Alamo to Vegas

We only had a few hundred km to do to reach Vegas today. With a late check in at the Palazzo Hotel, we slept in, and had a nice/gross breakfast from the servo/takeaway which consisted of a breakfast Burrito (Sausage, Bacon, Eggs hash browns, cheese) and a couple of donuts.

It all looked good on the shelf in the store, ok -so breakfast burrito... doesn't sound to good, but when your options are limited, and those options mostly always involve something disgustingly sweet - You try and find anything savory. Even the bread tastes sweet!

Anyways - it was pretty good as I said, and we slobbed around in bed till 10 before getting the bikes packed and bugging out.

We rode the couple of hundred kms left to Vegas in the desert heat, the temp gauge on the bike reading 38.5 degrees at one stage.

About 20kmn form Vegas we saw 'the strip' some what blending into the desert on the horizon.

We edged ever closer, until we finally turned into our hotel parking lot about 12:00pm.

Luckily, we found an underground car park beneath the Hotel, which was a little cooler (even then it was over 30) and I headed upstairs to check in.

It was a massive hotel, and immediately the ice cold air con was awesome. I still had all my bike gear on sans my helmet, but nobody gave a shit really. it took a while to check in as they were busy, but I eventually got our room key and headed back underground to get our stuff off the bike.

I got back to the car park to find Megan sitting on the ground saying she felt faint, so we grabbed our stuff and retreated to the relief of the air conditioning.

We had managed to snag a King Suite for a good price online. It was on the 35th floor of the Palazzo, and had a great view of the Golf course and the Wynn hotel next door. We showered and headed out to see what was what.

We walked around the Hotel, which shares itself with 'The Venetian' next door - Yes - The one with all of the tacky Venice re-production stuff, including St Marcs square, the Rialoto bridge and the Bridge of Sighs. It was all quite an eye full. And dealing with it runs through a few stages:


1) Wonder
Walking around- everything looks shiny and amazing, you can't believe that they actually built this stuff here! It's all looks cool, and is awe-inspiring! You want to walk around to see and sample everything!

2) Cracks
After you walk in one direction seeing everything once, you walk back to your room,, and pass everything a second time. You notice that there are cracks in all of the 'marble' fixtures, and you see they are not cracks at all - but cast lines, where the pieces have been popped out of a mold on mass, and then skinned in veneer, or painted to look like stone. Looking up - you notice the faux wooden beams in the roof and the 'plastic metal' light fixtures

3) Indifference
Despite your best efforts, get lost on the way back to your room, and have to run the gauntlet of the shop assistants trying to give you 'free samples' or really just bite on the Lure that they have flicked right into your path to give your their sales pitch. You feel like a fish swimming upstream, dodging through the rapids of people coming the other way with zero spatial awareness, all the while trying not to get caught by the hawkers. You start to feel like you are just meat with money, and everyone wants to put their hand in your pocket

4) Disgust
To get away from the stores, slot machines and tables, you strike out further from your hotel, and wade your way down the main strip to see the monuments Casinos have built to show how good they are at taking money from people. Its hot and noisy. But it's not the temperature or the sounds that are really putting you off - Its the smell.
Every time you pass any kind of garden, there is the overpowering stench of feral cat urine. Everytime you walk through the cool air spilling out of an open pub door onto the street, you get the smell of vomit and stale beer. Everytime you walk across a man hole for the sewer, the stank of what must be a river of shit and stagnant water boiling in the summer sun wafts up your nose. On every street corner, there are desperate people handing out cards for hookers to come directly to your room. On every other street corner, there's a homeless person begging for a few dollars. Most of them have signs, some are funny, some are just sad. But all of them are depressing and remind you of how you could easily find rock bottom in a place like this.

5) Contempt
Lying in bed, you've come home from your walk and almost managed to scrub the smell of outside off your skin in your luxurious shower. That gets you thinking about plumbing. Thinking about the plumbing makes you think that somewhere in this human shrine to excess, there is a pipe- a giant concrete intestine that carries the sludgy excreta of this town to a destination of some unspeakable festering sea of filth. Stretching out to the horizon. Beneath the streets, there is a literal river of shit, piss, blood and vomit. Hosed off the streets. Wiped off the walls. Scrubbed from the carpet and tipped down the drain. Ready to start again with a fresh slate to defile anew. You think about all the people, all of the drunks, shoveling food into their flapping noisy mouths, drinking till they literally sleep in their own filth.

riding through the desert once more

pics of the room follow...