At a rather sweltering 44°C we arrived back in Las Vegas. That good, we went back. That, and we fancied a crack at Death Valley and needed a decent venue to watch the England-USA World Cup group game. So where better than Vegas, obviously…
Alas, with a four day stay pencilled in, we checked into the Excalibur, lugging a laughable amount of luggage for ‘two’ people into our room (pay for two, sneak in the rest – standard), including crates of Coors Light, spirits and mixers. We each washed properly for the first time in three days; almost heavenly. We topped it off with a trip to the pool for the majority of the afternoon before dinner and pre-drinks.
We had a suitably crazy night out in LAX, somehow managing to be both the first people in (no cover charge, no queue) and last people out (no idea how). It was a rather amusing evening, with suitably copious amounts of unrepeatable antics engaged in. All were heavily and uncontrollably intoxicated. Ads had three drinks. I had two. Winty couldn’t even get a drink, and proceeded to get frequently lost. Some girl even spilt her drink on my hand. Oh the madness. The event was completed by running into a random girl from Loughborough who – worryingly, I guess – recognised me as a customer from the club (Wild, previously Pulse) she used to work at. Small world at times, I guess…
The following morning, predictably, was a complete write-off. We stumbled towards the vicinity of the pool sometime around the lunch hour. Hair of the dog, and all that… things started picking up. A middle-aged woman amusingly asked to have her photograph with me because apparently her daughter was back home, couldn’t come to LA or something, and I was ‘‘just [her] daughter’s type.’’ Bless. Amusing nonetheless. The sun rather inconsiderately hid behind some clouds later on, so we relaxed to a re-run of the Celtics beating the Lakers in the fourth NBA finals game. I still don’t really get how their ‘final’ takes seven matches. My knowledge of a final is that it should be a one off. It’s kind of like the old Intertoto Cup, where you’d have a bemusing twelve semi-finalists, six finalists, and three winners. Unfathomably bizarre…
Early evening we ordered the largest pizza any of us had ever heard of, seen, or eaten, in our lives. T’was a 28 incher. Monstrous. Please get a tape measure out to visualise it. Using my immense GCSE-based knowledge of mathematics and Pi, that’s a pizza with a circumference of over 85 inches. Eight five blooming inches of pizza. No wonder security didn’t let the delivery guy through and forced us to collect it from the lobby. No wonder witty Americans simultaneously remarked “that’s a big pizza” and – in a rare correctly-understood application of sarcasm – “that’s a small pizza.” No wonder we had to wait for an empty lift to get it up to our room.
That night we had a few chilled beverages in the New York New York hotel, which itself is another typically-Vegas establishment, with proper New York-styled bars around the edge of the casino (including an Irish bar, obviously). We also poked our heads in at the MGM, but somewhat selfishly the lions had decided to go for a nap and we were forced to make do with the big golden one out front.
The following morning we went to fetch our rental car for the Death Valley day trip (escape vans don’t permit you to take their vans into Death Valley due to the obscenely high temperatures that, for instance, allow you to fry an egg on the hood of your van). Carrying the remains of our pizza (in its box) out to the van through the lobby drew yet more jaw-dropped commentary from those passing by.
Whilst waiting for Winty to return, a couple kindly gave us a load of their unused tinned/packeted food and offered us their ice box and other travelling apparel, as they were flying home that afternoon and had neither the room nor the need for such items any more. It was another example of how friendly and kind-hearted the average American is. Jolly nice of them.
Anyways, niceties aside, moments later Winty rocks up… in a bloody convertible Mustang! Outrageous antics, Mr Winterflood. But I bloody love it. One of THE iconic American automobiles, a convertible Mustang, for a day-trip through one of the hottest places on the earth… chill out. So, top down, we hit the road feeling like we’d found our own version of Hunter S Thompson’s red shark.
Our Death Valley day trip turned out to be one of the best days of the tour thus far. Our enjoyment was aided somewhat by being able to casually cruise at well over three figures, as well as being able to bust out countless nought-to-sixties in whatever relatively miniscule time frame the car was capable of (certainly compared to our van!). Car based antics aside, the actual park itself was a decidedly memorable experience.
We started at Zabriskie Point (part-famed by the eponymous film) with cracking views of the bizarre landscape, before pausing briefly in the visitor centre for a quick peruse of the area’s history; most informative. Back out on the road we headed over to the Sand Dunes, which seemed horribly out of place compared to the relatively rocky terrain surrounding them. We were even treated to an impromptu sand storm, which despite being rather novel was actually rather unpleasant. But who gives…
We made our way along Artist’s Drive, which lived up to its name – a delightful winding one-way road which gave great views of bizarrely coloured and oddly shaped rocks, hillsides and mountain sides. This is where having a convertible really came into its own – it’s so much easier to appreciate the surrounding environment without being caged by windows and partitions and roofs and so on. We also poked our heads in at the Devil’s Golf Course – a crazy place in the middle of the valley which earned its name by being such a dangerously unstable and uneven terrain that only the Devil could play golf on it.
Finally we visited Badwater Basin… the lowest point in North America, 282ft below sea level. We walked out to near the middle and as the last light of the day crept behind the mountains in the distance, we surveyed the mad white (from salt) landscape, and indulged ourselves with a few out-of-perspective photographs. Another crazy, crazy place…
Amusingly, and entirely unsurprisingly given our manner of driving throughout the day, we nearly ran out of fuel on the way back to Vegas, with the tank saying EMPTY/0 MILES REMAINING for the best part of ten miles, enforcing a fuel stop when we eventually found a petrol station – a petrol station which also just so happened to have a bar of its own. Surely you’ve got to love being able to get petrol and get drunk at the same place. Regardless, the bar actually had a delightful small-town America / hickey vibe – cowboys and cowgirls, live Country/Western band playing in the corner, an audience full of Stetson-wearers, a bemused bargirl unable to decipher my English accent (I was understood on my fourth attempt), and many quizzical stares from the regulars when I strolled past them in search of the restroom. Good ole America…
Driving back along the Vegas’s strip in the Mustang made us feel a million dollars… that was a great experience [check the bottom of this blog for a load of photos from touring the strip...]. The lit-up colours that line the streets of Vegas are really quite something to behold. We crowned a great day by finding a suitably seedy and grim casino/hotel on the edge of town… another fine establishment, eventually bedding down with the following morning’s England-USA game on our minds.
We had a mad rush in the morning to return the Mustang (a tearful goodbye), collect our van, and make it back in time for kick off… stumbling across a different bar to the one we planned to hit (way too overcrowded) thanks to the kind advice of a group of stars-and-stripe-emblazoned American ‘soccer’ fans. It wasn’t just US soccer shirts and US flags, but stars-n-stripes bandanas and flip-flops. They were mad for it. Steve Gerrard’s early goal was gleefully greeted by us without an ounce of sheepishness, but when Rob Green somehow bundled Clint Dempsey’s insipid left-footed shot (he’s right-footed) into the net, the entirety of the bar went crazy. They bloody loved it. Us, less so. Still, every cloud and all that… it transpired that every US goal meant a free beer for everyone in the bar – even us English folk! Naturally we started praying for a 7-6 England victory…
Obviously disappointed with the draw we sank another beverage and tucked into some grub, claimed a photo or two with the good-humoured Americans, and eventually hit the road. Next up for us was a mad dash through the National Parks of southern Utah: Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Arches. We couldn’t wait…
Strip photos:
