Park City to Las Vegas

The Rise and Shine in Park City is at the Rocky Mountain Raceway, but we have a long drive ahead of us and leave before the program, which consisted (by accounts we heard later that evening) of a car being incinerated in the middle of the track. 

The mountain surround Salt Lake City, as if we are in a coliseum.  There is unexpectedly heavy traffic in Salt Lake City, too - I don't know why, but I expected a slower pace.  It is no fun driving on these busy interstates, a tractor-trailer on each side of our tiny Mini, like Ulysses passing between Scylla and Charybdis!  I see a sign for Reno out here on this interstate system and that great Tom Waits song, "Wrong Side of the Road," starts going through my head:

 "Sink your teeth into my shoulder
dig your nails into my back
tell that little girl to let go of my sleeve;
you'll be a woman when I catch you
as you fall in love with me.
Then with my double barrel shotgun
and a whole box of shells
we'll celebrate the 4 of July
We'll do 100 mph
spendin' someone else's dough
and we'll drive all the way to Reno
on the wrong side of the road."

 

And (more traditionally) what about the great Johnny Cash and his famous misdeed?

 When I was just a baby my mama told me. Son,

Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

But we are on the way to Vegas today, not Reno, and we are on the right side of the road.  The Great Salt Lake is off to the north.  I learned that all of the rivers drain into this lake and there is no outlet except for evaporation, thus its salinity.  James Wickham, a local entrepreneur, reportedly released two whales here in 1875, and it is hard to imagine how they were transported across this terrain.  

Sagebrush again, and the trees are small and scrubby.  We climb up to a gorgeous vista, a placed called Silver Reef trail in the Red Cliffs Recreational Area.

Our long-suffering Mini Crew is waiting for us at the photo op, huge bins of water bottles nearby, for we discover that it is 100 degrees.  Folks out here like to describe this as "dry" heat, as if it is better to be baked than steamed.  Either way, you are cooked, and it is essential to drink lots and lots of water.  One nice by-product for those of us who are enjoying motoring across this terrain, however, is a complete absence of insects on the windshield!

We pass south into Arizona through a spectacular series of canyons along the Virgin River Gorge on our way to Las Vegas.  I may be over-using this word "spectacular" but it is difficult to describe such a road in anything but superlatives, every curve revealing more and more surprises.

We cross the Mojave Desert in 112-degree heat, and arrive in Las Vegas on some of the busiest roads we have driven on.   It climbs to 115 (and ultimately to 119) and the heat is just unbearable, heat that saps your strength entirely.  And we can't seem to get away from Trump - there is his hotel, prominent in the city skyline, his name spelled out arrogantly above us ordinary motoring folk.  He certainly likes his name!

Martha has arranged something special for us in Las Vegas, a renewal of our marriage vows in the "Tunnel of Love" at the Little White Wedding Chapel.  We and twenty-five or so other Mini owners arrive in a part of Town that I confess gave me a little pause - adult book stores, topless cabarets.

An Elvis impersonator is there (The King seems to be following us persistently on this trip!), and then the lady conducting the ceremony makes her appearance, tottering along next to Elvis.  I am completely won over by Miss Charlotte, Charlotte Richards, who we learn has married hundreds of people, many of them famous:  Michael Jordan, Joan Collins, Demi Moore.  Clearly she enjoys what she does, and she talks to us about love, enduring love, and what it means to love another person.  She has each of us hold hands, turn to face each other, and say repeat magic words of love and re-commitment.  A lovely lady and a beautiful ceremony, here in the sweltering heat, a little island of hope and promise in this city that blazes day and night with neon out in the desert.