[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

One of my favorite spots in the southwest … our next destination, post-grad school?

Flagstaff, AZ

Population 52,894 (2000 census). Seat of Coconino County. Elevation about 7000 feet. Home to Lowell Observatory and Northern Arizona University. Incorporated as a town in June 1894.

The first permanent white settlement in the area (apart from an expedition of Mormons and a group of Bostonians) was by Tennessean sheep rancher Thomas McMillan in July 1876. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad came in 1881 and Flagstaff became a major railway stop.

The beauty of the Coconino National Forest and the San Francisco Mountains and the ponderosas, not to mention the low-key charm of the town of Flagstaff itself, was nothing short of spectacular. We arrived late yesterday evening on the tail end of a rowdy thunderstorm, and it took almost a half-hour to find our Best Western, which was located across the street from the main railroad running through the center of town. The hotel itself was quiet, though, and the occasional train noises were not that much of an impediment to sleep.

We didn’t stick around long enough to see a heck of a lot of the town—by the time we got ready for the next leg of our journey today, it was too late to do much of anything but get breakfast and do a little driving around the center of town. But what I saw, I liked a lot. I can imagine living here.

The stretch of country between Boulder City and Flagstaff is some of the most splendorous scenery I have ever seen. We had hoped to go out to a restaurant the night we got in, but because of the beagle’s presence and because it got too late by the time we finally got around to making a decision about where we wanted to go, we eventually ordered catered hotel take-out.

This morning we had breakfast at the Galaxy Diner on West Route 66. It was a fifties diner that looked like it had actually been around in the fifties—not one of those faux-fifties diners. The waitress seemed a little standoffish at first, but she gradually came around and was actually chatty by the end of the meal. She reminded me of a younger version of Polly Holliday’s Flo on the seventies sitcom “Alice.” The meal itself was fantastic—I had eggs and toast and potatoes with onions. I don’t remember what Steve had, but he was happy that this was the first place that we’d stopped where hot sauce was waiting on the table.

The town was pretty quiet when we were there. The main thing we noticed was how prominently NAU figured in the local newscasts. I also noticed that the Weather Channel frequently plays a snippet from Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” during its “Local on the 8s” breaks, which I thought was somewhat spacey, and thus somewhat appropriate, but also somewhat jarring mixed in with the Windham Hill and other MUZAK that usually gets played. One great part about being in Flagstaff was actually landing and walking around in a town that my Arizonan father had mentioned many times by name.

Mesa, my dad’s hometown, is 165 miles south of Flagstaff, in a completely different meterological and cultural zone of the state, but it still felt good to set foot on ground which it wasn’t that hard to imagine that he may have stepped on or ridden over at one time or another in the thirties or forties.

—Posted by Frank at 13:09:24 | 15-Aug-03

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

Day Two of our trip, as I remember it, was really pretty nice, with the possible exception of traffic and crowds in Las Vegas. The weather was beautiful and rainstorms swept across the Mother Road after we joined it at Kingman. It was glorious scenery and weather and is why the desert southwest is still my spiritual home …

Day Two

Day Two — Tonopah, NV, to Flagstaff, AZ

Today’s statistics:

We travelled 478.3 miles from Tonopah, NV, to Flagstaff, AZ. Spent $58.00 on gas, $45.49 on food, and $84.24 on a hotel, the Best Western King’s House Inn on Historic Route 66 near Beautiful Downtown Flagstaff.

Here’s the boring, exhausting details, almost as they happened:

—US 95, between Goldfield and Scotty’s Junction, NV, 11:35 PDT | 15-Aug-04

Our day began with a blaring alarm clock at 8:30 a.m. I slept like a log, but a certain beagle who shall remain nameless kept kicking Frank awake all night. I still think he managed to get some sleep. He’s taking the first half of today’s journey; the 208 miles from Tonopah to Las Vegas. I’ll take over there, we’ll do a brief run down the Strip so he can see the … interesting place that Las Vegas is, then it’s over Hoover Dam and 250 miles to Flagstaff. No, we will not be stopping at the Liberace Museum or Wayne Newton house or well, anything else. One stop for gas. That’s all we can stand.

The beagle is starting to get in the routine of sleeping some while we’re going. He didn’t sleep at all yesterday on all the twisty, turny, curvy, up and down roads of the Sierra. But today’s route is on roads with barely any curves and he’s lying down and snoozing now. He’s a very, very tired beagle.

It’s hot out here in the desert; not unbearable, but probably in the low 90’s. It’s not great weather for dogs, especially pampered, fat beagles who are used to sea breezes and fogs cooling them while they lie in comfort on their couches. Speaking of couches, I hope the beagle’s couch is now on its way to Ann Arbor. After Yellow Truck took so long to deliver and then pick up the trailer, I’m wondering if it will actually be there by Friday the 22nd. We shall see. ValueMoves already took the payment, so fingers are crossed.

In the meantime, while it’s quite barren, Nevada is still, I think, quite beautiful, with the exception of the places where human habitation has been dumped on it. Not to mention all those nukes. We’re approaching Nellis Air Force Base and the Nevada Test Site and the Yucca Mountain site, which the Bush Cabal wishes to turn into a toxic waste trash heap over the objections of … well, pretty much everyone except for his corporate cronies.

Also, there’s a site on the map near Las Vegas which is simply marked, ‘Danger Area.’ No explanation or anything, just bordered in red on the map and ‘Danger Area.’ And in Nevada, that could mean just about anything.

A few miles back, we passed the Cottontail Ranch. No, they don’t raise bunnies. They provide a service which is [ahem] only legal in the state of Nevada. We’re counting the bunny ranches … that was number two.

No sign of any aliens …

—US 95, Bailey’s Hot Springs, NV, 12:10 PDT

The beagle owns a hot springs RV park in central Nevada!

Oh, and we just passed the third brothel, just north of Beatty; this one is named ‘Angels Ladies.’ Hmmmm.

—US 95, Beatty, NV, 12:16 PDT

Saw our first wreck of the trip, here in Beatty. A Jeep Cherokee broadsided and lying on its side in the street. A Jeep tipover is not exactly what I wanted to see on this trip. Well, that’s ugly …

—US 95, Amargosa Valley, NV, 12:43 PDT

Just passed big huge signs for Area 51 and the Yucca Mountain Visitor’s Center … Hmmmm. I don’t see no aliens … or black helicopters.

—US 95, Indian Springs, NV, 13:16 PDT

Indian Springs Air Force Base—sign that says ‘Military Exercise in Progress.’ On the side of the highway, an unattended ambulance with its lights going, no one around. Hmmmm. On the base is a military barracks-looking structure that says ‘IS Hilton.’ Some soldiers or airmen standing around in cammies with very large guns. IS doesn’t look like a fun place to be at the moment.

—US 95, Just North of Las Vegas, NV, 13:25 PDT

Getting rained on as we pass a ‘correctional facility.’ And we just saw our first double-trailer Wal-Mart truck. Unlike the brothels in Nevada, Wal-Mart trucks between here and Ann Arbor will be far to numerous to count.

Well, my computer battery is running dead, I’ve been doing lots of work with it. So that’ll be the end of the periodic updates for today. Need to find an adapter to fit this thing. More later …

—Best Western King’s House Inn, room 111, Flagstaff, AZ, 23:00 MST

478 miles today and I’m pretty pooped. I’m finishing up a veggie lasagna meal from a delivery service; it’s been pouring in Flagstaff and we elected to stay in and let someone else make the effort to feed us.

I took over driving from Frank in front of some casino in downtown Las Vegas, then promptly made two wrong turns, almost got us broadsided by a very large van, and made another wrong turn. Finally, we hit the Strip in front of the Stratosphere and were promptly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of Las Vegas, which always brings up the phrase, ‘Wretched Excess’ in my head whenever I hear that name.

While downtown is awash in a huge amount of money, there were some not-so-nice sights in other parts of town. On the side of a boarded-up Payless Cashways big box store in North Las Vegas, someone had spray painted graffiti which read, ‘Broke.’ A few old studio-type apartments stood seedy, neglected and leaning drunkenly just three blocks from the massive Stratosphere, where tourists were paying big bucks to ride to the top in order to pay more big bucks to ride a rollercoaster and a thrill ride which bounces you up and down a very tall spire on top of the Stratosphere itself. On the Strip, illegal immigrants stood on street corners making what is probably a pittance to hand out flyers to tourists advertising strip clubs and $1.99 prime rib dinners. If there is any spot in America where wretched excess co-exists side-by-side with extreme poverty and desperation, it is Las Vegas Boulevard.

After driving down the Strip and taking some pics, cashing a check at Wells Fargo and sitting through 1.5-million of what are surely the longest red traffic lights in the entire world, we made our way to Boulder City, where we gassed up and then stopped at a Jack-in-the-Box. While Frank went inside to eat, I watered and fed the beagle, who enjoyed stretching his legs. We walked out in the desert, then returned to a grassy strip in front of the Jeep. He laid in the grass and panted and drank some water. After I got some food, we headed out and drove through downtown Boulder City, which is surprisingly nice. Cresting a hill, we spied Lake Mead spread out in the valley below.

A few miles later, we hit the security checkpoint for Hoover Dam. Anyone with an RV or rental moving truck was being searched. We wondered if we would be, what with the Jeep being so packed full, but we were just waved through. Crossing the dam is … an exercise in dodging tourists and drivers who are driving without realizing that they are driving and aren’t paying attention to the driving. But the dam and the area around it are truly spectacular. Today’s photo gallery has some very nice pics of it all.

South of the dam, US 93 follows some curvy hills, then straightens out and heads towards towards Kingman. The wind that Frank had fought all morning in Nevada now whipped up good, and I had to fight it myself. A fully loaded Jeep isn’t exactly streamlined, and we did some wandering over the road. But it was a good trip and we reached Kingman in no time, finally joining the Mother Road.

As we approached Kingman, we could see in the east a solid wall of dark blue cloud. Thunderstorms were causing flash floods all over northern Arizona. I’ll be the Grand Canyon was spectacular. As it was, I-40’s route was a grand spectacle of dark cloud, green sagebrush and trees, and brown, rocky mountains, hills and mesas. The weather was perfect for me; thunderboomers (a word Frank had never heard) and wild western scenery. Lightning struck all around us and the booms were occasionally so loud that they could be heard over the wind and engine noise in the Jeep.

Bayley slept through all of this; a straight road is good for beagles to have a nap on. No tossing side to side.

The 150 miles to Flagstaff seemed to go by rather quickly; there were bursts of heavy rain, followed by completely dry zones and for awhile there, it just rained steadily. We hit one construction zone that slowed things down, but it was only three miles and not too bad.

We hit Flagstaff at 19:49 and I promptly made yet another wrong turn, driving a few miles east on Route 66 instead of just half-a-block west. Okay, in my defense, it was dark, raining and I was tired. Sue me.

But we did safely arrive and the hotel was ready for us, the card already charged, the room waiting. Bayley cost me an extra $11.01. We ordered in and now we’re decompressing and I’m catching up on two days of lost internet access. I had 168 spam e-mails waiting and uploading my photo galleries is taking forever.

It was raining hard the last time I was in Flagstaff, 16-Sep-96. I seem to have come full circle. It’s a beautiful night, there are wailing Santa Fe trains outside, and we’re snug in a little room on Route 66. All is well. And the best thing of all: I go home tomorrow, my home state beckons and La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assis—The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi—is our very next destination, where we’ll spend two nights, is a mere 385 miles away. Can’t wait!! My heart is already vibrating with the anticipation and excitement of the reunion with my spiritual home.

Today’s trip stats:

• 11:00 — Left Tonopah, NV — 0 miles | 0415 total

• 11:20 — Goldfield — 27 | 0442

• 11:48 — Scotty’s Junction — 61 | 0476

• 12:16 — Beatty — 95 | 0510

• 12:43 — Amargosa Valley — 125 | 0540

• 13:14 — Cactus Springs — 166 | 0581

• 13:16 — Indian Springs — 169 | 0584

• 13:51 — Las Vegas — 211 | 0626

• 15:37 — Boulder City — 244 | 0659

• 16:32 — Hoover Dam/Arizona State Line — 252 | 0667

• 17:43 — Kingman, AZ — 325 | 0740

• 18:38 — Seligman — 397 | 0812

• 18:56 — Ash Fork — 421 | 0836

• 19:11 — Williams — 439 | 0854

• 19:49 — Flagstaff — 478 | 0893

Good night from Flagstaff, AZ, y’all!

—Posted by Steve at 23:55 | 15-Aug-03

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

This is where you need XM satellite radio …

Soundtrack, Day Two

Lots of jazz and fading-in-and-out talk radio on poor-reception stations. Popped in John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things and Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. Somewhere along the line I also popped in Elvis 56.

—Posted by Frank at 23:43:09 | 15-Aug-03

And here’s the photo gallery for Day Two:

« Our Move to Michigan – Day Two »

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

I still haven’t quite figured out how to pronounce ‘Tonopah’ … is it ‘TOEnuh-pah’? or ‘tuh-NO-puh’? or ‘toe-noePAH’? Whatever it is, I’m sure it means ‘Middle of Bum-F—- Egypt’ … And thus begins our cross-country trip. A note on these entries: the times may get all weird; we wrote some of these entries while on the road and posted them later. I remember the Yosemite portion of this trip, crossing the Nevada border and arriving in Tonopah, but the rest tends to be a blur. I remember that the beagle was very worn out that first night.

Day One

A Note: Sorry folks, I had no dial-up number for internet access last night in Tonopah, NV, which is, after all, WAY out in the desert. One of the next nearest towns is Coaldale Junction (which is really no more than a gas station and an FAA VOR navigational aid, used by commercial airliners on their way to San Francisco). There’s another nearby town we passed through which featured a sign declaring the population was ‘13 and a half.’ We didn’t slow down long enough to find out what the half-a-person was. Nonetheless, tonight we’re in Flagstaff, AZ, back in civilization with real dialup numbers. Lordy, I miss that DSL and cable modem broadband! Anyway, here’s the first post, which was supposed to be online last night. Apologies for the delay.

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—Best Western Hi-Desert Inn, room 124, Tonopah, NV, 23:00 PDT | 15-Aug-03

Day one of the road trip is finally over. On two-and-a-half hours of sleep, we travelled 415.4 miles from San Francisco to Tonopah, NV. Spent $82.51 on gas, $29.20 on food, a $20 entrance fee to Yosemite and $75.21 on a hotel .. .the fabulous Best Western Hi-Desert Inn in Beautiful Downtown Tonopah, NV. Total Day One expenses: $206.92.

The day began with a wake-up call at 6:30 a.m. I was barely able to rise after yesterday’s big moving day and because I was sleeping in my sleeping bag on the floor. I went to bed very late because I had to do laundry (you really don’t want to ride 3,000 miles with a smelly dog bed) and pack for the trip. I probably couldn’t have slept much anyway.

After a soak in the tub and loading the car, Bayley and I said our goodbyes to David and then left the apartment for the last time. Yes, I’m a big wussy; I pretty much bawled all the way over the Bay Bridge. After Yellow Truck finally picked up our trailer (a day late), we said more goodbyes to Kit and Gracie and Rudy and Suki cat. These were very hard like all the rest, but they were the last ones. Gracie whined and pawed and moaned and groaned. It was very, very sad to be leaving behind so many wonderful people and puppy dogs. But Gracie and Rudy will be heading south themselves in a couple of months, so they get to share the grand moving adventure too.

We stopped off at a drug store in Livermore so that I could get a prescription filled, then headed for Yosemite, which, while hot and touristy and dusty and dry, still manages to be beautiful and serene in spite of man’s best attempts to despoil it. Still haven’t figured out what those large brush piles by the side of the road every few feet for miles were for; each pile had a layer of cardboard in the middle. Very strange looking. Some tree groves are dead and you can see the ravages of past fires. Bridal Veil Fall and Yosemite Falls were both down to mere trickles … it is August, after all. The first time I saw them was in late March of ‘97, and they were roaring and simply the most beautiful things on the planet. Half Dome and El Capitan remain reassuring in their forever-feel and the Tioga Pass road, which I had never driven, was magnificent as well. Still, if you wish to see Yosemite in all her glory, be sure and do a mid-Spring visit … less tourists and crowds, more freedom to move about, and the falls and newly greened trees, as well as the remaining snowpack, are truly breathtaking.

I’m writing this as we finish up the last 40 miles of the trip; it’s 19:11 and we’re exhausted and should be in our hotel and getting dinner in about an hour or so, thank goodness. We’re just east of Coaldale, NV, on US6/95. The countryside is typical Nevada; harsh and mountainous, yet still beautiful. It’s been a grand trip so far; no problems, we’ve made good time, etc. The beagle has been a bit uncomfortable perched on his bed through the very twisty roads and traffic jams in the Bay Area, but now that we’re on a more straight, even road here in the Nevada desert, he’s able to finally lie down and get some sleep.

He was a very tired and hot beagle after his little visit to Bridal Veil Fall, where he attracted the attention of everyone on the trail. One little girl asked to pet him; we demurred, because his typical reaction to a stranger is to howl loudly in their face (just like with Kit this morning) and scare them half to death. But the walk down the trail was good for him, since we’ve already started burning off calories and fat in preparation for a more adventurous life in Ann Arbor. Our goal is to get his weight down by the winter so that he can play in the snow without having a heart attack. He turns nine years old on Aug. 20, which means we’ll probably be touring Memphis and driving to Nashville. I guess I can start calling him Grandpa now that he’ll be 63 in human years. But considering how beagles very much demand a routine and don’t like things upset, he’s handled this pretty well so far, much like he did moving from Dallas to San Francisco, San Francisco to Denver and Denver back to San Francisco in 1996 and 1998, respectively. He’ll be fine, and he’ll love his new home.

The setting sun is turning Boundary Peak (at 13,140 feet, the highest point in Nevada) and Emigrant Peak (6,790 feet) truly gorgeous shades of orange and yellow, with wedges of purple and dark blue in the shadows behind outcroppings. There is some cloud cover and the sagebrush adds some vibrant green, It’s a very pleasant evening, the loading-of-the-truck and Day One of the trip are over, and we’re well-launched on the brand-new life. The pain of goodbyes is over, although much sadness lingers. Parting is not sweet sorrow; it’s not sweet anything. I hate it. But what’s happening is best for everyone; life is all about change, after all. You don’t change, you’re dead.

And now I can’t wait to get to Santa Fe. We can have a day of complete rest and see what is surely one of my favorite cities in my home state, my spiritual home. But first comes a 200-mile journey to Las Vegas, with a little side trip down the Strip for some ogling, followed by a trip over Hoover Dam and 250 miles to Flagstaff, AZ.

Today’s trip stats:

• 08:51 — Left the apartment — 0 miles

• 08:58 — Gassed up at Twin Peaks Auto — 0004

• 09:20 — Bay Bridge — ?

• 10:17 — Leave Kit & Erin’s in Oakland — 0031

• 10:45 — Livermore, Long’s Drugs — ?

• 11:52 — Manteca — 0094

• 14:00 — Gassed up at Crane Flats, Yosemite National Park — 0191

• 14:47 — Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite Valley — 0215

• 17:47 — US 385/CA-120 Junction (Frank starts driving) — 0292

• 19:45 — Tonopah, NV — 0415

Good night from Tonopah, NV, y’all!

—Posted by Steve at 22:32 | 15-Aug-03

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

I know that that’s one big-ass dam, lemme tell ya!

Hoover Dam National Historic Landmark (NV/AZ)

Built at a total cost of $165 million between 1931 and 1936, the Hoover Dam is 726 feet high. Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the dam, covers 247 square miles and holds 46 trillion cubic yards of water.

The dam, at its inception the largest public works project in US history, was the brainchild of many: Major John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran and geologist who undertook a huge project to topographically map the Grand Canyon and Colorado River region in 1869-1871; his nephew, Arthur Powell Davis, who spent over twenty years exploring the Colorado River and authored the main engineering report on the dam project, only to be forced to resign his Bureau of Reclamation post and go to Turkestan for work; Harry Morrison, Charlie Shea, Harry Kaiser, and Warren Bechtel, who organized the various financing and bids on the proposed project; Frank Crowe, who supervised the building of the dam in the face of punishing heat and harsh conditions and broke a workers’ strike in August 1931; Walker “Brig” Young, who surveyed Boulder Canyon in 1921 to find the best spot for the dam; and Gordon Kaufma , who planned the imposing Art Deco architecture of the dam.

The project was first named the Boulder Dam, but in September 1930, Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur a ounced that the dam would henceforth be named the Hoover Dam, an apparent attempt to gather much-needed credit to the administration for drumming up jobs in what was an otherwise dismal record. When Franklin Roosevelt took over in 1932, his Interior Secretary, Harold Ickes, changed the name back to Boulder. In April 1947, Harry Truman signed a Congressional resolution restoring the name Hoover to the dam.

The dam, which we had to pass on our way between the states of Nevada and Arizona, was an incredible thing. All you had to do was stop at one of the vista points, get out of the car, and take a look at the sweep of the dam to get a sense of its grandeur, a perception of the sweat and pain and money and time that went into the construction of this behemoth of human engineering. “Standing on the edge of the Hoover Dam,/I’m on the centerline between two states of mind,” go the lyrics to the Sugar song.

Now I know how true that expression is: the dam doesn’t just hold back water, it is a border between the Left Coast (if you include Clark County in that definition) and the rest of the country. The guards stationed at the checkpoint along the highway leading up to the dam are not just guarding the dam; they’re guarding a state of mind, a marvel of machinery, a massive expression of human labor that defies you not to bow before it and feel humbled.

—Posted by Frank at 16:30:00 | 15-Aug-03

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

Wild, woolly Las Vegas. Whatta complete hoot. So very unreal and otherworldly …

Las Vegas, NV

Population 478,868 (2000 census). Seat of Clark County.

The first settlement at what is now Las Vegas was, ironically, a Mormon outpost, founded in 1855 and abandoned two years later after repeated raids by the Paiutes. Las Vegas itself was incorporated in 1905. In 1931, gambling and quickie divorces were legalized in Nevada, and construction was started on the Hoover Dam. The rest is history.

The first casino on what the world knows today as The Strip, the Hotel El Rancho Vegas, was opened in April 1941 by Tom Hull (no, not Bugsy Siegel) across the street from what is now the Sahara. The event that prompted Hull to open the Rancho was, the tale goes (is this a recurring theme or what?), a flat tire. He had a flat on Highway 91, his traveling companion hitched back into town to get help, and Hull stood on the shoulder, started counting cars, and became convinced that this was a great spot to start a place for exhausted motorists to rest along the highway to his properties in Los Angeles. (He had already started other Ranchos in Sacramento and Fresno and owned the Mayfair in Los Angeles and the Roosevelt in Hollywood.) The El Rancho burned down in a fire in July 1960.

Coming into Vegas was a breeze until about 5 miles from town. It’s somewhat amusing that the stretch of Highway 95 just north of Vegas is occupied by a bunch of upstanding little towns like Indian Springs with sturdy churches and signs warning darkly of the consequences of sin, as though they were the last bulwark against the inevitable descent into hell. Where do I suspect that the folks stationed at Nellis Air Force Base spend their free time? Indian Springs? Yeah, that’s it.

The traffic coming into town was not unmanageable, but it was rough for a non-local to negotiate the zooming cars and trucks and the exits and byways (not to mention the tangled Spaghetti Bowl), so I got out off an exit near the Convention Center and let Steve take the wheel while I snapped shots and gawked at the overstimulating panorama of the Strip. The Sahara, Circus Circus, the Stardust, the Frontier, the Venetian, Treasure Island, Harrah’s, Caesar’s Palace, the Mirage, Paris, Bellagio, MGM Grand, New York New York, the Tropicana, Luxor, Mandalay Bay—all you can do is gawk, gawk, and gawk some more, or close your eyes once you get a headache from all the neon and flashing and excess. Driving in a car along the Strip for half an hour obviously doesn’t do it justice. If I had wanted to do Vegas justice, we would have stayed for a night or two and wandered the Strip and gone in and out of all the big casinos.

But even as a passenger in a car down Las Vegas Boulevard, you get a quick sense of the city, its rhythm, its flavor, its style. The Strip itself is ostentation at its most marvelous and unabashed. I noticed a huge billboard advertising Gladys Knight at the Flamingo and marveled at the fact that a once semi-gritty Atlanta/Motown soul singer like Gladys was now a glitzy headliner at a Vegas casino. Then again, ZZ Top is at Mandalay Bay, so ….. Once you get off the Strip you see the real Vegas, if such a thing exists, because what is Vegas without the Strip?

Along and around Charleston Boulevard, you see boarded-up storefronts, gritty boulevards, hot, angry-looking drivers, car salesmen in too-tight shirts and strangling ties, homeless men pushing shopping carts full of their belongings down the street, lots of other evidence that the city’s commitment to its infrastructure outside of the Strip is inattentive at best.

We stopped at a bank branch off Sunset Road, not far from McCarran Airport, a part of town which was somewhat more business-park-like, and a group of homeless men were taking a breather on the bank lawn near the sidewalk. A pissed-off-looking man hopped into his white Porsche and gunned it for all it was worth to make it to the stop sign at the other end of the adjoining mall parking lot, as though the Prince of Darkness himself were riding his bumper.

Vegas is an amazing place, but I don’t know that I’d want to live in the shadow of the Strip on a permanent basis.

—Posted by Frank at 14:00:00 | 15-Aug-03

[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

Hitting the road with some tunes and enjoying the countryside. I love it …

Soundtrack, Day One

John Cougar Mellencamp’s Scarecrow. Obviously out-of-date yet somehow appropriate. Then a Columbia compilation called The Golden Age Voume 1, with old-time forties music by likes of Gene Autry, Bob Willis, The Chuck Wagon Gang, and Patsy Montana, which was a lot of fun. Followed by an album of Ella Fitzgerald sides with the Chick Webb Orchestra. And on the way down Highway 6 into Nevada, Neko Case’s Black Listed, a pretty damn good CD by a great alt-country songwriter from Vancouver by way of Alexandria, VA.

—Posted by Frank at 23:59:01 | 14-Aug-03

Also, here is the photo gallery of Day One of the trip:

« Our Move to Michigan – Day One »