What A Nightmare

I hate Las Vegas.

Yes, that's where I'm sitting right now. We got into town at a decent time--Around 8pm or so. We took the exit off the freeway and went right for The Strip. We enjoyed looking all the sights and sounds for a few miles, but then tried to focus on finding a motel. After getting totally frustrated by the gridlock and roads that didn't go through, I did endless circling around the town. I kept ending up in giant parking areas, or on-ramps or anything but the roads I wanted to be on. At about 9pm I finally found a motel. After we unloaded all our stuff I went out for some beer and supplies and came back only to find that our room had no refrigerator! I was pissed and went down to the desk and argued with the guy there. Every motel I had ever been in had a fridge until I came to this town, so I was sure he was trying to fuck me. In disgust, I told him to cancel everything, that I was going to get my stuff and I was leaving.

Boy was that a mistake.

They don't have many "motels" in this town. They are are huge hotels instead. After driving around for two hours and making a few inquiry's, I was literally crying out of frustration. I was totally frazzled. Sarah was crying too, and I felt so bad for her. I uprooted us for a stupid fridge. We were going to go downtown later and look at lights and sights. I even resignedly went back to the same motel with my tail between my legs, hoping to get my room back. No, it was gone. One of the motels I had inquired at earlier was a bit overpriced, but we went back and got in. We finally were settled at almost midnight. While Sarah was getting settled, I went back out to get us something to eat. I went to In & Out Burger, which she had expressed a desire to buy a t-shirt from (a lot of her friends had them). I bought us a couple of burgers and bought her a shirt like she wanted. I felt it was the least I could do. She seemed pretty pleased when I finally found my way back to the motel. I'm so sorry Sarah... I blew it big time and screwed you out of something you wanted to see on this trip.

I hate this town.

From where I left off in the last blog entry, we had headed back out onto the freeways through still-smoky air around Salt Lake City, and went to Antelope Island State Park, which is smack in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. We walked out to the lake so Sarah could go into it. Neither she or I felt like going swimming in it because we had just gotten dressed a short time earlier, but in retrospect, we probably should have. After all, they had showers and everything there. Although if we had, we would have gotten to our next destination even later than we did. There are very few things alive in and around that lake. It's full of brine shrimp, as well as packed with birds that feed on them. It is also completely lined with a thick carpet of brine flies. It's a weird phenomenon watching them rise up like a blurry dark wave when you walk through them. They also make a humming noise when they do because there are so many of them.

From there we drove south of the city and cut east through the mountains. Destination: Moab, Utah. The terrain got more and more beautiful as we went. The road cuts through canyons of red colored rock, and the surrounding terrain looking like it was fresh out of an old western movie. We were actually headed to the Arches State Park near Moab, and the closer we got, the hotter it got. By the time we reached The Arches, I'm sure it was a solid 100 or better. We explored The Arches for a couple hours in awe. I have never seen such natural wonder in my life. After we saw all that, we mentally scratched Bryce Canyon off our list. I mean, how could it compare? It was basically the same sort of formations, only not colored the beautiful deep red that The Arches area stuff was. When we finally got a motel in Moab, it was almost 7pm. It felt good to lie down. Especially to Sarah, who had been feeling sick the last few days.

She had been hot, tired, and not wanting to eat or drink enough. After watching her and trying everything I could do to make her more comfortable, I had pretty much decided that there wasn't much more I could do. I decided that she was feeling homesick and that it was really taking its toll on her. I even offered to take her to an airport and send her back home as soon as possible if she wanted, but she didn't want to do that. As our trip progressed, we kept getting farther and farther from home, and she kept feeling very badly. My suspicions were confirmed when she actually voiced the same conclusion that I had come up with about anxiety and homesickness. When we left Moab and headed south to The Grand Canyon, she was exactly the same--Listless, not hungry, feeling sick. But when we hit a point in the road where we were actually turning West, in other words, the furthest point in our vacation, she took a total 180 turn--Becoming her usual talkative and cheerful self.

We left Moab early in the morning. The day before I had wondered who in their right mind would live somewhere so far out like that, but when I saw the cliffs highlighted by the morning sun I was in awe. It was truly a beautiful sight. We left at that time because it was cool outside and we needed to take advantage of that. As we headed south toward Flagstaff, she was marginally better, but mostly because the air temp was comfortable and we had lots of sights to marvel at as we went, like Monument Valley for example. When I made a turn onto a highway that led o the south rim of The Grand Canyon, Sarah got teary eyed, asking when we were going to head to Las Vegas. I told her that as of that moment we were indeed headed toward Las Vegas. In her mind, when we turned at the Grand Canyon Park sign she thought that we were going to detour off the highway for miles and miles to see The Grand Canyon, then have to backtrack miles and miles to get back to where we turned. When I told her no, that this highway a "through" road and we were indeed heading to Las Vegas at that point, she turned suddenly cheerful, and enjoyed every minute of the rest of the trip.

The Grand Canyon was a sight to behold. Neither she or I were prepared for the scale of it. You can look at pictures all your life, but until you stand on the rim and look down at it, you will never know. The rim drive we took had several spots to pull off and take pictures, so we did at every one. It was very cool! Naturally we stopped at a store and bought a few things at the end like all good tourists do.

From there we headed back out on the road. Sarah suffered another slight relapse until we got to a point were we started seeing the mileage signs to Vegas, then she perked up again. The highway we took led us right over Hoover Dam, so we got lots of pictures of that as well. It's VERY hard to get pictures of that thing because it's so big, but we tried. We were lucky we got there when we did, because they actually close the highway over top of it every evening at 8pm for construction.

Then we got to Vegas...