We're two weeks into our year long trip, and never expected to see and learn so much this early on... After all, this part of the journey was only ever intended to be a way of transporting our life's belongings to Quebec as cheaply as possible. Just a drive, really...
We left Calgary in a blizzard. It had been snowing all day - which made pushing our mattress to the dump in the alley even more challenging. We had managed to sell most of our furniture, our TV, the couch, the dining table and chairs... But beyond that - whatever did not fit into our 2001 Chrysler Neon had seen it's final days. Getting rid of "stuff" isn't easy for me. I feel sentimental about plates and mugs we bought at the dollar store...
Crossing the border into the US with a car full of junk isn't easy when you're a Canadian-Brit combo that stumble over questions such as "Home address?" and "claim" to be travelling to Quebec via Arizona. I tend to shake uncontrollably when faced with any inquiring authority, and look incredibly guilty. Luckily I had printed our planned itinerary and had our flight confirmation from Montreal to London, along with tickets to events in the UK "which I wouldn't have if we were planning to live and work illegally, smuggle drugs, or kill people in America."
It's amazing how dull and empty the locations en-route to Las Vegas are. It's as though someone ventured the 15 South when it was a dirt road some couple hundred years ago, and after days of mind-numbing boredom they declared "that's enough - we need booze, we need boobs and we must throw away our money for fun. I don't care if we are in the middle of a desert, I can wait no longer. Here - is where we will build SIN CITY."
Helena, Montana is surprisingly more exciting than Salt Lake City. Surprising because it is difficult to find people in Helena. Most shops, cafes and businesses don signs stating that they are either closed or closing down. The streets are empty, and it is eerie. I saw one man with a handle-bar mustache the length of my arm. He was eating a sandwich.
Salt Lake City is worse than empty. It's conservative. Utah state law declares you cannot sell alcohol exceeding 4% ABV in any supermarket (a fact we learned when asking a member of staff at 'Linns", in Hurricane, if they sold wine... She went bright red and looked at us as if we had just asked if they sold the latest rampant rabbit dildo and buckets of lube, before responding "no... no, you have to go to a special store for that... the nearest one's pretty far away.") IF you are lucky enough to find a restaurant that sells alcohol, you MUST order food to accompany it, and your ID is taken away and scanned. You are also immediately identified as an "outsider who makes terrible life choices." So, finding ourselves in The Green Pig, we were baffled by their request that all within it "Party like a pig"... and can only assume this is an attempt to promote their extensive menu of starchy comestibles, most of which come deep-fried with cheese.
Fortunately there is other euphoria inducing stimuli in Utah which dilute the withdrawal symptoms one might experience from a lack of Sailor Jerrys. Zion National Park is one of the most beautiful and naturally magnificent places I have ever seen. And further to that, the organisation within it is immaculate. There is a calming sense of ease and common sense - as if, finally, somewhere in the world people are actually operating in the most obviously efficient way. Rather than allowing thousands of cars to creep bumper-to-bumper through the Canyon's scenic route, polluting the surrounding greenery - they run a shuttle bus service. Frequent, comfortable, and free. An interesting and informative audio guide is presented on each air-conditioned bus, with directions to trail heads at each stop along the way. Each trail head has toilets, free drinking water to re-fill your bottles, and tips on what to take on your hike... Genius. Obvious.
The Narrows were a section of the Canyon we were particularly keen to explore. But, being Spring, the river was higher than normal and about as cold as it could be without solidifying into ice. You cannot access The Narrows without wading through the water. We didn't get very far, but it was invigorating nonetheless. There is enough to see to spend a week in Zion National Park. We were there for two days. Elsewhere close by is Red Cliffs Recreational Area and Quail Creek State Park, both peacefully romantic, stunning, and well worth trekking around.
There was only space for two tent pitches at the St. George KOA campground in Southern Utah, which was otherwise filled with large and luxurious RV's. Next to us were four guys from Canmore. (Of course. Only Canadians would camp at this elevation in early April.) Despite our Albertan connection - (this sturdy common-ground one might consider an excellent conversation starter) - they didn't speak. Not just to us. They didn't speak to each other. Maybe an average of four words per day between them. Avid mountain bikers, they spent great lengths of time fiddling with tyres, stretching and looking at maps whilst holding a compass. Perhaps they made the assumption that we did NOT have anything in common, as we're a bit chubby and appeared to have bought 10 suitcases and an enormous wall-hanging, camping. We warned them of the hard ground and advised they use larger pegs. Their response was to look at us as if we are totally stupid and had never been camping before in our lives. Had we told them we had camped in Europe and North Africa for more than three months, they never would have believed us. (We still don't believe it sometimes.)
Not a great start for high-fiving euphoria. Other people we had opportunity to mingle with in Utah were an abundance of Mormon in Walmart. Smartly dressed good-looking men, and long sleeved, high collared, button up cloaks and a hair-style combining Elvis quiffs with arse-length plaits for all the not-so-good-looking women. We also noticed they all wore ear-pieces. All of them. Honestly. Constant Mormon-communication? We have no idea. But it was the cleanest, neatest, most futuristic Walmart we've ever been in. Each aisle had video playing, advertising the nearby content, in which a woman suspiciously resembling Nigella Lawson was sampling the food on sale, and declaring how delicious it was. Very strange... Perhaps Mormon people require this sort of evidence before they commit to something...??
Although the days were hot, at night the temperature would drop as low as zero and our breakfast-bananas would freeze. We wore hoodies and hats inside our sleeping bags, and shivered our way to dawn. Despite this, the breathe-easy freedom felt (and feels) wonderful. No longer are we living for the weekend, but for every moment of every day. At last we are not constantly seeking tomorrow, but are all-present in the routineless, magical now.
In Vegas we had a hotel booked. The Golden Gate Casino. Where they have valet parking. Our car did not look like the others. Golden Gate is on Fremont Street. The "old" strip. Original downtown. We liked it for it's retro charm and cheaper prices. (Sin City is definitely not a place for people on a budget, and needless to say we were not able to stick to ours.) Fremont boasts the largest projection screen in the world, and it is there they show the likes of Jim Morrison, Bon Jovi and Roger Daltry nightly - their fabulous music pounding the street and evoking the most adventurous dance moves in all who stroll it. Girls, nearly naked, gyrate on exterior bars. Elvis impersonators, tarot card readers, contortionists, brides, break dancers and drunk men in g-strings with regrettable tattoos, entertainingly line the road with boundless energy.
The insanity of Vegas Blvd (the main strip) bombards your senses immediately. At first, it's gargantuan exorbitance woos you, overwhelming you with awe. At least, that's how I felt. But for me, the wonderment was quickly tainted by an immense sense of wrongness - generated not through reason or logic, but unignorable gut instinct. (A bit like my unexplained vegetarianism. It's been 14 years since I last ate meat, and even as a child I picked it out of food or hid it in the garden. To this day it's not because I have strong moral opinions and have to fight off alluring whiffs of bacon because I love piglets, it's just instinctively WRONG to me - and I also think it smells like poo.) I love most things in extremities, I love booze, I love food, I love extravagant people and unique places, and I like to be jaw-droppingly impressed, so it baffles me slightly as to why I don't love Vegas.
For seven hours we walked through some of the biggest hotel resorts on the strip, from the iconic Las Vegas sign at the south end of the Boulevard, to the tacky Stratosphere. Casino after casino after casino. Buzzing with people, and loud uplifting music 24 hours a day. Little old ladies in all their finery sit at machines, cigarette in one hand, gin on the table, gambling away their pensions and children's inheritance so the hotel can afford to build another fake world landmark. Everything is overpriced. Everything is about greed. Excess. At every turn, money will be sucked from you by one of the richest places on the planet. But it's OK because "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
From sweaty over-crowded nightclubs offering bottle service for up to $500,000, to the relative peace of our historic hotel (built 1906), we absorbed the varied but always wild ambiance. We ate and drank to excess and our body-clocks flipped almost a full 180. For four days we soaked up the experience and enjoyed the eye-opening education of a place that is (hopefully) akin to nowhere else on earth.
BUT, one thing to be said for certain is that we met a bunch of lovely people. Undeniably, everybody is here seeking the time of their lives. Mostly they have chosen to spend a few thousand on this particular holiday. They look forward to it for months and expectations are high. About the only thing that's a sure bet in Vegas is that it will most definitely exceed expectation for those people, and they'll be glad they came. But I'd rather put my pennies elsewhere...
We left Calgary in a blizzard. It had been snowing all day - which made pushing our mattress to the dump in the alley even more challenging. We had managed to sell most of our furniture, our TV, the couch, the dining table and chairs... But beyond that - whatever did not fit into our 2001 Chrysler Neon had seen it's final days. Getting rid of "stuff" isn't easy for me. I feel sentimental about plates and mugs we bought at the dollar store...
Crossing the border into the US with a car full of junk isn't easy when you're a Canadian-Brit combo that stumble over questions such as "Home address?" and "claim" to be travelling to Quebec via Arizona. I tend to shake uncontrollably when faced with any inquiring authority, and look incredibly guilty. Luckily I had printed our planned itinerary and had our flight confirmation from Montreal to London, along with tickets to events in the UK "which I wouldn't have if we were planning to live and work illegally, smuggle drugs, or kill people in America."
It's amazing how dull and empty the locations en-route to Las Vegas are. It's as though someone ventured the 15 South when it was a dirt road some couple hundred years ago, and after days of mind-numbing boredom they declared "that's enough - we need booze, we need boobs and we must throw away our money for fun. I don't care if we are in the middle of a desert, I can wait no longer. Here - is where we will build SIN CITY."
Helena, Montana is surprisingly more exciting than Salt Lake City. Surprising because it is difficult to find people in Helena. Most shops, cafes and businesses don signs stating that they are either closed or closing down. The streets are empty, and it is eerie. I saw one man with a handle-bar mustache the length of my arm. He was eating a sandwich.
Salt Lake City is worse than empty. It's conservative. Utah state law declares you cannot sell alcohol exceeding 4% ABV in any supermarket (a fact we learned when asking a member of staff at 'Linns", in Hurricane, if they sold wine... She went bright red and looked at us as if we had just asked if they sold the latest rampant rabbit dildo and buckets of lube, before responding "no... no, you have to go to a special store for that... the nearest one's pretty far away.") IF you are lucky enough to find a restaurant that sells alcohol, you MUST order food to accompany it, and your ID is taken away and scanned. You are also immediately identified as an "outsider who makes terrible life choices." So, finding ourselves in The Green Pig, we were baffled by their request that all within it "Party like a pig"... and can only assume this is an attempt to promote their extensive menu of starchy comestibles, most of which come deep-fried with cheese.
Fortunately there is other euphoria inducing stimuli in Utah which dilute the withdrawal symptoms one might experience from a lack of Sailor Jerrys. Zion National Park is one of the most beautiful and naturally magnificent places I have ever seen. And further to that, the organisation within it is immaculate. There is a calming sense of ease and common sense - as if, finally, somewhere in the world people are actually operating in the most obviously efficient way. Rather than allowing thousands of cars to creep bumper-to-bumper through the Canyon's scenic route, polluting the surrounding greenery - they run a shuttle bus service. Frequent, comfortable, and free. An interesting and informative audio guide is presented on each air-conditioned bus, with directions to trail heads at each stop along the way. Each trail head has toilets, free drinking water to re-fill your bottles, and tips on what to take on your hike... Genius. Obvious.
The Narrows were a section of the Canyon we were particularly keen to explore. But, being Spring, the river was higher than normal and about as cold as it could be without solidifying into ice. You cannot access The Narrows without wading through the water. We didn't get very far, but it was invigorating nonetheless. There is enough to see to spend a week in Zion National Park. We were there for two days. Elsewhere close by is Red Cliffs Recreational Area and Quail Creek State Park, both peacefully romantic, stunning, and well worth trekking around.
There was only space for two tent pitches at the St. George KOA campground in Southern Utah, which was otherwise filled with large and luxurious RV's. Next to us were four guys from Canmore. (Of course. Only Canadians would camp at this elevation in early April.) Despite our Albertan connection - (this sturdy common-ground one might consider an excellent conversation starter) - they didn't speak. Not just to us. They didn't speak to each other. Maybe an average of four words per day between them. Avid mountain bikers, they spent great lengths of time fiddling with tyres, stretching and looking at maps whilst holding a compass. Perhaps they made the assumption that we did NOT have anything in common, as we're a bit chubby and appeared to have bought 10 suitcases and an enormous wall-hanging, camping. We warned them of the hard ground and advised they use larger pegs. Their response was to look at us as if we are totally stupid and had never been camping before in our lives. Had we told them we had camped in Europe and North Africa for more than three months, they never would have believed us. (We still don't believe it sometimes.)
Not a great start for high-fiving euphoria. Other people we had opportunity to mingle with in Utah were an abundance of Mormon in Walmart. Smartly dressed good-looking men, and long sleeved, high collared, button up cloaks and a hair-style combining Elvis quiffs with arse-length plaits for all the not-so-good-looking women. We also noticed they all wore ear-pieces. All of them. Honestly. Constant Mormon-communication? We have no idea. But it was the cleanest, neatest, most futuristic Walmart we've ever been in. Each aisle had video playing, advertising the nearby content, in which a woman suspiciously resembling Nigella Lawson was sampling the food on sale, and declaring how delicious it was. Very strange... Perhaps Mormon people require this sort of evidence before they commit to something...??
Although the days were hot, at night the temperature would drop as low as zero and our breakfast-bananas would freeze. We wore hoodies and hats inside our sleeping bags, and shivered our way to dawn. Despite this, the breathe-easy freedom felt (and feels) wonderful. No longer are we living for the weekend, but for every moment of every day. At last we are not constantly seeking tomorrow, but are all-present in the routineless, magical now.
In Vegas we had a hotel booked. The Golden Gate Casino. Where they have valet parking. Our car did not look like the others. Golden Gate is on Fremont Street. The "old" strip. Original downtown. We liked it for it's retro charm and cheaper prices. (Sin City is definitely not a place for people on a budget, and needless to say we were not able to stick to ours.) Fremont boasts the largest projection screen in the world, and it is there they show the likes of Jim Morrison, Bon Jovi and Roger Daltry nightly - their fabulous music pounding the street and evoking the most adventurous dance moves in all who stroll it. Girls, nearly naked, gyrate on exterior bars. Elvis impersonators, tarot card readers, contortionists, brides, break dancers and drunk men in g-strings with regrettable tattoos, entertainingly line the road with boundless energy.
The insanity of Vegas Blvd (the main strip) bombards your senses immediately. At first, it's gargantuan exorbitance woos you, overwhelming you with awe. At least, that's how I felt. But for me, the wonderment was quickly tainted by an immense sense of wrongness - generated not through reason or logic, but unignorable gut instinct. (A bit like my unexplained vegetarianism. It's been 14 years since I last ate meat, and even as a child I picked it out of food or hid it in the garden. To this day it's not because I have strong moral opinions and have to fight off alluring whiffs of bacon because I love piglets, it's just instinctively WRONG to me - and I also think it smells like poo.) I love most things in extremities, I love booze, I love food, I love extravagant people and unique places, and I like to be jaw-droppingly impressed, so it baffles me slightly as to why I don't love Vegas.
For seven hours we walked through some of the biggest hotel resorts on the strip, from the iconic Las Vegas sign at the south end of the Boulevard, to the tacky Stratosphere. Casino after casino after casino. Buzzing with people, and loud uplifting music 24 hours a day. Little old ladies in all their finery sit at machines, cigarette in one hand, gin on the table, gambling away their pensions and children's inheritance so the hotel can afford to build another fake world landmark. Everything is overpriced. Everything is about greed. Excess. At every turn, money will be sucked from you by one of the richest places on the planet. But it's OK because "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
From sweaty over-crowded nightclubs offering bottle service for up to $500,000, to the relative peace of our historic hotel (built 1906), we absorbed the varied but always wild ambiance. We ate and drank to excess and our body-clocks flipped almost a full 180. For four days we soaked up the experience and enjoyed the eye-opening education of a place that is (hopefully) akin to nowhere else on earth.
BUT, one thing to be said for certain is that we met a bunch of lovely people. Undeniably, everybody is here seeking the time of their lives. Mostly they have chosen to spend a few thousand on this particular holiday. They look forward to it for months and expectations are high. About the only thing that's a sure bet in Vegas is that it will most definitely exceed expectation for those people, and they'll be glad they came. But I'd rather put my pennies elsewhere...