day 19 -- vegas to ely, NV

I skipped the obligatory ride across the hoover dam since I'd decided to head north into the heart of nevada instead of continuing down into death valley. visiting badwater in the heart of august was appealing, but really seeing the valley requires some off-roading for which the big ol' bike isn't well-suited. and given the visit-places-I'd-otherwise-not-see thing, a run across the middle of nevada made more sense. death valley and the rest of socal deserve more leisurely inspection some sunny spring. cruised the strip at the wrong time of day, and then back into the searing desert, but this time earlier in the morning and heading into the uplands sooner. watched for the elevation-sensitive band of joshua trees come and go. geology on parade...reclining mudstone and sandstone mountains on one side, lava surges on the other, from octahedral magma columns to immense pillows of lava formed from undersea eruptions (just a guess on that one). towns that are more meeting place for far-flung ranches than proper focused communities. I stopped in alamo, NV for the midmorning coke-and-snickers ice cream bar perk-up, not expecting much from the darkly tinted windows across from the gas pumps. but inside was a service station slash convenience store slash grocery store slash bank slash deli slash chinese restaurant. and way more people there than the town (such as it was) could possibly hold. the UPS guy attempting to make deliveries to folks in the restaurant instead of driving out to their ranches, high school kids idling, a guy working out some sort of post-divorce financial arrangement that would avoid a trip to far-off pioche. down through the dazzling but sun-washed-out rainbow canyon into the surprisingly green railroad town of caliente and back into the formerly mining hills to pioche. it was there that more rain-in-the-desert stymied me. up to that point I was happy to have taken US93 north toward US50 so that I could run more of the 'loneliest highway' across the state, but the alternative and even-more-isolated 'extraterrestrial highway' could possibly have steered me around the storm. as it was I started out of pioche on the last valley stretch toward US50...pointed directly into a fierce-looking thunderstorm. headed back to pioche, which is an old mining town that looks to be sliding down a steep hillside -- it even has the skeleton of a cabled incline on display. had a couple of beers at a dark dark pub with a real live intact wild west bar that was far fancier than the beer-in-a-fridge selection. looked out again...storm hadn't budged. to the cafe for battered shrimp and soup and random chatter from a hyperactive kid who wanted to be anywhere but that lunch counter. and still the storm was parked in the same place, though it had moved slightly east and the purplest out of the way.

san francisco was getting no closer, so off I went. suffice it to say that I got wet, but not that wet. enough that the leather was still damp the next day, and luggage was soaked through, but no big deal. that didn't stop me from losing the whole zen-of-rain sense...and I grew angrier when I realized there was no one to blame. I tried the storm for not moving more quickly, but that didn't make too much sense. I tried the weather report I'd halfheartedly checked, but there was indeed a solid blotch of green there too. I blamed a conspiracy that had led me to believe that it never rained in the desert. nothing worked. all told it only rained on me for about 15 minutes, but I still found myself cruising along at, um, too many mph afterwards until I remembered that there wasn't any more rain to outrun.

I had set sights on a quiet campground at the hickison petroglyphs a little farther west on the loneliest highway, but the rain was still threatening when I reached the now-casino town of ely, and in the event it rained off and on throughout the night. I really didn't need anymore dreary casino experience, but I figured it was better to stay at the 'historic' hotel nevada that the motel 6, so I parked around the corner from all the other cruisers (several with gas cans strapped to the back fender, apparently anticipating that the overplayed 'loneliest highway' bit was accurate). a free 10-oz beer at the 'club' across the street, a free hand of blackjack downstairs, and a free margarita came with the room (in which katharine hepburn may or may not have stayed), but apart from wondering who would come to nowhere to gamble I couldn't really muster much interest. I suppose it's convenient to the utah crowd, on the way for US50 aficionadoes. who knows. the ely strip is retro-70s enough (I'm sure the casinos are no older than that), and the neon reflecting off rainy streets was picturesque, but for a town crammed with motels there was a whole lotta nothing going on. slot addicts, barflies, trudging families. the hotel nevada was plastered with signs advising guests that the water may scald them. chalking this delightful quirk up to the age of the building (1929), there were poems, placards, and serious cautions on this subject, some right next to each other. something about low-flow shower heads, but dubious considering there are plenty of 19th century buildings in which the water works just fine. borderline charming/chintzy.

day 18 -- vegas on a tuesday morning

really vegas has no appeal to me. I know I'm supposed to marvel at the excess, the fabulous garish lights, the supposedly vivid reflection of . but reveling in the consciously artificial strikes me as more than a little forced...what's really human about vegas is not the cultural studies-ready casino fantasy landscape, aging pop stars on the marquee, even the miracle of a booming city in the desert. the real vegas is gambling addiction and unrealistic expectation. I know that sounds over-dramatic...people go to vegas to gamble and eat cheap food and go to fake paris. but head to all the casinos off the strip where the hard-core gamblers go for better luck -- texas station in far north vegas, the 'fremont experience' downtown, the slot machines in the grocery store. talk to the young woman who's stuck in vegas pushing the cocktail waitress angle after her boyfriend the 'professional poker player' has crapped out and headed home. the ironic/hipster detachment is fun, ripe for knowingly snide comments, but ignoring the rest is tough.

but I was there...the original plan was to head through death valley on a loop to the bay, I figured I should ride across hoover dam and see the strip at least once, it was a on schedule for an oil change on the bike...and, most importantly, I had an accommodation offer from a high school teammate who lives in palatial digs with a pool on the mountainous southern edge of metro LV. I knew this can-do kid first from the just-turned-15 summer of 1988 and parents driving us to hersheypark to earn $3.35/hour for running crappy carnival games on the 'midway' while wearing yellow shirts with blue collars and short blue shorts, memorizing the nametag-color administrative hierarchy (red-green-blue-brown-gold), and watching rob fogelman get unceremoniously canned for stealing the proceeds. the can-do kid comes from a can-do family (I think I flew once in a plane his dad had built from scratch -- okay, just kidding), which explains why 1) he started his own business right after college, which is impressive to me, whose most entrepreneurial moves involve opening online checking accounts that promise free $100 and cashing in my discover cash back rewards; 2) he bicycled across the country -- solo -- around the same time, therefore making this whole trip look a little less remarkable; 3) he excavated and built his own pool complex in his backyard; 4) he still has a job in the rapidly shrinking housing-construction industry; and 5) he once attempted to 'debrade' severely gravel-burned hands by himself in the shower. and so on...fitness serious and still has the junior charles atlas physique he had in high school, whitewater rafts around the world, runs up a mountain every day. you get the picture. he settled in vegas after rocketing up the company ladder on the strength of specializing in efficiency (energy and production), bought the big house at the peak of the real estate boom and is gamely hanging on through the downturn. anyway, he's not really a vegas guy in that he's way too sensible and frugal to wrap his head around the whole gamble-and-excess game...and he's seen the city chew and spit a few too many eager souls.

so he knows the strip, but he's taken advantage of the outdoor mountain west more than embraced the air conditioning and taxi culture. so the highlight of the stay (ahead of an oil change in the middle of nowhere and a bus ride downtown, lounging by the pool, and of course the random mania of catching up on 20 intervening years) was a speedy hike up black mountain behind his neighborhood. this was slightly intimidating given the can-do kid's generally aggressive approach to motion, so naturally I strapped on the no-padding vibrams for the rocky ascent and rockier descent. in the event the atmospherics were sublime...dark rain clouds threatened to the south all day without any actual rain (the virga effect, I learned from c-dk), and you can imagine the dramatic lighting when the sun neared the horizon. (better with pics, but I figured a dangling camera on a rock scramble wasn't the best idea.) the hike is a steady walk through basalt-strewn desert dotted with joshua trees and a ball-of-string-like red cactus followed by a short clamber up the top of the ridge. from that vantage: the dusty city in one direction and endless empty desert in the other, purple skies to the south, yellow setting sun west...and a sudden rattle from a pile of rocks a couple of feet from where I was balancing on rocks. we'd seen a baby rattler on the way up, and here was a not-quite-grown version helpfully announcing his presence before I stepped on him. alas, no camera. anyway, have I mentioned how sublime the light was? even better on the way down balding grass a livid yellow, deep purple backdrop, rocks glowing black. all this is federally managed land, and the can-do kid provided an interesting perspective on negotiations on expanding vegas, mediation compromises, and the like. some notes...las vegas is actually far more water-efficient than its near-neighbor in the desert (los angeles), notably because most of its residents understand they live in a desert, unlike angelenos. but native las vegans (there are a handful) are more likely to want an exotically green front yard than are immigrants. so its share in depleting the colorado is far less than its garish footprint...and on that score the electricity that lights up the strip doesn't come from the dam just down the road. hoover was built -- and its allocations contracted -- long before vegas was more than an outpost, so this desert town is powered by a coal-fired generating station of all things.

back to the land of planned exurbs in the desert. I worked at removing the layer of dead insects from the chrome and then some grill and wine and whiskey and predictable musing on 20 years past. the can-do kid's roommate and sidekick appeared...both youngsters from youngstown attracted to the bright lights and alternately philosophical and indifferent about their prospects in this harsh city. the official roommate had apparently rescued the younger one when the latter's planned stay with aunt and uncle fell through. easy to shower unsolicited concern on these bold choices, but these women at least looked to have some control over where they were headed, unlike the chain-smoking shadows I found parked in front of slots in 'the fremont experience' at 10am on a tuesday morning.