long night & morning glory

After our steak and rattlensnake dinner, we wanted to get as close as we could to Monument Valley that night. We found a small highway that started near the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park and headed east. After turning onto the highway we quickly saw our first animal: a majestic buck that must've been a 10 or 12 point. He was only a few feet off the road and looked a lot like Bambi's father. Later, I had to swerve to avoid a skunk as it waddled down the white line. With some old jazz playing on the satellite radio, we took the curvy road through the arid forest, our high beams illuminating the trees and brush. We found a place to turn off, got out of the car, and gazed upward. There were more stars than either of us had ever seen in our lives.

The Milky Way was clear as day, the stars so dense and plentiful that even the familiar constellations were difficult to discern through the blanket of bright, twinkling stars. There were so many, in fact, that it made us both dizzy. You felt as though you could reach up and run your fingers through them like sparkling water. Your feet didn't feel so tethered to the ground and any second they would float free from the bounds of gravity and you'd fly away. Then we heard some strange noises and quickly got back into the car.

The lazy road was made almost entirely of twists and turns and it was quite pleasant to drive leisurely, without aggressive headlights constantly blinding you in the rearview mirror. Even when we connected to a more major roadway, we pretty much were the only ones out driving. By 1am, I was exhausted and we pulled over at the first motel we found in Tuba City. Not only were they full, all the area motels were full. Apparently, the southwest is a popular destination for European tourists who travel in huge buses and take up every room in the place. We loaded up on coffee and headed to the next town but with the same result. By now, we were only an hour to Monument Valley.

The reality was setting in that we might be sleeping in our car that night and we figured if it came to that then why not drive into Monument Valley itself and wake up with a view. The moon had already slipped behind the horizon for the night and it was pitch black with nothing but stars to guide us. When we arrived at the valley we started turning off onto side roads looking for the area's famous monoliths against the horizon. Sometimes we could make out their slightly darker silhouettes against the black sky, but the red dirt roads were rough and always seemed to lead to lonely private residences. After about an hour of u-turns and double-backs Deb suggested we try the new hotel overlooking the Valley. I was skeptical, but we were out of options. They too were full (and I'm certain we wouldn't have been able to afford such a place anyway) but the woman at the counter could not have been nicer. Not only did she say we could sleep in our car in a darkened portion off their parking lot, she also gave us water and offered us pillows. Such hospitality at a time like that is a rare gift. We slowly pulled into a gravel area behind the now familiar tour buses which had plagued our route, made ourselves as comfortable as one can be in a Hyundai Sonata and went to sleep. It was 4am.

I awoke a few hours later with a sliver of sun in my eyes and shivered in the now chilly car. As my eyes adjusted I could see something amazing out the window. I tried to wake up Deborah so she could see what I was seeing, but she was having none of it. So I got out of the car and walked to the nearby cliff edge. There was Monument Valley in all its glory, the mesas, the buttes, and the spires of the American West as far as the eye could see. The valley floor had a greenish hue from the many spots of desert plant life and the three massive, signature rocks silhouetted against the blue and orange of the morning sky. The sun barely peeking over the horizon and was further obscured by one of the the three mittens (huge vertical mesas rising out of the ground with a separated sliver of rock on one side to give it its namesake shape). Their red orange coloring was subtle and tempered by the shadowy backlighting of the fragile sunlight, but their shapes were clear as day.

I stood alone on the cliff and looked down at them from my high vantage point. It was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen in my life and suddenly all the extra driving and dusty dead end roads of the long night behind us were more than worth it. It was freezing, but I stood there as long as I could, taking in the spectacle of one of the most awe-inspiring places on earth. The sun continued its morning arc and I snapped a few pictures to capture a taste of the sight. But photos cannot capture the encompassing glory of such a moment, they can only help remind us of how lucky we once were to experience it.

I got back into the car as quietly as I could, covered my face with a t-shirt, and went back to sleep. It was going to be a great day.

driving, steaks

The drive to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas is not very scenic; long stretches of rocky desert, dotted with a few gas stations which are few and far between. Not the type of place you'd want to break down. We only made a quick stop at a Starbucks to use their free Wi-Fi and load up on coffee (Deb needed to follow up on some hotel reservations and I posted a prewritten blog entry). Other than that we drove and drove, and drove some more, trying to get to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in time to see the sunset. We passed some interesting rock formations around Kingman, AZ and there was the occasional scenic expanse, but it's a dull, flat drive east.

The Hoover Dam drained an hour from our day as the security line crept ever so slowly toward the famed dam. The inspection was a visual one and I totally understand the need for a security presence, but it stole our daylight and we didn't have time to see the dam thing. The new bridge that they are building is quite spectacular and quite impressed both of us. It's a new engineering marvel built to carry the traffic flow once they stop allowing traffic to cross over the old one.

By the time we took the left turn, heading north to the rim, the sun was threatening low in the sky. We weren't the only travelers trying to make the sunset over the canyon and the drivers starting becoming reckless. One particular asshole in a white Mustang put everyone's lives at risk by passing on double yellows and following way too close. As a New Yorker, the only time I drive is when we rent a car during a trip. I've forgotten what it's like to drive on a daily basis; the commuting, the gridlock, the inconsideration of other drivers, and the dangers they represent. When I drive I fall back on what my severe Driver's Ed teacher taught me twenty years ago, among them: how to parallel park, not turning your wheels while waiting to make a left turn, and, most importantly, leaving one car length between you and the vehicle in front of you for every 10 miles an hour. So when I'm going 70 mph and I can't see the license plate of the car right behind me I tend to get nervous and then I get angry.

Luckily, we survived the other drivers, but unluckily the sun slipped behind the horizon just as we paid the $25 entrance fee. By the time we parked, the twilight was fading fast and then we got trapped behind a maze of chain link construction fences. We missed the golden glow we'd been hoping for but we sat near the edge and took in the awesome expanse as the canyon faded from hazy grey to hazier dark grey. We knew we'd see it again on the way back but it was disappointing to drive for six hours and miss it by mere minutes. When we started back toward the car it had gotten quite dark and the sliver of a moon provided little illuminative guidance. We wandered in circles and even mistakenly tried to break into a Kia that looked a lot like our car in the gathering darkness.

We left the park and went to a nearby steakhouse: The Yippee-Ei-O Steakhouse. It was filled with European tourists and us. We ordered a steak to split and added an appetizer that helped fulfill our "foods of the region" goal: rattlesnake. The thin strips of snakemeat were wrapped in a doughy breading and fried. I've heard all my life that rattlesnake tastes a lot like chicken but I found it more like wiry, overcooked calamari. It was fun to try but it's not going to replace mozzarella sticks or jalapeno poppers on the T.G.I.F. apps menu anytime soon. The rest of the food was surprisingly tasty, especially the biscuits with prickly pear jelly (another local tasty treat). The steak was well done—we eat ours medium rare, so I mean that in the pejorative sense. But it suffered slightly in comparison to the beefy perfection we'd experienced at L.A.'s Musso & Frank's a few nights prior. We paid our bill and departed, driving into the long night ahead. With no clue how long the night was going to be...

happenings in vegas

After a quick dip in the Sahara pool (which closes at 5pm for some reason) we returned to our 22nd floor room to enjoy the view and prepare for our night on the town. We'd failed to pack any nightlife duds into our tiny backpacks, so we decided to go Vegas casual. It was hard to tear ourselves away from the comfort of the room and the promise of "Hitch" on TBS, but the next thing we knew we were cruising down Las Vegas Boulevard in our snazzy, rented Hyundai Sonata. It was Saturday night and The Strip was packed to the gills, as we cruised at barely a half mile an hour, heading toward the New York-New York Casino at the opposite end.

While stopped a red light, I happened to glance over at the car to the right and saw a woman performing oral sex on her male companion. I know, I know, a clandestine BJ in Sin City, it hardly bears mention. But here's the twist: the woman was driving while the man relaxed in the passenger seat, one hand on her head and the other casually holding a drink, his elbow leaned on his open window. I told Deb to glance over to 3 o'clock and we both spied with amusement, waiting to see if they'd beat the light. They did not and she got the tap when the light turned green. We lost them in the intersection and never found out what became of those crazy kids. Speaking of kids, they were everywhere. And while I'm not saying that parents who drag their young children down Las Vegas Boulevard late on a Saturday night are bad parents; I really don't know what else to call them.

After almost an hour we had made it nearly halfway and I turned off the strip in disgust. First mistakenly venturing into a valet parking section, then making it to Frank Sinatra Boulevard, which ran parallel to the Strip, but was utterly void of traffic. We hit New York-New York (note the hyphen: New York-New York is a registered trademark, I guess they couldn't copyright the comma). Deb was keen on seeing it—and who wouldn't want to see a miniature version of the city they live in complete with slot machines? Vegas has Paris, Rome, Venice, and Monte Carlo, but no Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., or Dallas/Ft. Worth-themed casinos.

We walked the Strip for a while and on every corner there were crowds of immigrants wearing multi-colored "Girls! Girls! Girls!" t-shirt and handing out flyers that were tossed to the ground two steps later and littered the sidewalks like autumn leaves. I suppose those aforementioned children wandering the strip with their folks are going to have to learn about call girls sometime. Walking the strip is not like walking any other street as there are escalators and pedestrian bridges instead of crosswalks, and as someone who had recently tried to take a right turn driving, I can understand why. Vegas can be both overwhelming and dull at the same time, but I wanted Deb to see what the city had to offer so we wandered in and out of casinos, had a few drinks, and I even won $15 on a single slot pull at Ceasar's. Then we wandered back to the car and returned to the Sahara where I was eager to play some $1 blackjack.

The last time I was in Vegas I played two hands of blackjack at the Luxor at $10 each. In both hands I was showing 20, but the dealer got 21. I took that as a clear sign and gambled no more. Poor folks like me love $1 blackjack because we can spend $20 and play for at least a half hour, even with the worst of luck. I turned Andrew Jackson into 20 chips and started winning immediately. When I didn't win, I pushed, and when I lost it was usually only a buck. I even doubled-down and got the face card I needed. This was fun; the free drinks helped. Deb got bored and went to the room to nap and I kept winning. After doubling my money they shut down the table for the night and I headed up the room to retrieve Deb and do some more gambling.

Deb was in no mood to have the table games explained to her and played the slots instead. She went up ten bucks quickly, but kept playing and was reduced to her starting $5. This upset her to no end and I tried repeatedly to remind her "that's how they get you"and that she hadn't actually lost any money. We decided to call it a night before the night became the morning and Deb put one last buck into the "Sex and the City" machine and hit it big. Well, technically she hit it Charlotte and won $7 (Mr. Big would've payed out $338). We stumbled back to the room, which is the preferred way to enter a Vegas hotel room, and realized we would not be getting that early start.

video blog #3: chicago skyline from the signature lounge

video blog #2: new orleans dixieland music

video blog #1: new orleans street music

no fear nor loathing

Despite the fact that we had no set destination and no real idea where we were going, we drove south from Los Angeles and managed to find a Motel 6 in Long Beach only 10 minutes from the airport. We bought some two for a dollar tacos from the adjacent Jack in the Box and watched the second half of "Rocky" on TBS before hitting the hay. The next morning, we finally succeeded in finding that elusive In & Out Burger for a hearty breakfast and caught our plane to Las Vegas with time to spare. A quick note about In & Out Burger: they are fucking amazing; clean, fast, friendly, and inexpensive. I counted fifteen people working with Swiss watch precision. It makes you wonder how the other fast food giants can do so much wrong and be so successful and why there aren't more In & Out Burgers around the country.

The hour-long plane ride to Vegas resembled a high school party bus on it's way to the State Championship and there was much hooting and hollering upon our arrival. We caught a tram to a shuttle bus and ended up far from the airport at a rental car place that informed us that the state of Nevada has all kinds of extra rules, regulations, and insurances required to rent a car. After panicking over the extra fees which more than doubled our quoted price and destroyed our carefully orchestrated budget, we calmly called my credit card company and found out that they did indeed cover some (if not all) of the extras.

Nevada has a "loss of use" rule that if you get into an accident of any kind and the car becomes unrentable, you must pay to rent the car for the duration of its repairs. We breathed a heavy sigh of relief and thanked the lady at the counter who must deal with customers experiencing this rollercoaster of emotions a dozen times a day. She couldn't have been nicer or more patient with our stages of disbelief, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. When it was all over I wanted to give her a big hug. It really goes to show how important the lost art of customer service truly is.

On the advice of another very friendly lady in the car rental check-out booth, we checked out The Orleans. It proved beyond our means, though it was fun to see the Vegas version of a city we'd visited only days before; it was bigger and brighter, but lacked a certain je ne c'est qua. We ended up at our originally intended destination at the far end of the strip: The Sahara. Former home of Elvis and Ann Margaret, Sinatra and Dino, and a bargain to boot. Originally, we'd planned to hit the road running and try to make the Grand Canyon by nightfall but it was getting late and we'd been pushing ourselves for days. We needed a good night's sleep and what better place to get one than a casino in Sin City.