35 - Back to Tinsel Town.

The drive back to Las Vegas was a retracing more or less of the way we had previously traversed. Unsurprisingly nothing had changed in the interim, not even the cold weather. We did get lost a little again, in Kingman this time, and had to resort for guidance to an indoor leisure centre with bowling alleys, bars and of course the inevitable amusement + gaming machines. We stopped near the end of the journey to take a closer look at the Hoover Dam which is not pretty but is impressive in scale and sheer size. It had a road tunnel going way down through the mountain although strictly for use by the workforce only. This is one of a number of dams on the Colorado River feeding off Lake Mead, a famous resort in itself, with all the others at the far northern end of the Grand Canyon. It's about 30 miles out of Vegas and supplies most of the electricity for the area. Anyway after a good look around we climbed back into the mobile and turned for Glitter Town. Incredibly the sun had by now peeped back out and it started at last to get a little warmer. Yeehaw!

After the by now familiar dodgem track again, we got caught up in the downtown rush hour traffic - it was about 6 pm - with the result that we couldn't find the hotel we had planned to grace with our presence. Instead we found a kind of apartment village that looked okay and we took the plunge there. In fact it was the only place with a handy off street car parking "frontage" and this is what really swung it. The "suite" was very comfortable and after resting a while we "hit the town".

We drove to the end of the Strip, planted the wheels and started "jaywalking". First port of call was the Sahara Hotel and Casino, a big arena of the gambling bug. A quick entry (to avoid the celebrity press - after all we'd never live it down back home if we appeared in the local equivalent of Hello, what with all the friggin' financial scandals breaking all over the place in Hibernia these times) and scanning of the joint made us wonder if there was a clone shop somewhere in the city. All the punters looked the same as the last time i.e. blue rinse grannies, loud boys with JR hats and hatcheck type birds with short skirts and long pockets. We scouted around for the grub hall and entered with great expectation. After all we'd heard that Las Vegas had in recent years become the good eating mecca of the US of A.

Straight up this matronly broad collared us and began to escort us to our table. The Lady Ambassador informed her that we were from quaint ole Ireland whereupon this decidedly odd individual launched into a long and loud tirade against the awful English saying how feckin' mean and rude they were. I never knew we looked so anti Brit. This continued for a while at the table and when she had relieved herself of that particular burden she tried to fill us in on half of her life story. Basically it seems that she was working to put her son through college and would resign the job immediately this particular parental burden was relieved and head off travelling all over the world, except for England of course. We were gobsmacked with all this from a complete, and we suspected slightly unstable, strange personage whom we had never met before. Jeez some of these States people are a quare breed alright. It was the only time during the whole trip of almost 8 weeks duration that Bernadette never got a word in and I suppose that in itself was some sort of remarkable achievement for Las Vegas.

The meal was quite good and we enjoyed watching the other patrones wondering who was a high roller, who was from Sicily and who were the IRS. Afterwards we went in search of a place I particularly wanted to have a look at - Circus Circus. This is a kind of family Casino and Leisure Centre with free live circus acts every hour. We caught a trapeze effort, enjoying that young feeling again and knocking snotty kids out of the way to get a decent vantage point.

Later we walked about outside on the Strip for a while and would you believe it had the mother and father of a traffic jam, not unlike Drumcondra Road back in Dublin during the early Eighties which many, including Tony who drove for CIE at the time, may well have reason never to forget. The demon drink eventually got the better of our consciousness and we dived into a "bottle shop" to get a small stock for our nightcaps back at the ranch. Here there was a mix up in charging and paying. Basically the "purse minder" for the night was left short in change and said so. It took two of Uncle Sam's workforce to amend the situation which naively seemed to us to involve just some very simple mental mathematics. Was this an example of the "dumbing down" of the American Schooling system we've been hearing about in recent times? To our more European Social Democrat outlook the dearth of the more traditional type classical and with the 3 Rs education seems to place at some disadvantage (in the life and career stakes) those not born with a silver spoon.  Anyway it was sorted out after about 15 minutes! and we relocated the wheels and with a daring "let's chance it in the dark" decision, we braved the gridlock of Vegas (instead of Dublin for a change) to arrive safely back at base without further incident.

There wasn't much time next morning to do a lot other than get up (late as nearly always), get fed, pay the digs and head back for the Airport. I'm glad to say the weather was very pleasant on that Sunday morning coming down and we were definitely back in summer again. I dropped Ber and the gear at the Airport Terminal, asked her not to move until I got back and then went on to return the car. No problem there and I caught the courtesy bus back to the Terminal. She was still in the same spot as when I left and I've never found out if she might have made a dime or two busking while I was gone.

The Airport was the same "passing the buck machines" experience as when we had arrived, except in reverse. As it turned out our flight to San Francisco was delayed 2 hours. Remarkably this was the only real travel hitch in the whole round trip journey but it did provide an unscheduled opportunity for cakes and coffee and for sampling the hermetically "sealed with glass" walled smoking rooms. The reason for glass walls wasn't at all clear as the fog inside totally obscured the view. It also afforded an opportunity to reflect in me head about the whole Nevada experience. I think I may subconsciously have decided at that stage to record it all in some fashion when we got home. My main overall impression at the time was how it seemed to encapsulate the fundamental contradictions in the American Way. We were in the middle of a large desert in which there were apparently totally contradictory aspects cheek by jowl. Take for example the paranoia and secrecy surrounding Area 51 alongside the licentious freedom of Vegas enticing folk to lose their shirts on the turn of a card or wheel. What I couldn't shake from my mind was the utterly stark contrast of the lack of licence (e.g. freedom of movement) in respect of an important matter as opposed to the almost total lack of control (except for the lack of loot of course) in respect of the circus and fun element of life. Perhaps the place truly is a metaphor for the whole country?