Vegas had well and truly left an impression on me.
Its a two edged sword really, its nice to stay in a beautiful room, but after a trip outside to see the 'real world' you start to understand why people come and never leave the hotel.
Having said that - the hotels are VERY well appointed, you want for nothing, for example our hotel had 22 restaurants inside it. If we weren't on a budget, it would have been cool to try them all out.
Some of them looked great, but at $40 for a steak, plus taxes, conversion and bank fees, you are paying about $60 for a meal. Given that $40 would fill our bike tanks twice, and take us roughly another 600km, to see who knows what - you start to feel a little less hungry!
The trip to Tonopah was about 376km, riding through the burning desert. We slept in, not very eager to leave our room with its King size bed, aircon and lavish fixtures. First time I had sat on an actual lounge in 4 weeks! We tried to stay another day - just to rest up a bit more, but it was going to cost us an extra $376 USD for another night. That was only a little less that what they had charged us for the two nights to begin with!! Fuck that!!
We slept in, and wore grumbly faces as we made 3 trips down to the bikes to re-attach the luggage we had brought up to the room. The carpark was boiling, even though it was under ground, and it was just a taster of what were weer about to ride into.
I went and bought us some big bottles of water that we emptied into our hydration packs, put on our riding gear, and running out of excuses to stay - we headed down to the bikes to saddle up.
Riding out of the Hotel Car park, and my T-shirt was already wet to the skin. The temp gauge on the bike already read 36 degrees underground, and I was waiting to see how much higher it would go.
Luckily, Vegas is easy to get out of, the whole town is made so it's easy to drive in and out. 800m after leaving the hotel and we were on the highway, and the temp gauge was already climbing. Pretty soon it topped 38.5 degrees. Imaging wearing a rain coat in that, and you are pretty much there in terms of what it feels like on the bike,
The GPS fucked us around a bit, and we had to back track once, but after a fuel stop, we were on Highway 95 that would take us all the way to Tonopah. There was absolutely nothing we wanted to see in Tonopah, we went there merely to waste a day, because our true destination was a place called Rachel on the Extraterrestrial Highway, but as luck would have it, they were fully booked and had very little in the way of accommodation, so a detour it was...
The temp gauge on my bike was now reading 39 degrees, and we were feeling it. Highway 95 was devoid of any kind of shade.. and corners for that matter - the whole thing was almost a dead straight shot.
There was just cactus and flat brush on the sides of the road - just stereotypical US desert.
We rode past a couple of Air force Bases, Including Creek AFB, where we saw a Predator drone coming in for a landing. The Controller must have fucked up, because he abandoned the approach and went around. It was still cool though! If you are not familiar with a predator drone - these are the thing the US uses to kill people at weddings, exterminate journalists, allied troops, their own troops, children, as well as destroy hospitals, schools, Aid stations and so forth.
We stopped as much as we could to cool down and drink water. The first place we stopped advertised 'BROTHEL' on a giant billboard. The attached service station (A brothel at a Servo? - yep! - must be classy!) also advertised itself as the "Area 51 Alien Centre."
Another hundred kms or so and we stopped at town called Beatty for lunch. We wasted about an hour here as the air conditioning was nice, and there was also a Jerky shop. I bought some 'Sweet and Spicy Brisket' Jerky. It was soft and delicious, but it was also $60 per pound! The $8 worth I bought was about the size of half a golf ball packed! The place is called 'Jeds Jerky' if you want to check it out online (https://www.jedsjerky.com/jerky-store)
Lunch dusted, we rode the final 150km to Tonopah through more desert and checked into our quirky hotel - The Tonopah Station Casino and Hotel. It was very olde-worlde with lots of antiques and other cool things to look at around the place. We had read reviews online of people complaining about it - but it was totally awesome.
Its a two edged sword really, its nice to stay in a beautiful room, but after a trip outside to see the 'real world' you start to understand why people come and never leave the hotel.
Having said that - the hotels are VERY well appointed, you want for nothing, for example our hotel had 22 restaurants inside it. If we weren't on a budget, it would have been cool to try them all out.
Some of them looked great, but at $40 for a steak, plus taxes, conversion and bank fees, you are paying about $60 for a meal. Given that $40 would fill our bike tanks twice, and take us roughly another 600km, to see who knows what - you start to feel a little less hungry!
The trip to Tonopah was about 376km, riding through the burning desert. We slept in, not very eager to leave our room with its King size bed, aircon and lavish fixtures. First time I had sat on an actual lounge in 4 weeks! We tried to stay another day - just to rest up a bit more, but it was going to cost us an extra $376 USD for another night. That was only a little less that what they had charged us for the two nights to begin with!! Fuck that!!
We slept in, and wore grumbly faces as we made 3 trips down to the bikes to re-attach the luggage we had brought up to the room. The carpark was boiling, even though it was under ground, and it was just a taster of what were weer about to ride into.
I went and bought us some big bottles of water that we emptied into our hydration packs, put on our riding gear, and running out of excuses to stay - we headed down to the bikes to saddle up.
Riding out of the Hotel Car park, and my T-shirt was already wet to the skin. The temp gauge on the bike already read 36 degrees underground, and I was waiting to see how much higher it would go.
Luckily, Vegas is easy to get out of, the whole town is made so it's easy to drive in and out. 800m after leaving the hotel and we were on the highway, and the temp gauge was already climbing. Pretty soon it topped 38.5 degrees. Imaging wearing a rain coat in that, and you are pretty much there in terms of what it feels like on the bike,
The GPS fucked us around a bit, and we had to back track once, but after a fuel stop, we were on Highway 95 that would take us all the way to Tonopah. There was absolutely nothing we wanted to see in Tonopah, we went there merely to waste a day, because our true destination was a place called Rachel on the Extraterrestrial Highway, but as luck would have it, they were fully booked and had very little in the way of accommodation, so a detour it was...
The temp gauge on my bike was now reading 39 degrees, and we were feeling it. Highway 95 was devoid of any kind of shade.. and corners for that matter - the whole thing was almost a dead straight shot.
There was just cactus and flat brush on the sides of the road - just stereotypical US desert.
We rode past a couple of Air force Bases, Including Creek AFB, where we saw a Predator drone coming in for a landing. The Controller must have fucked up, because he abandoned the approach and went around. It was still cool though! If you are not familiar with a predator drone - these are the thing the US uses to kill people at weddings, exterminate journalists, allied troops, their own troops, children, as well as destroy hospitals, schools, Aid stations and so forth.
We stopped as much as we could to cool down and drink water. The first place we stopped advertised 'BROTHEL' on a giant billboard. The attached service station (A brothel at a Servo? - yep! - must be classy!) also advertised itself as the "Area 51 Alien Centre."
Another hundred kms or so and we stopped at town called Beatty for lunch. We wasted about an hour here as the air conditioning was nice, and there was also a Jerky shop. I bought some 'Sweet and Spicy Brisket' Jerky. It was soft and delicious, but it was also $60 per pound! The $8 worth I bought was about the size of half a golf ball packed! The place is called 'Jeds Jerky' if you want to check it out online (https://www.jedsjerky.com/jerky-store)
Lunch dusted, we rode the final 150km to Tonopah through more desert and checked into our quirky hotel - The Tonopah Station Casino and Hotel. It was very olde-worlde with lots of antiques and other cool things to look at around the place. We had read reviews online of people complaining about it - but it was totally awesome.
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| Leaving Vegas - Apparently Dr Reefer can hook you up. |
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| apparently this *might* be an alien centre... |
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| a whole lotta fuck all. |
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| FLAAAAAAT. and a mountain! |
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| HILLS!!! in the middle of fuck all. |
"...littering and....smoking the reefer..."
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