The last 4 days by Sylvio

 

Continued, Thursday 1/26/12

Well, we went to Bite….Bite sucked. Our room at the Stratosphere was basic and functional.  Kind of a dumpy hotel for Vegas Strip’s standards.  But the hotel’s tower is the tallest building west of the Mississippi River and we got to go up to the top observation deck as much as we wanted, for free.  We went up before the show, right at sunset and the views of the city were expansive. 

Back up in our room for a little while listening to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and then it was time to go into the theater to see the show, where it was Lucy in the Sky with Dracula.  I think that Marcie mentioned that this was a topless, vampire show, set to a classic rock soundtrack.  The music was really bad.  It was the kind of “classic rock” that you hear on radio stations where they think that Motley Crue, Van Halen, and Pat Benatar are “classic”.  So after realizing that this was not a joke show, I started wondering what was going on.  Did they really think that this is good?  But yes, they did, because they had clearly put a lot of time into choreographing their cheesy Salt n’ Pepa type dance moves in sync with each other.  Then it got really weird.  I started wondering; How come none of these girls are hot?  Isn’t this Vegas?  These “girls” had had a lot of plastic surgery done to enhance their femininity.  But in my opinion they could not get a job at the Foxy Lady.  Then I realized: One of them was a dude.  I saw it clearly as it’s face was lit up by the stage lights.  I whispered to Marcie “ I think the one in the red is a dude”.  She goes “I think so too”. Pause.  Marcie: “Now that I look at them, they’re all dudes!”  So, all the vampire strippers turned out to be transvestites, we think.  Next thing I remember, we were racing for the door.

Later that night we went back up the Stratosphere tower for views of the city lights.   And then walking around the north end of the strip was interesting.  We went thru the old Sahara hotel/casino.  It’s closed down now, as of recently, but we could still walk around the deserted grounds.  It was a little spooky, because it was now like 1 in the morning and we kind of thought that there would be an unregulated homeless camp back there.  After that we sat in our windowsill and watched the comings and goings at an Asian massage parlor across the parking lot.

Vegas kind of gives me the creeps. It seemed like nothing there was real.  It was all just some sick fantasy of money and electricity.  I did not want to touch any of the door handles.

Friday

Next day we milked it, in the hotel room for a while and then headed off to Whole Foods Las Vegas for some groceries.  Marcie drove the whole way while I drank beer.  Lagunitas Esrpesso Stout, warm.  I recommend it.

We drove south from Vegas thru the very flat desert where it looks like all of those speed junkies take their homemade rocketships on wheels and try to break land speed records.  Though only a few people were flying kites this day, so the land speed records might just be speculation.  Anyway, we continued thru Searchlight (casting) NV, and Needles, CA which typically registers the hottest daily temps in the US in the summer.  We had lunch at a great dinner type restaurant called The Wagon Wheel.  Enormous portions.  I had corned beef hash, two eggs, hash browns, biscuit and gravy, and coffee.  Dang!

Then we arrived in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  There was a Blues, Brews and BBQ festival going on there but we did not want to pay the $5 each to get in, so we walked around a little down by the lake and then drove out 4-wd style in the desert to set up camp.  Finally it was warm enough to hang out outside for the evening and we made the most of it with a nice fire and another excellent dinner of spaghetti and meatballs.   

Saturday

Next day I went for short climb up the adjacent mountain while Marcie slept.  Then she made up banana pancakes and tea for breakfast.  Delicious.  So after that we hit the road south and then west to California.  Soon after we crossed the state line our rear driver’s side tire blew out as we were going about 55mph.  30 minutes later we were back on the road after changing out for the spare.  It is possible that we punctured the tire last night when we were 4wd-ing looking for a campsite.  But then again, we did go at least a hundred miles the next day before the tire blew, so I don’t know.  

Anyway, after a couple more hours driving thru the desert we reached Joshua Tree National Park in California.  We have been there a bunch of times before, but since we have the park pass we decided to go for a hike and maybe set up camp for the night.  When we drove out to the campsite it was kind of cold and really windy, like 40-50mph.  So we just went for a hike.  It was a 3 mile round trip up Ryan Mountain.  Nice hike.

So as it got dark we drove out of the park and found a place in the desert to cook and eat our dinner.  That night’s menu was sliced beef with polenta and broccoli in a curry sauce.  Hearty goodness. Then we drove out to a coin operated laundry business and did the wash.  Thanks to all of our readers for suffering thru these unglamorous low lights from the road. Then over to the Pacific Crest Trail in the town of Hesperia, California where we slept in the back of the truck for the night.

Sunday

We woke up Sunday morning in the back of the truck and quickly got our stuff together for a hike out to Deep Creek Hot Springs.  This is one of the best hot springs in the southwest and it’s in the San Bernardino National Forest so no one owns it and it is pretty much unregulated.  It was a 6.7 mile hike one-way out to the springs, but that was way more then Marcie originally intended to do, so at first that caused a little bit of friction between us.  But she went.  It didn’t help Marcie’s enthusiasm at all when we had to cross a section on the trail, high up on the cliffs, where a rockslide had washed the trail out.  Soon though, we were cruising along like the breeze up the canyon side trail.  After about 3.5 hours of hiking we arrived at the springs.  There were a bunch of people there, including some naked ones, but we climbed along some rocks that most of the other people there were not willing to and as a result we got a hot pool to soak in all to ourselves.  Lunch was peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches and then it was 3.5 hours and 6.7 miles back the trail to the truck.

We were pretty worn out after that so we drove up the mountain to the area where we used to live when we lived in Southern Cal about 3-5 years ago.  There was this restaurant in a town called Cedar Glen that had the best burgers and we both had been dreaming about getting some for the last couple of days, especially so during the last few miles of our hike that day!  Unfortunately the restaurant had changed its name, owners, and menu.  But we ate anyway.  Marcie: Taco Salad.  Me: Cheeseburger with Bacon, Onion Ring and BBQ sauce.  Then we drove down to San Bernardino to a Motel 6 for the night. 

Las Vegas

                                                         Arizona Desert Campsite/Lake Havasu

Joshua Tree National Park