Las Vegas, Nevada

My Las Vegas road trip is undoubtedly the longest (distance) road trip that I ever attempted in college. This happened during the spring semester of my third year. Arriving back at school from home after Christmas break in January, 1997, I knew that it was time once more for a road trip. My friend Scott again collaborated with me on this project. Our goal to was to go somewhere warm, because the extremely cold Iowa winter temperatures were freezing our spirits.

The Martin Luther King Jr, holiday fell on the second or third monday after the beginning of the new semester, and it was agreed upon that this would be the best weekend to attempt our road trip. We decided several weeks before our planned departure date that Las Vegas would be the best destination, and so I completed all of the trip planning well before we were to leave.

Scott and I intended to leave Iowa on the Friday before the holiday, at noon. On the Thursday morning before we were to embark, a storm moved into the area. Soon the dark clouds began snowing heavily. The university announced that afternoon classes were canceled for the day, which Scott and I took as an omen, and decide it was time for us to go. We frantically loaded our stuff into my car and departed in the early afternoon on Thursday, leaving with only a shoestring and a prayer.

The driving conditions were not fun throughout all of Iowa and most of Nebraska. The roads were almost completely covered with snow, and strong winds were causing large drifts to form. I was mostly worried about the mechanical state of my car, however. I had just finished re-building and installing the engine in the Shadow, and the car had only been driven a few hundred miles with the new engine when we left school. I checked the oil level at each gas stop, and most of my concern was related to the observation that each time I checked the oil it had dropped away from the full mark, and I had to add oil.

The engine was using oil by burning it, because the O-rings on the pistons had not yet sealed to the cylinder walls. To my great relief, the rings finally sealed somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, as I noticed that the engine stopped consuming oil. We continued on our journey through Colorado, through the Eisenhower Tunnel, to the flat open land of western Colorado.

Exhausted after many hours of driving, we parked near a McDonald's in a small town on the western edge of Colorado. We fell asleep to the pre-dawn glow of the eastern sky and awoke after several short hours of sleep, feeling groggy and unrested. Undaunted, we pushed on westward, entering Utah. The scenery near the interstate in Utah proved to be quite boring, with only a few huge, sparsely scattered rock formations breaking the monotony of the flat snow-frosted terrain. At one point we encountered a sign on the edge of a small town warning that there were no places to stop for gas or food for 115 miles. I thought this was both funny and scary, and cautiously checked my gas gauge before cruising past the small town without stopping. Our goal of reaching a warmer clime was unrealized as we drove through Utah, for the temperatures were still below freezing. We continued our journey southwest, and finally reached the edge of Utah.

I-15 just barely clips the very northwestern corner of Arizona, and between Utah and Nevada there is only about 20 or 30 miles of interstate road in Arizona. This tiny stretch of road is very unique, however, because it bridges the high elevation in Utah with the low flatlands of southern Nevada. The speed limit along I-15 in Arizona is only 55 miles per hour, but since everyone else on the road completely ignored this, we did as well. Driving was exciting and even somewhat scary at times, flying down this steep, curvy section of road cut between rocky clif faces. As we drove, the temperature got warmer, and Scott and I stopped along the side of one particularly beautiful section of road to stretch.

We got out of the car, I grabbed my camera, and we started exploring the immediate area. The temperature was chilly, in the lower fifties, but very enticing to us after the sub-zero icebox we called home. I snapped a few pictures and marveled at the loud reverberations of speeding cars off the canyon walls. Scott and I checked out a stream flowing nearby, and walked around a bit more before hopping back into the car and back onto the interstate.

After entering Nevada, the road became straight and flat as we entered the desert plains near Las Vegas. We were very excited about reaching our destination after such a long drive. Scott and I cruised into Las Vegas in full style, with our windows down, the outside temperature a comparatively balmy 60 or 65 degrees, not having a clue where we should go. We watched the interstate signs closely and made our way to the Strip. After parking in the Circus Circus lot, we got out and headed for the casinos.

The first place we went to was, naturally, Circus Circus. We strolled into this huge hotel/casino and followed our ears to the slot machines. Entering a main gambling room, the first machines we encountered were nickel slots titled "Haywire". Digging in our pockets produced four nickels. We thought, "What the hell," sat down at the machines, and tossed in the nickels. On Scott's last coin, he hit a big payout, so we were in business. I believe the slots were set to pay out, because we began to accumulate a lot of silver; in fact, we nearly filled up two buckets. These machines were fun because they gave us the joy of winning. Every now and then after the machine had paid out on a win, it would immediately begin flashing and making strange noises. The dials would then spin again, landing in the exact same spot as before, and the machine again paid out the same amount. The funny part is, the machines weren't malfunctioning; they were supposed to do this. That's why the title of the game was Haywire. And it was hilarious. I remember that Scott got a couple of huge double jackpots because the machine went haywire. We were laughing, winning, and having a great time.

At one point while we were playing haywire, a female server approached us and inquired what we'd like to drink. I thought, "Why not?" and asked for a gin & tonic or some such thing. Keep in mind that on this trip, neither of us were legally old enough to be having this much fun, but I suppose we looked old enough, and no-one was anal retentive enough to bother asking us. She returned with our drinks several minutes later, and while I dug around in my pocket for some cash, she walked off. I wondered aloud, "Where did that woman go? How much is this drink?", when a woman playing a nearby slot machine informed me that drinks are free while gambling. I jubilantly exclaimed, "Oh hell yes!" and kept playing.

When we decided we'd won enough nickels, Scott and I went to the changer booth and cashed it all in. I seem to remember that we each had won around 20 dollars. We threw a few tokens at the dollar slots, which promptly ate them up and gave us nothing in return. Scott faired well with the video poker, while I screwed up and lost my last remaining profits. I think I blew about 20 more dollars of my own money on gambling at various games through the trip; I think Scott lost a little more.

After Circus Circus, we decided to find a place to stay for the night before hitting the strip again. We eventually found an econo-lodge or some such thing, and Scott generously paid for our room with his father's credit card. We took off for the strip once more, found a place to park, and started walking.

For anyone who's never walked down the Vegas strip on a cool winter evening, I have to say that it is a very unique experience. The place was bustling with activity, with tourists and gamblers everywhere. The bright colored displays with hundreds and thousands of lights, moving in crazy patterns, beckoning everyone to come spend. Good food was cheap; there were signs calling hungry travelers to stop in for a prime rib dinner for only four dollars. Walking on the sidewalk, we were accosted by advertisers on every corner, handing out stupid pamphlets for this and that. Mostly it was about escort services and adult entertainment.

Walking along the strip, we checked out the MGM Grand, with its ultra-futuristic architecture and green glowing lights. We saw a casino which looked like a scale model of New York, and went inside the Excalibur. Eventually we went back to the motel. Sitting in the room, drinking something or other, we started paging through the yellow pages under the "Escort Services" heading. The ads were funny. Scott and I were wondering how much they cost, so we called one of the services and inquired. The lady on the phone said that they charged something outrageous like $120 an hour. Now theoretically prostitution is illegal in Vegas, but it sure seemed to us that this organization should be providing some seriously valuable services for as much as they charged. Neither Scott nor I was willing to fork over the cash at that particular time, and we both thought the idea had questionable merit, so we slept alone that night.

The next morning, we awoke to quasi-warm temperatures outside, in the upper 60s and lower 70s. I did something to my car in the morning, and we walked around the city and got cheap food during the day. In the evening, after darkness had fallen, I dug out a map and an address written on a small scrap of paper, and we drove to our destination. Getting out of the car, I put my shades on and walked up to the apartment door. We had arrived at the home of our beautiful and talented high school friend, Terri.

A minute or two after I knocked on the door, it meekly cracked open a couple of inches. I couldn't really tell who was inside, and the voice asked who was there. I took off my shades and said it was me, and a surprised Terri popped out of the doorway and gave us hugs. She had been cautious because some weird thing had happened to her neighbor or roommate. We were glad to see each other, and Scott and I sat around with Terri for a couple of hours talking about everything that had happened since we'd last been together. It was great to see Terri, but she had to leave around 10:00 or 11:00pm to go to a vocal audition for a local band. We wished her luck, and she left for the tryout. Scott and I were very tired, so we quickly fell asleep on her couches.

I awoke in the morning to find that dear Terri, bless her heart, had covered Scott and myself in warm blankets during the night. After a few minutes I realized that Scott was also awake, and we decided that we should start heading back home. Terri was asleep, so after some contemplation we woke her up and said goodbye. We were sad to part company with such a fine woman, but we had a schedule to try and keep. Instead of heading north on I-15 and returning home the way we had come, we took highway 93 southeast into Arizona. We stopped at the Hoover Dam, walked around, read the plaques, took some pictures, and headed back down to I-40.

We took I-40 straight east across Arizona, stopping in Flagstaff for lunch. This northern Arizona town had just received the gift of several feet of snow during the previous day. Scott and I walked into the Perkin's along an 18" trough carved through the snow on the sidewalk. After lunch, we left Flagstaff, heading east. We cranked Tori's album, "Boys for Pele" as we passed a sign leading to Winslow, Arizona.

I drove quickly through the rest of Arizona, and as the Shadow voyaged on through western New Mexico, the sun went down. We began descending altitude on long slowly curving stretches of interstate, and all of a sudden we were upon Albuquerque. As we cruised east towards the city, the road upon which we rode was several hundred feet higher than the city, which lay before us spread out on a flat plain. The lights of the city lit the earth miles in front of us like a million tangled Christmas lights. I filled up the Shadow at a gas station in eastern Albuquerque, after driving more than 320 miles without stopping.

We pushed on into the night, through New Mexico, the Texas panhandle, and finally Oklahoma. We got to Oklahoma City around 4:00am, and I was getting extremely tired. We turned north onto I-35 and headed towards Kansas. I popped a couple of Vivarin to help me stay awake, which turned out to be a bad idea, because rather than alleviating my exhaustion, they just made me tired and jittery. I was still having trouble staying awake, but after downing the Vivarin I couldn't stop shaking either. By the time we came upon Wichita, as the sun was rising, I believe that I may have been hallucinating from sleep deprivation. Driving was hard, and to make matters worse Scott had been sleeping the whole time, which was a major reason for my tiredness. He complained that it was too cold to stay awake.

We finally stopped in this bogus town called Towanda, just north of Wichita, after I'd been driving continuously for 22 hours. I managed to get about 1-2 hours of sleep at Roxanne's parent's house, and then we drove the remaining 6 hours home.

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