Sunday, 20th July
(Ridgecrest)
Death Valley?
As soon as we wake up, a question starts roaming in our minds.
Today, will Death Valley be accessible? We quickly eat our donuts,
orange juice and coffee breakfast and then we try to call the
Death Valley visitor center. Nobody answers. Time passes and whatever
is our decision, it's time to make it. We call the Road Condition
service hoping they are able to tell us something. Unfortunately
the answer is what we expected. Death Valley is still inaccessible,
by all the entrances. We have no other choice than to continue
our trip and head to Las Vegas. Anyway unforeseen events are part
of a trip like this.
Las Vegas
The highway leading to Las Vegas is not especially interesting
and doesn't offer any special view. Barstow aside, we pass through
just a few little towns. In one of them we stop to fill the tank
and eat at a Denny's. As soon as we
pass the Nevada border, many little casinos appear on the roadside.
They look like little oases, with the only existence's reason
of giving hospitality to their casinos.
We're pretty excited. It doesn't happen everyday that you see
for the first time in your life something surely as unusual as
Las Vegas. We're still far away but we can already see many important
hotels' silhouettes. Among them, we also see our hotel, the Egyptian
style-inspired Luxor.
As soon as we leave I-15 we already are on the famous Strip,
the main Las Vegas street. Luxor is one of the first hotels we
encounter. There is no way to miss the huge black pyramid! Despite
the fact that it's not the weekend, we have some difficulty finding
parking in the huge Luxor lot. It takes a while but we finally
found our space. When we enter the pyramid we almost get lost.
The pyramid is huge and it's absolutely not easy to find the way
to the reception. We must stop a couple of times and ask information.
There are pretty long queues at the reception desk, even though
there are about twenty working receptionists. It takes about half
an hour to check-in and after taking the escalator (not elevator!
since it moves diagonally) we finally arrive to our room. Even
the room, like the hotel, has an Egyptian style. Our sheets have
pharaohs’ drawings!
We spend all the afternoon at the hotel's casino, especially because
outside it's too hot. We win something, just to loose it all later.
There is not much else to say since we spend the afternoon lazily
exploring our hotel and putting coins in some slot machine.
The Strip
As soon as the sun starts going down we go out for our first walk
along the Strip. We go in and out of the main hotels. Among all,
we've seen the Excalibur (medieval theme),
the New York New York (with roller coasts
passing near the Statue of Liberty), the Bellagio
(where we assist a couple of times to the fountain show), the
Cesar Palace (I'm from Rome and it's
funny to see how American imagine the eternal city) and the Paris
where we spend $25 per person to eat the best meal of all our
holidays. The Paris' buffet is really
unique not only for its food variety but also for the quality.
Whatever you want, you can have it at this all-you-can-eat buffet:
pasta, steaks, cheeses, ham, cakes...as much as you want. Maybe
this is the best thing we did in Las Vegas. Also the Paris' ceiling
is unusual. It looks like a moving sunset sky shown by (I suppose)
some projector.
Our walk on the Strip goes on and we just roam without any special
destination. The air, although it’s nighttime, is burning.
I've never felt anything like this in my life! If you close your
eyes, you could swear to be in the middle of the desert at midday!
It's mad, like all Las Vegas is.
We come back to our hotel after 1 a.m. and we stop again at the
casino. After losing some more money we go back to our room. It
is later than three o'clock when we fall into a heavy sleep.
Monday, 21st July
Las Vegas
We wake just in time for the Luxor's breakfast buffet. Even here
there's plenty of food and also the quality is not bad.
We pass the morning lazily in the hotel's swimming pool. A bit
of relaxation is what we need after all the hiking we've done
in the last weeks.
Despite the huge breakfast at 3 p.m., we're already extremely
hungry. Like wolves which know that this is the right time to
fill their stomachs because harder times are soon to come, we
feel we must take advantage of the famous Las Vegas buffets.
We take our car and we head to the buffet at the Main
Train Station. We have difficulty to finding a parking
spot. The hotel's parking is for guests only. Many other parking
areas are indicated by some huge FREE billboard's sign, but when
you get closer there is always some littler sign which keeps you
out. The Main Train Station is not among the most famous hotels
but it’s buffets have a good reputation. The price ($11)
is also not high at all. Even here food is good and varied. Maybe
not as good as at the Paris buffet but surely as varied. Our waiter
often stops to chat a bit with us and he tells us that he has
been to Italy (for a month long holiday! gosh, how much waiters
earn!!!). I don't know why but almost all the American I have
met which have been to Italy either as a child or with a child,
are still shocked by the Italian habit of pinching children's
cheeks. When they tell this memory they simulate the pinching
and scream loudly "bambino! bambino!".
Coming back to the Luxor, we stop at the "Largest Souvenir
Shop in World," which, saying the truth, offers not much
more than the usual stuff.
We park our car at the Luxor parking lot, we rest a bit and we're
again ready to take a walk on the Strip.
The impression we have about Las Vegas is that this city is surely
special. If you're able to pass through, taking in the first impression
where everything looks artificial and might be a spoof, and you're
able to accept Las Vegas for what it is, you'll surely enjoy your
stay. As you don't go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York looking for a slot machine, so you shouldn't seek in Las
Vegas the quiet of a natural park.
It's about midnight when we leave the thousand lights of Las Vegas.
Tomorrow we must wake up early and move to Zion. Not only to arrive
as soon as possible but also to recover the time-zone hour lost
passing from Nevada to Utah.
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