Update from the Road: Days 4 and 5

Days 4 and 5 on the road can only be described as insane. Chad and I woke up on Day 4 as stable as escaped mental patients when we decided to visit Arches National Park. Oh, did we have fun! We drove into the park and pulled over at each photo taking opportunity. We oohed and aahed, pointed, pondered, and petered up and down each sandstone cliff looking for arches and penguin-shaped rock formations.

After several heat-stroke inducing hours and about 500 through-the-windshield photos, we thought we should head out to Vegas. It was hard to leave the arches behind. I loved the arches, but I soon realized the reason why Moab and the arches were so popular: the area surrounding the park consisted of nothing but dirt, salt, and the occasional super-sized canyon. I drove up, down, and around those super-sized canyons as fast as I could all in the hopes of having a few relaxing hours to walk around Vegas and enjoy my luxury room at the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel. I can't say that I recall much more of Utah except the city of St George where I ate the best hamburger of my life at Jack in the Box. These hamburgers are topped with a real pickle people. A super good pickle.

After St George, we made a quick 16-mile sprint through Arizona and the most heavily guard-railed roadway in the universe and then we hit Nevada. I've been to most of the states in the US, but never have I seen the fine state of Nevada. It smells. And the roads are pitch black. But once we climbed that final mountain pass and turned the corner round the last boulder in the way, there was the most incredible vista of glittering sparkle lights I've ever seen. A golden Oz at the end of the crumbling black tar road -- we were almost there!

I suppose a lot of people hate the idea of Vegas and gambling and cheesy tacky theme parks/hotels, but I thought it was spectacular. On one side of the road you see Cesar's Palace and on the other side, the Eiffel Tower. There were hordes of people walking all around, looking at fountains and sinking ships and embracing the sleaziness of it all. We stayed out until 5 am, spent no money, and had lots of fun wandering through the various casinos, window shopping, and people watching.

After a few hours sleep, we went swimming, checked out, and ate buffet food at Paris' champagne brunch. I threw my "lucky $5" into a penny slot machine and won a few cents, lost a few more and moved on. Put what was left into a nickel slot, pushed a few buttons and immediately won $12. If it weren't for the pesky clock, I would've won big. I know it. But we had to be in Riverside by 5 pm and it was time to go.

In the light of day, Nevada has even less to offer a tourist than it did in the dark. I didn't really like the pitch-black of the mountain pass, but the bright sun on the bleached desert dirt wasn't very fun to look at either. I was relieved to see that the California desert had plant-life until we actually drove past the plants. Joshua trees. Horrific. Eastern California is hell on earth complete with scary State Patrols around every bend, speeding devil cars, and ghoulishly scarred roadways. We made it through about 1 hour of the tour through this hell and realized that we didn't budget enough time to get to Riverside by 5 pm.

It became a race. The speed limit in California was only 70 as opposed to the 75 I was used to, so I had to sneak in moments of free-for-all autobahn action. Would I pass a State Patrol going 95 mph? Would I rear end a slow-moving semi? Would I hit a gigantic crack in the road and flip the car? No time to worry -- we had 200 miles to go in 2 hours.

I'll make the long and awful story short: we arrived in Riverside a half-hour late. We arrived just as the apartment saleswoman was about to give up and were able to get into our apartment by 6 pm. Though it was an exhausting and stressful end to the roadtrip, I enjoyed the 2000 miles across the country. Perhaps next time I will avoid the treacherous mountain passes and the overnight stay in Moab...