The minute we left the Grand Canyon, Arizona seemed to change. The hot red earth lost some of its color, the vegetation because less sparse, and we headed toward a group of mountains (or, comparing it to the Rockies, hills, I guess) in the distance. We began to climb in elevation, whipping along at 80 mph and only occasionally crossing exits that led to small towns.











The Dixie Chicks are fantastic traveling music.

I've been a long time gone now / maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down / but I've always found my way somehow / by taking the long way / taking the long way around

As we continued to drive and emerged from the other side of the mountains, the landscape changed again. It went back to desert. But it was a different kind of desert. It was brown, and sideways slanting rock formations jutted up toward the sky. We hit another set of hills, and signs implored us to turn our radios to an AM frequency to hear the latest traffic reports around the Hoover Dam.

The station informed us that there was construction around the Dam, and we were to drive slowly, and also everyone would be required to stop at a security checkpoint before the dam and was subject to a complete and thorough search.

We turned the station off and continued to drive. My left arm was getting a bit sunburned from being in the sun, so we decided to switch places. We stopped at a Love's to get gas and lunch and the wind was INSANE. It whipped across the landscape and lifted my hat off my head and once we got back on the road, pushed poor Beatrice around and around. Errol had to adjust the steering for the wind.

Once Errol was driving, I switched CDs and buried my nose in the book that he'd been reading while I'd been driving - a morbidly fascinating book about deaths in the Grand Canyon. Every so often, Errol would touch my shoulder and I'd look up to see a lovely bit of landscape, which I would promptly photograph.

A few miles outside of the Hoover Dam, I put the book away. We pulled into the aforementioned security checkpoint. A large woman in an official looking outfit stood up from her chair. We rolled the window down.

"Hey."

"Hello." I looked as chipper as possible.

She looked at the back of Beatrice.

"You got a lot of treasure back there."

"I'm moving," I said. Visions of having to unpack Beatrice danced unhappily in my head.

"Ah." She gave me a long look, and then said, "Carry on. Have a nice day."

"You too."

We drove to the Hoover Dam. We parked the car and got out.







The Hoover Dam is much smaller than I would have thought. It's not small, by any means, just not as big as I'd always imagined. We got back in the car and drove down, down towards it, crossing over it and doing our best to avoid pedestrians.

There was some confusion over where the state line for Nevada was ("Look at that plaque! Is that it? Is it?) but we made a general "Towanda!" as we entered the second-to-last state on our trip.

We left the Hoover Dam and continued onward.

More desert stretched out before us. We went through a town and then more desert. It seemed to go on forever.

Then, I saw it. Rising out of the desert like some shimmery mirage, I could see buildings. Errol saw it too.

"Is that... is that Vegas?"

"I think so."

We began to get onto the highways that loop around the city, and I'm really glad Errol was driving, because it was INSANE. People cut us off, threatened to kick our ass, honked their horns, drove like maniacs, and by the time we pulled into a Kmart to ask for directions, I was just about ready to keep driving to California.

Inside the Kmart, people were sitting at slot machines. My brain almost shut down.

I managed to get directions. We headed to the hotel - Circus Circus.





It was hot. It was unbelievably hot. It was 102 degrees, and dry as anything, and windy, and I felt like I could just melt into the sidewalk. We dragged our luggage through a mall, an amusement park, a casino, and into the lobby.

The line to check in was about 100 people deep, so Errol and I traded off standing in line and sitting down with all of the luggage. By the time we got to our room, we were half dead with exhaustion.

After resting for a bit, we met up with Errol's very awesome friend Tony, a guy who used to live in Vegas. He gave us a full tour of the strip, taking us past all the hotels and then around to the airport. It was strangely beautiful in the twilight - the distant mountains were all dusty and lovely.

Tony then took us to the one thing I wanted to do in Vegas: a buffet. He treated us to dinner and we stuffed ourselves silly at Mandalay Bay. I had shrimp and scallops with butter and seaweed salad and crab legs and pasta and salad with mozzarella cheese and pot stickers and fruit and cake and little fruit tarts and chocolate mousse tarts and ohmygod. They practically had to roll me out of there. I felt vaguely guilty about eating after I was full (which is, I believe, the very definition of gluttony) but it was amazing! He's Errol and Tony after the buffet.



We then went for a spin around the strip. Everywhere we walked, men with handfuls of shiny laminated cards tried to thrust advertisements for "GIRLS NOW" into my hands. Unbelievably beautiful people staggered around and talked loudly. It was garish and ostentatious and decadent and oddly enough, lovely. In its own bizarre way.





































































We stopped in the Wynn Casino and I gambled $2.50 on a game called Egypt. I didn't know how to play, so I just hit buttons and lost everything.



By the end of the night, I was dead. The dry wind and the smoke in the casinos had my eyes burning, and my feet hurt, and I was dehydrated, and I was exhausted. Vegas was nice, but I'd had my fill.

Tony dropped us back at the hotel. I crawled into bed and clutched the bedspread.

I'm not sure that Vegas agreed with me. But it was interesting, no doubt about that.

Today: Morro Bay, CA.