Death Valley to Vegas

I am writing from a trendish coffe shop organic store in the middle of southern Utah, a beautiful valley along a River named Virgin. The valley is green all along in the middle of this huge desert.

But this is today. Now I have to write about yesterday.

Setting off from LA was not easy, both on an emotional level and on a practical level too since there is quite some traffic leaving the city. Setting off on the 210 and turning north on the 15 towards Las Vegas, this was the plan, but as the 15 was quite busy, and Vegas not far I decided to make a detour and drive through Death Valley.

Approaching the area for the first time I saw the water cooling indicator of the car going beyond half way up where it stood the past three months. The air is quite hot. As you get over a some hills and dive into Death Valley the bottom of it, which stands under sea level, is covered in white sand. But there is life, lots of life even in this terrible heat. it is 5 in the afternoon, and the temperature is well over 43 degrees c°

I take a gravel road through what is calle "immigrant pass" the indicator continue to raise. As the road goes up and the speed decreases the hand reaches closes the black zone that indicates (too) high temperature. A panel on the road says, Radiator water 1 mile, the water was not there. After a couple of miles I stop and wait, hood open, for a quarter of an hour. Finally I make it over the pass. After some time I get on the route 90 again. And it takes me to Zabriskie Point!!!

A coyote has stopped in the middle of the road to eat a run-over reptile. I stop and wait for it to finish his meal and leave me going over my way. This is the first coyote I see. I am very happy I have seen one.

Driving through death valley to emerge back to new (fake) life in Las Vegas is sort of ironic. So I am very happy as I get to Vegas just as sun has set and neon lights are taking over.

Mine must be one of the cheapest motels on Vegas strip. However, it has a wedding chapel, two white limousines parked in front and the doors painted in pink. No wireless.

I walk all the way on the strip, which is made of these giant hotels/casinos/theme parks, Sharah, Circus, Treasure Island, on the stroll tons of visitors and tourists and lines of peoples offering cards of the flourishing prostitution industry. When I arrive in the one copied from Venice I can hardly believe it, the houses, the bridges, the gondola, S Marco. The gondolieris are singing italian songs, and the tourists are clapping their hands, as their gondolas slides through crystal-clear water.

The Paris one does not look much like Parisian street, more like austria or the netherlands, but the effect is good enough. And the crepes are real.