Wednesday, September 12, 2007

further adventures in the big empty

Things got progressively sputtery with the van after an anfternoon swim in the SOUTH LLANO RIVER, and we had to abort our cannonball run to el paso and put in for the night here at the HILLS MOTEL in junction, TX. We have a date a mechanic in the morning in this classic dusty little town in the middle of…well, texas. All the typical visions you may have in your head are pretty much true, including the 1-story motel surrounding a pickup-trucked parking lot and little pool, to the dude riding his horse down the main drag. Not yet spotted are the dog sleeping in the sun and the chainsaw massacre.

After a debate worthy of the iraq senate, it was decided we should stay in the town of junction for one extra day while we waited for a crucial part to be delivered to the mechanic's shop--our van's current motel. seems that the corpse of the freshly-dead air conditioner was some kind of a zombie eating away at the engine proper, or so it was explained to me in highly technical terms. this caused a hectic day of napping, reading, swimming, avoiding thousands of crickets, and searching unsuccessfully for a wireless signal.

The fallout from all this west texas relaxation was a straight run to las vegas. for all you map-fiends, that's a long way.

over the course of 18.5 hours we drove from the middle-of-nothing to the middle of less-than-nothing, through a huge city that just appeared from all this nothing (el paso/juarez), and across two more states in darkness, through the airspace of the best-yet radio station encountered (93-X, gallup, nm) and across the hoover dam in pre-dawn darkness, to stagger at into our current lap of luxury here in a gated community just outside of las vegas. i think we all aged just a little bit from this drive. but this is the first place we've stayed that includes statuary, so at least we've got that going for us.

tonight the adventure continues at the DOUBLE DOWN SALOON, a certified dive near the hard-rock hotel. their website advertises something called 'ass juice', so we're hoping we'll regain our youth with this magic elixir.

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