Las Vegas

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Highway to Hell

First, we had a lie in. Then, I bought a massive pack of water and shoved it in the freezer. I had visions of a breakdown on the desert in the middle of nowhere and knew that a cold tank of water would be a wonderful thing in such events.

Am I capable of driving us to Vegas unharmed? The voice in the head that always doubts one's own ability wasn't even talking to me. It just sat there smiling smugly in the brain, whispering "I don't even have to get involved in this one, you know you're useless, no point me telling you." Needless to say, I wasn't confident about the journey.

However, I decided it was a must. We had gone from one end of this huge country to the other. Seen great and unknown sights, met the weird and the wonderful, eaten the divine and the disgusting, drank the fine wines of the vineyards and the piss-water of the breweries, heard the music of the muses and the wretchings of the gutter. It had been an historic trip. But what it had lacked was real danger. We had seen no muggings in New York, no hurricanes in New Orleans, no shoot-outs in Texas, no drug overdoses in California. Wonderful as the trip had been, we had not yet faced our mortality. The drive was as close as we would get.

If it were to turn out badly, so what. It had been one hell of a trip, a full speed collision would have given it some finality at least. Below is a quote from one of my favourite authors:

"The ambiguous role of the car crash needs no elaboration—apart from our own deaths, the car crash is probably the most dramatic event in our lives, and in many cases the two will coincide. Aside from the fact that we generally own or are at the controls of the crashing vehicle, the car crash differs from other disasters in that it involves the most powerfully advertised commercial product of this century, an iconic entity that combines the elements of speed, power, dream and freedom within a highly stylized format that defuses any fears we may have of the inherent dangers of these violent and unstable machines."

The late JG Ballard has written extensively about the eroticism of the car crash, blending ideas from psychoanalysis, his observations of reactions to crashes, and his own warped mind. His ideas make a fascinating and disturbing read. However, having knowledge of the intellectualisation of the car crash is never a comforting thought when driving one of these violent and unstable machines.

Just as a religious persons faith may be tested when they are visited with great misfortune, so an atheists faith is tested when they must face their own mortality. But what happens when you are an agnostic, sitting on the fence, not ready to commit to one side or the other. Facing death forces one to pick a belief. Logic dictates that you pray to whatever god you might choose. If you're wrong, so be it, it was worth a shot. If you're right, maybe you just sneak your way into a lovely afterlife. This was my dilemma on the roads. Missing several turns on busy roads, the panic began to set in. Am I going to make this without divine intervention? Is it right to pray to a God I have no real faith in? In the end, I decided prayer was less important than focusing on the roads. Pretty soon we were on the highway/motorway. After getting out of San Diego, the route to Vegas is pretty much a straight road. It's very calming to be told by the GPS that you have no turn for 50 miles, and for that turn not even to be a real turn. Going 90 on quiet desert roads is much easier than going 60 on busy city ones.

Ed was very helpful with the helping explain the GPS. He was less so with the radio. The constant channel flipping had an infuriating effect on my already fragile psyche. Eventually he settled on a station with some country music. Which he doesn't even like, though I do. It was fairly repetitive and there were some ridiculous songs. "Our houses are protected/by the good Lord and a gun, and you might meet 'em both if you show up here not welcome son," was the main lyric of my favourite one.

After four and a half hours on the road we rested in Barstow. The Mexican waiter didn't understand when I asked for water. Or agua (I pronounced it wrong). Luckily a patron behind us ordered it for me. Then, after stretching, it was back out on the road again.

We came upon a brightly lit town in the middle of the desert. But it wasn't Vegas. Or at least it wasn't the main part. It was very confusing. We got past it and arrived safely in the city of sin.

The King is English Too

Garnet Avenue was supposed to be an exciting place. It had been recommended to us the night before. It was too far to walk, so we gave up after a short attempt.

Then we got a taxi to Fox Car Rentals, which is near the airport. About five minutes after getting to the rental place, I realised I had left my favourite aviator sunglasses and my gps device in the cab. C'est la vie. Ed was surprised I wasn't more pissed off at the whole thing but I was calm. I think I was just more focused on getting the car. We had several options, the cars at the level we had paid for had all been taken, so we had a pick of cars from the next level up, which were much nicer. We wondered around the lot looking for a good choice. I liked the look of a large white Jeep, but I knew I wouldn't feel comfortable driving such a large car and that the petrol would cost much more. So we grabbed a lovely black Chevrolet Malibu.

I had not properly driven a car for nearly a year and I had only gotten my licence just back then. I was fairly nervous with my limited experience I was going to be driving on roads that killed many far more skilled drivers every year. I thought I would probably crash the thing before leaving the rental companies parking lot, and then they would demand the car back. As it happened, the car handled beautifully and I drove the car back to the house without incident. Well...almost back to the house without incident.

Turning on to my uncle's street I was brimming with the pride and confidence from a successful drive where I had been more than comfortable and safe. My uncle has a garage and a large space outside the garage to park his cars. No-one in America uses their garage to park cars, they generally use it as storage space. Outside his garage my uncle had a Toyota pick-up truck parked all the way to the left of the space. On the other side he had a silver Mazda sports car. I turned into the drive way hard and fast, eager to finalise the successful journey.

"STOP. NO!" screamed Ed. But he was too late. I had driven our car into the side of the Mazda. I tried to reverse. It didn't work. I tried to go forward. It didn't work. I had stuck the Chevy to the sports car. Now I was worried. Ed and I tried to push the Chevy away from the Mazda. Then we tried to lift it. Then we tried doing the same things to the sports car. Nothing worked.

(I must point out that if any Fox Car Rental employee reading this is wondering if there was any damage to their car I must categorically state NO THERE WASN'T. When I returned the car at 5am one morning in July it was inspected for damage and passed that rigorous 30 second inspection. Any damage to said car must have been picked up after my return. Do not question Ed about this, firstly his name is a cunning pseudonym to protect this man's true identity and secondly, this man is a liar and a drunk.)

Eventually we got help from the neighbours. A kind stoner jacked up the Mazda and let it roll back so we could get our car out. That was my confidence gone. I was supposed to be driving to Vegas the next day. How was I going to take us for an eight hour drive when I couldn't go half an hour without an accident? I tried to sleep to calm down. However, it is very hard to sleep when the sun is shining brightly in to a room and you are hyped up with adrenaline from an accident. I took the car to the beach and tried to practice parking the car to regain a little confidence. I came centimetres away from getting the car stuck a second time. Also, there were police just cruising around the parking lot that stopped to watch me, curious as to why I was just sitting there re-parking a car. Then I looked into booking plane flights to avoid having to drive to Las Vegas. As it turns out, return flights would have cost a similar amount to the car rental. Sadly, most of our money had already gone on the car (well my money, Ed was just borrowing at this point).

We went to the theme park. The park had been there since 1925, and the rides had not really been improved upon since. I rode the roller-coaster I had always been scared of as a child/teenager. I don't think I ever really like the free fall feeling as much as most people. Secondly, any adrenaline rush from these rides was nothing to speeding down a motorway in a rented car knowing you barely know a thing about driving and have two lives at stake, including your own.

After the theme park, we go back to the house. The neighbours invite us up. We end up getting a Mexican dinner, drinking wine (boxed and bottled, at one point a combination of the two) and chatting a while. We were told a story about an old baseball player that had become a radio show host. Apparently, though he was a quality player in the pre-steroids era, he didn't have a strong grasp of the English language. One day a woman called up to complain, "Sir, I must complain, you don't know the Queen's English." To which the presenter replied something like,

"Old Duke knows the Queen's English, Old Duke knows the King is English too."

Then we watched Wrong Turn 2. That is, until the woman tried to sleep and couldn't because of the noise. Several arguments ensue as the man, slightly drunk, continues to strive to watch this classic. Until she gets angrier and he sobers up a little, then we are gently forced out of the house.

I decide we will have to leave for Vegas a few hours later than planned. Driving with no ability is bad enough, there was no point driving while possibly still a little drunk.