Yes, sadly. I have nothing else to do, so I’m going to relay my trip to Vegas. Wish I had pictures, but I don’t, they’re all in my head.
We started out by leaving The Villages, which is a large community in Central Florida consisting of only elderly people. I didn’t look back over my shoulder as we left, though I later regretted that. From The Villages, we took the normal route of the Florida (which I haven’t the slightest inkling to share because it was a bore sight-wise). Alabama brought new sights – a marsh, but that was it. Mississippi was the usual. It was only when we came to Louisianna that I got a decent picture of the battleship (if you’re not sure what that is, look it up. Very neat). There was a traffic jam. The city was big and crystal in the distance. My mom’s boyfriend was blaring his music and I could do nothing but find things to snap pictures of (though I tried to be sparing, because the camera was disposable).
We got out of Louisianna, after the large bridge my mother is terrified of, and headed for Texas. As we crossed the border, there was a small fire, which made a nice photo (not that I like forest fires). The rest of Texas was the usual – everything I had seen before. City and more city, then it thinned out to sparser area, but not the desert yet. We rode through thriving hill country, and it was green once more. I enjoyed the sights, took pictures, rode with the cat on my lap. When we reached my first mountain in West Texas, I felt my jaw drop. I’d never seen anything so big. I took picture after picture, though this time I was riding with Johnny and not with the cat. Johnny didn’t say much, and neither did I. It rained for ten minutes. On our first day in the desert. I thought God was playing some sick joke; Mom said we had pulled the clouds along with us.
We passed mountain after mountain, all green, then canyon after canyon (one of which had a bridge spanned across it. But my mom’s boyfriend became nervous and floored it, so I couldn’t take photos.). The most amazing part of the trip was driving through the mountains in west Texas. I was actually very, very sorry to leave Texas. But then came desert, by which I was equally shocked and took pictures, and New Mexico. Driving into New Mexico, the lights were spread out before us like a complicated map of sorts. I couldn’t take pictures, then, because it was too dark. But even though it was dark, I saw border patrol searching cars, searching for illegal aliens.
We stayed at a hotel and started up early the next morning. This time, though, we got breakfast, stopped at Wal-Mart for some supplies, and headed out on the road. At one point, we passed Mexico; it was in full view and everything. My mom pointed out the window and said, “Look, there’s Mexico.” It faded into the distance. Next came the rock canyon, which I WILL have pictures of eventually, because it was just…breathtaking. Rocks. Jagged mountainside. Indian reservation. Then the quaint little town set in the desert. The shops were too cute – like, um, Twilight Zone “too cute”. My mom and I fought for a while, then the music was too loud to fight.
We stopped again that night. Next morning, as the sun was rising, we took off. For the next fifty miles, there was nothing but desert and signs, like the signs you see on movies depicting Indian shops and such. I had the strangest urge to stop at one of the stores, but we didn’t. It was decent, then, quiet. The barren land stretched far and wide. Several times we stopped at rest areas in the mountains, and once at a gas station set on a mountainside. My mom promised me my ears would pop soon, but they never did.
The scariest part of the trip was riding in the U-Haul at night through the mountains. That could make ya crap your pants, fo sho. Looking over the mountainside and seeing blackness, and knowing, somewhere down there is a ravine and dirt and rocks.
In Pheonix, we got lost after buying some new clothing. As we drove around, trying to find our U-Haul and the person driving it, we saw a hobo fight. Two girls fighting over…a hotdog? Something like that. I laughed. And when we finally got out of Pheonix, we stopped again and traded vehicles. From there, it was a straight shoot to the Hoover Dam. Alas, though, we couldn’t get across because our load was too large. So, instead, we stopped at Del Taco for dinner. (Best tacos I’ve ever eaten.) Justin odered twenty tacos, all of which we devoured in moments. Vegas, he said, pointing to the mountains, is on the other side of those. Then he sighed, said we would have to go around, if not across. It added over one hundred miles to the journey.
Johnny didn’t talk for the rest of the time, and I saw a certain lust in his eyes. He wanted Vegas and the show girls in Vegas.
But, and I say this with finality, Vegas FINALLY became visible fifty miles out. Someone said they needed to pee. We stopped at the gas station, where my mom and her boyfriend played the slot machines. Everyone was excited after two-thousand miles of travel, travel, travel. My butt hurt.
Katy Perry’s “Waking Up In Vegas” was playing as we drove through the Strip.
All in all, I thought the experience was great. It’s something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Manicpoet's Blog 