Remember that time we flew to Denver and drove a truck to Las Vegas, then flew home, all in two and a half days? Yeah, that sucked.
In the future, we will tell ourselves this. Actually we already have told ourselves this. How did we actually do that? What set of circumstances made such a ridiculous journey necessary?
It was for my boyfriend's work, of course. He’s done these types of trips before, and I’ve always worried endlessly about him for various reasons. This time, he asked me to come, and since I’ve said no the last couple of times he’s asked, I agreed, even though because of my schedule, I had to be back on Wednesday, so I couldn’t spend an extra night in Las Vegas with him.
Therefore, my Vegas experience was limited to about three hours, which was just about the perfect amount of time. That city has never been one that has enticed me in any way. Gambling? Bright lights? Hookers? Uh, no thanks. I’d rather go to New York or San Francisco.
Hector actually asked me to come to Las Vegas earlier this year. It had been a hard spring, and despite my preconceived notions of Vegas’s unpleasant debauchery, I actually was looking forward to it. It would be a chance for us to have some fun, go out, relax, and maybe I could do some writing about it.
That trip didn’t end up happening, so all I got was the three hour version. But that wasn’t even the best part of the trip.
We arrived in Denver on Sunday night. Hector had to load the set up for his work the next morning, so the main thing to do was relax. At the same time, I knew our eating options wouldn’t be great on the road, so I put the pressure on to go someplace nice.
There’s a place I found called Tamayo, a fancy Mexican joint, that I felt would satisfy Hector’s tastebuds and my need for a heightened experience. There’s always a danger with my boyfriend anytime you go to someplace that serves Mexican food, because he’s quite critical, despite the fact that he’d prefer to eat that type of food over anything else. But the Yelp reviews were stellar so I thought I’d risk it.
We took an Uber to get there, and I liked it right away. There was a bright mural that took over the front wall that I thought was neat, and a long bar with almost nobody there, so we had a chance to chat with the bartender.
What Hector really wants, almost always, is carne asada. The only option they had for that was a dish with beef doused in a mole-esque sauce. Hector was skeptical, as was I. He makes killer mole and carne asada, but one time when he put mole on steak it didn’t taste very good. We ended up liking it, though, because the mole was really more of a light sauce than a traditional mole. What was annoying was that they charged extra for tortillas. Who eats carne asada without tortillas? Just lump it in with the cost of the entree, dummies!
We also had Mexico City-style corn on the cob, which was delicious and spicy, and I wanted to have an extra helping.
We pretty much crashed right away to start our day in the morning, which started with a trip to the Budget Truck place. Oddly, it was located in a furniture store, and the guy running the joy kind of cracked me up. He was on the phone when we got there, mouthing off to a surly customer.
After he got off the phone, he asked us: “Where you headed?”
“Las Vegas.”
“Oh, you mean Lost Wages?”
Har har. He picked up the phone before he finished with us (Budget employees take forever), he answered the phone and started complaining to his boss about the guy he had been on the phone earlier. “I told him to sock on a rock!” he said on the phone.
Finally, we were on our way. We loaded up the set and started on our crazy journey.
Honestly, the drive was scary as shit. Driving up and down these mountains, especially with the amount of road construction, was enough to give me a heart attack, especially in the truck. It was gorgeous, especially when we were still in the rockies, climbing up and down these breathtaking passes of rock and sky that took my breath away, but I got a stomach ache thinking we were going to tip over at any moment.
There were also some things we saw that Hector said meant they were fracking, which was quite disconcerting. To think they can just tear apart some of the country’s most gorgeous scenery to make a quick buck is awfully sad.
Still, the light was beautiful as the sun set against the pine trees and the yellow trees on the rocks.
We stopped the first night in Grand Junction, where we had a decent hotel and Hector had a chance to watch the Chargers game (they lost). We decided to order Chinese food, and when I placed the order, the woman over the phone said that it would take an hour and a half since there were two orders ahead of us. “We’re slammed!”, she said. Hilarious! I guess that’s small town for you!
The drive on the second day wasn’t quite as scary, although the first part of it was every bit as beautiful. By that time we were in Utah, and there were long stretches of what seemed like desert, but with these ghostly rock formations reaching up into the sky. Some of the rocks were bright red, and there was one stretch of rocks that rippled like waves, and I thought that was really cool. No wonder they call this God’s country, is what I thought.
I forced Hector to stop at this “Viewing Area” where we were supposed to be able to take a look at “Ghost Rock” or something like that. It actually wasn’t such a spectacular view, because there were trees in the way, but there was a Navajo lady selling pottery and jewelry and we ended up getting two pots and a necklace. Because, why not? I asked her if I could take her picture and she told me no way. I felt like an asshole white tourist for asking, but she wrapped up our purchases very nicely. She told us her relative made them- which I’m choosing to believe (there’s a nagging feeling in my stomach they might be mass produced but I don’t care, I really like them).
By the time we got into Nevada, the drive got a lot more boring, and by that time we were so extremely tired of driving. I just wanted it to end but we kept having so much longer to go! It didn’t help that traffic was slow.
We made it into Las Vegas at about 8:30 p.m., and amazingly found a parking spot right on the street. Apparently, not many people drive in the city. We checked into the “D”, and after some anxiety about what to do in the short amount of time, we decided to just walk down Fremont Street and see what there was to see.
What we saw was the fall of Rome. I mean, it was everything I pictured it I guess. As we walked out of the hotel area, we saw the drones at the slot machines and the go-go dancers looking bored. One of them, in a red-sequined bikini, was actually dancing, but the others seemed tired and were lethargically going through the movements.
On Fremont Streets there were lots of entertainers hawking whatever gimmick they had to make money on. There were some people in costume- pirates and the like, and mostly naked girls in feathers etc., charging people for pictures. There were musicians- a really good saxophonist, and a terrible group on one of the stages. There was actually one guy that was handling a Native American marionette, which was fascinating and also horrifying. Las Vegas hasn’t seemed to caught on that cultural appropriation is not cool.
At some point, Hector had to go turn over the keys to the theater guys at the venue, but then we were free to get some burritos at a place called “Nacho Daddy”, which was frequented to what seemed to be mostly working girls. We chatted with a fellow that was explaining that he somehow makes money by shaking people’s hands or giving them high fives. Apparently someone had written up a newspaper article about him. He seemed nice enough- and Hector talked to him about peppers and Mexican cooking. He also, in the spirit of the moment, bought me a “Nacho Daddy” t-shirt, which is embarrassingly sexy and I probably will never wear.
And that was that. We finished our food and headed back to the hotel (where we didn’t sleep the night), and from there we were back at the airport.
