba.

Our petrol is low. There have not been too many services out on the Sonoran desert.

Bruce swings off the road at the first petrol sign he spots but no big modern petrol station is to be found.

It is still a bit back of the beyond. Finally I spot the petrol station. It is something from the 1930s. A crude bowser beside an even cruder shed of a store.

I don’t like the look at all.

But Bruce says petrol is petrol. It’ll be fine. We also need a loo.

This turns out to be not so fine.

He is given a key to open the magic blue door to the filthiest stinkiest lavatory I have seen since Yugoslavia 1971. Bruce says it reminds him of Mexico. You’d love Mexican loos, Sa.

I upend a ton of sanitiser and gingerly cope.

A few minutes down the road of course we spot a shining, gleaming, you-beaut modern servo. Oh well.

And down the road it is. We are at 4000ft and descending.

There’s a river in the valley within a lush corridor of cottonwoods. No hint of those glorious golden leaves. No one has told them about autumn over here in the west.

As we reach a valley, we reach also a Border Patrol point.

Lots of official vehicles lined up. Lots of officers spread about. Traffic in a bottleneck. It feels very

serious. No, we don’t need to pull out our passports, says Bruce.

They are looking for illegals. We don’t fit the profile. When our turn comes, a dazzlingly handsome young man in uniform simply smiles and beckons us through.

On the other side of the mountain we hit a landscape of dense shrubs, pale rocks, and pointy hills with pointy pines.

We pass the Viejas resort and casino, a brown place if ever one there was.

And lots of signs of habitation. Pencil pines and mission-style buildings. Sycuam Indian Reservation with a lovely lake and handsome properties. We’re still descending. 1000ft now. 84 deg outside.

White fences. Horse properties. Low sun.

Here comes lovely San Diego. The place in the USA whose climate is most like Adelaide's, the place in Australia whence we come.

It is our last road trip stop. A special one.

Come on Siri Google. Lead us to our digs on the shores of Mission Beach.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Vegas at last

In all these years and all these trips to the USA, I have never been to Las Vegas.

Everyone I know who has done as much as a week’s quickie trip has included Vegas. But not me. Bruce has not considered it a cultural priority. He was there when he was eight, in 1956. It was enough.

So I have been grouching about it for years.

Now, at last, at last.

And best of all, my dear friend Rachel, my sister friend really since she also is a Harris, also is a Vegas virgin and has chosen to fly on down from Portland so we will have the experience together.

We arrive later than I’d hoped. It is a long drive from Sedona.

On arrival at the elegant Vdara, which is one of the few hotels in Vegas which has neither gambling nor smoking, I am crestfallen to learn that our assigned suite is not the fountain view I had requested but simply a city view. Serendipity leaps onto my shoulder. The receptionist is one of those golden souls who seeks to make people happy and to solve problems. After searching around the computer bookings she announces that there
are no fountain-views available but that she will pop me up in a 39th floor corner suite which offers a partial view. Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh magical receptionist. Oh, fabulous Vdara.

So it comes to pass that we have a lovely long living room with dining table, desk, kitchenette, full laundry and separate toilet with windows showing a glorious view of city and hills and streets and night lights and action on the famous Strip of glitter, glitter, neon wonderland Las Vegas casinos. Not only but also, we have another stretch of windows from our spacious bedroom and a large, gorgeous bathroom which features not only a massive free-standing bathtub but also the cited partial view. Hah. It might not be all of the Bellagio fountain but it is

three quarters of it. It is most of it. If I sit on the ledge in the bathroom I can just swoon over the fountain’s glorious choreography by night and day. Oh, and a whole lot of the rest of Vegas.

Actually, lying my bed, I can see Rachel’s Stratosphere hotel. And, er, the name Trump on top of the Trump casino. Less said the better.

The view is sensational.

For one who is not feeling 100 per cent, it brings Las Vegas right to me. It makes me so very, very happy. That is, if one refuses to think about the election.

Rachel is deeply traumatised by the election results. She wept most of the night and, as we rejoice in being reunited, she is also struggling to be the old good cheer girl which is so much a big part of who she is. She is one of the kindest and most loving

people in the world. Her mantra is spreading random (and deliberate) acts of kindness. Today she is a wounded soul, stubbornly wearing her Vote Hillary button and, indeed, she has come fresh from the Trump Casino where, amid all the security and glitter, she wandered in announcing she had come to pay her disrespects.

As we move around the town, I note how she makes connections with people on the Hillary front. Just from wearing her little Vote Hillary button. Suddenly, complete strangers come up and hug her. Tears are shared. People are afraid to speak out now that Trump is victor because Trump people are very aggressive and abusive, even in victory. So the Democrats have become nervous and secretive.

We encounter one sad but brave fellow sitting in a Las Vegas mall surrounded in cardboard signs, just lamenting the end of the world as he loved it, of the values he respected, of hope.

It is a dark time and a new spirit of fear and wariness is palpable.

I love Las Vegas. I am not a bit disappointed. I don’t find it tawdry. I find it a celebration of exuberant American excess, blase greed and effervescent vulgarity. I find it honest. It is what it

is. It makes no pretence at class or erudition. It is a playground for people who want a taste of glamour and hope. It is a great equaliser for a diversity of decent people who don't want to think about things too much. And that speaks for a lot of America.

To qualify that, I quote Noam Chomsky’s observations that ordinary Americans know a lot about things they want to know about. They are deeply schooled in football and baseball. Deeply. This is the great national knowledge. Popular music and television are knowledge subjects, too. And, the Bible. The Bible is the only book read by the majority of Americans and many know huge tracts of it by heart. But politics, economics, geography?

People flood to Las Vegas for fun. They come for a honeymoon, a wedding, a reunion, an anniversary. They come to play. It is the ritual place they come to spend money. There are happy people all around.

It is the most absurdly lavish place in the world. It is so far over the top it would be silly if it was not so beautiful. I look at the extravagant decorations within the hotels.

The mad beauty. In the Bellagio there is an entire courtyard of seasonal celebrations. It is like a Disneyland with real, fresh flowers and vegetables. It is not phoney. It is not plastic. As for the Bellagio fountain: the work that goes into keeping that technological and beautiful

celebration thrilling people night and day is awe-inspiring. There are thirty full-time employees devoted to its care, including scuba-diving engineers.

We three explore all over the place. We marvel at the lifts that go diagonally in the Luxor. The whole giant place with its Sphinx out the front. Like so many casino hotels, it goes on and on. It has thousands of rooms. People snake-queue to

check in. People are snake-queuing at glitzy hotels all over town.

We explore Caesar’s Palace, Planet Hollywood, and Paris. We also go to The D, in the old part of town, where we throw ourselves into the silly business of a corny interactive dinner theatre murder comedy. It is my choice for us as a Vegas night out because the concerts all seem a bit tired and Cirque du Soleil, which I long have considered to be a one-trick pony swamped in special effects, has no less than five of its tedious acrobatic shows on the go. The one thing of real interest, Penn

and Teller, is scheduled too late for my shingly stamina.

The D is a revelation. There is another whole Vegas over there in old town, another strip with people zip-lining aloft and partying beneath. Lots of brassy little ticky-tack shops. It seems to be the Native American side of the casino world and it is a celebration of carnival kitsch as opposed to MGM ritzy kitsch. The casino is populated by older people and it feels very friendly and laid-back. We have our little Vegas flutter there. I do in $20 on the one-armed bandits. Rachel wins money on the

slots and blackjack. There is an Indian gathering converging and the place is swarming with the most exotic Native American people, tattoos, long inky hair, flowing garments and leather gear.

We have a lovely laughing time at the show, Marriage Can Be Murder. Rachel is straight into the action which sets her in a position to wonder throughout the show if she may become a victim. Bruce also gets a role which involves him being pallbearer to countless victims. The cast has been doing this schtick for aeons and have the silly, zany, cheeky nonsense down pat. Humour is much elevated by the hapless policeman

wearing wildly undersized uniform shorts. A simple gag but it works well on a big, gruff actor. And, heavens above, the murderer is the girl sitting next to me and, yes, I tell her privately that I think she’s the killer. Darling girl. She acts as if she is so hurt I could dare suspect her. She is nearly in tears. How did I come to suspect her, she begs. I list the clues. I like your thinking, she says.

We take Rachel to the airport, a little sad our time was short with me ailing and us all grieving. We are glad, however, that we had each other and have shared Vegas in all its colour and movement.

We have eaten in the Bellagio and at the Vdara. The two hotels are connected which is a boon for me.

After Rachel has gone we have a couple more days and spend them going for walks, sunning on the deck beside the Vdara's fabulous outdoor pool, gorging ourselves on the Bellagio’s incomparable buffet and then making up for it from the Vdara's super healthy foyer cafe menu

and, generally, enjoying our fabulous suite.

Oh, what pleasure that vista gives me, day and night. I love it. I love it! And it is true, Vegas never sleeps. It is the only city I have found where the traffic is still humming full pelt at 3 and 4 am and where, pre-dawn, the city lights are still alive and the people out and about. I have loved seeing so many people so happy. This is the thing that Las Vegas

does so well. It gives good people a good time. It is Disneyland for oldies.

In itself, the people are a grand spectacle - gob-smacked, gasping, laughing, tottering about in wild overkills of selfies...

Not us, of course. Well, OK, don't tell anyone, but I do take a wee selfie with my luxury Vdara in-room laundry.

And I do insist on a photo in front of the most astonishing bedazzlement of them all - a flower-bedecked Hindu shrine in the middle of the casino bling opulence.

Other small observations include kindness and good gestures from staff members everywhere we go in this blingiest, swingiest, glitter-glitter city.

Gazing out over it in the depths of the analgesic night, I can only imagine the power bills.

I am so glad at last to have been.

Doubt I need to do it again.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

One of the world's great drives

No one could ever say that Sedona is not spectacular with its glory of red cliffs and mountains.

It is America’s answer to the Australian Olgas. But it has a township and hotels and a tourism industry. I can’t say it has fantastic cuisine. This is our second time here and, as at the first, the best meals have been breakfast at the Adobe Grand Villas which brags a French chef called Jacqueline.

She has something special on the go every day, embellished by Jacqueline’s colourful commentaries on this and that.

At this stage of our 6-month epic road trip around the USA, we are on a tight time schedule. We have not hurried on the trip, tending to drive only moderate distances on driving days and making driving days one out of every three. This has enabled us to pace ourselves with sightseeing and domestica, rest and play.

But we have a date in Las Vegas. My friend Rachel is flying down from Portland to share the experience of discovering Vegas. She is booked into the Stratosphere and we into the Vdara. All we have to do is to get there. It’s a long drive. I'm drugged up on antivirals and analgesia and don't feel too bad.

And, if anything is going to keep one's mind on the higher planes, it is grand landscape. We are embarking on one of the world’s beautiful drives.

Out of Sedona, one winds through those red mountains with towering rock faces and mighty canyons. Dramatic and breathtaking.

All the superlatives come out to meet the might of those natural formations. Striated with rich colours. Deep and dramatic. It is like a mini grand canyon.

Betwixt and between the grand rock displays are trees, taller trees than we have seen for a while. The first roadside walls of trees. They grow up on the hillside and it is clear they are a vital resource. Neat piles of long logs await collection here and there.

Up and up we go to an undulating plateau. More pine harvests. White fences and neat properties.

We swing into Interstate 17 north.

Past Mormon Lake, Flagstaff, Kokomo National Forest - miles and miles of forest.

Eventually the vegetation opens out to reveal brown granite and a plain with homes and small holdings.

I note the lack of sheep. I think sheep would love this pasture. But America is not sheep country.

Instead a sign says Bearizona Wildlife. Another sign points to the Grand Canyon exit. Not for us today. We’ve done that.

We pass Williams, founded 1881, Gateway of the Grand Canyon.

There’s a volcanic vista out there with desert junipers. It reminds us of Santa Fe.

More prairie. More juniper. A lot of juniper.

Wide open spaces. Cinder cones and mountains on the horizon.

Passing Ash Creek and Ash Fork, a modest but dignified little community out here.

The open plateau reveals layers and layers of distant mountains.

Back on Route 40 now. The old Route 66.

Farms here and there, lots featuring caravans. We ponder the ubiquity of the caravan on the American landscape. Not just for the grey nomads but as instant homes in remote places. Some beside houses maybe as extra rooms. Some just out there as houses. Some are just left there. I wonder how many there are, what are their stories.

Trucks are dominating the road again. We’re close to Seligman which looks very inviting nestled in among trees. Then I see the sign for the Roadkill 66 Cafe.

We drive on by noting some fairly miserable cattle out there on bare field.

There’s a cemetery at the roadside. Lots of flowers and people fussing over graves.

But the road is really nasty, rough and rumbly.

We rumble onwards uncomfortably. The ranges ahead have a serrated profile. Bruce thinks it is like a bandsaw.

We enter Mohave Country.

Tumbleweed rolls under the car.

Wonderful outcrops of boulders.

An old truck is parked on a hilltop with sign advertising 40 acre lots of land for sale - as mango ranches,

Well, I never. No signs of mangoes out here.

It’s The Purple Heart Trail according to a road sign.

And another vast, vast open plain stretches ahead of us and around us, lightly flecked with distant settlements.

There goes Kingman with its airport and prison.

Signs for Arizona 66 and Loop 66. Sign for Terrible’s Service Station.

And Route 66.

Only 68 miles to Las Vegas.

Signs offer exits to Los Angeles and Loughlin.

We forge onwards, past Bullhead City which is scattered across the plain.

Little yuccas are appearing on the rocky hill slopes, stunted mesquites, little tufty grasses.

A town called Chloride is a wide sprinkle of caravans and fibro homes across the tufty blue grasses in the shadow of the mountain.

Incongruously, here comes a mighty sign advertising Alpaca Imports - the world’s largest alpaca store.

Mangoes, alpaca - you just never know what you’ll find in these deserts.

Now it is small, stumpy cactus, saguaros, little chollas, and another range of volcanic hills around us.

Cactus seem to like this elevation, between 2000 and 3000 ft, says Bruce.. This is an old rift zone. It is busier than it looks. There are about 20 or 30 letter boxes clustered at the roadside, one track and no sign of habitation. They must be out there somewhere.

Further along there are some ramshackle houses. Native American settlement, says Bruce, Mighty mountains ahead, brown with white striations. They make Bruce think of coco-swirl ice cream.

Dry washes roadside. And joshua trees start to appear. Bruce loves them.

Look how the little joshua trees look like little people standing out there in the landscape, he says.

Three cop cars are at the roadside around a car and some people. That’s a lot of police.

There’s not much here. Just an odd little pit stop, a bit like Baghdad Cafe.

We wonder at what drama must be unfolding as we zip by, checking our speed..

There are one-acre lots for sale. I can’t imagine what one would do with those.

Caravans, trailer homes, a couple of homes built semi-underground.

This is the Colorado Plateau desert, says Bruce.

It is vast.

On the horizon is a hill with a pimple on the top.

Bruce says it’s a nipple. I chide him.

Little purple cactus are out there.

One can’t take in the scale of the plateau. This is a lot of land.

It doesn't agree with the camera. The photos look drab, yet the landscape inspires. I give up trying to snap and just drink it in.

Top of faraway mountains seems to be lying smooth and low - until we start to make our descent.

The road takes us down to the Colorado River, down, down, down…

Rugged red mountains now and power pylons.

Here comes the mighty Hoover Dam.

We drive right over it, almost without realising.

We look for the exit to take us to see the dam. Where is it? Did we miss it?

Now we are passing Lake Mead, a shimmer of deep blue, a mighty mirror of water.

What about the dam?

Finally a sign. We pull off and find ourselves backtracking, backtracking, miles we have already covered.

How weird is this?

Finally, we give up, turn back and head for Boulder City, a sleek resort community of lovely houses all looking back to the lake. Palm trees. Pencil Pines. Topiary. Very salubrious.

Then we swing past a big mall and a huge strip of Indian ticky tack businesses.

And there’s the world biggest alpaca

imports store. Not very big at all.

There’s a Pro Gun Club, a casino, bail bonds, wedding chapels, more bail bonds, pawn shop, traffic traffic, smoggy air, billboards, burbs, burbs.

This is it.

Hello Vegas.