Travelogue part 2

So here I go...


Me and hubby landed in Vegas on Thursday night. We were to start our trip on Friday morning with two of his friends. All four of us were flying to Vegas from U.S. East coast, but me and hubby decided to fly at night all thanks to his brilliant :p idea of catching the night time view of the Vegas strip. 

Ok so hubby has been to Vegas earlier and he was of the opinion that the bird's eye view of the Vegas strip - a 4-5 mile stretch of land in the middle of a desert infested with some of the world's top hotels and casinos is stunning and worth a dekho from the plane at night. I am a sucker for neon lights and started dreaming of seeing a long strip of light in the middle of pitch dark desert when we land. I was so excited that I couldn't even sleep through the flight and kept looking out of the window (like a real kid) for a glimpse of the shiny bright oasis. 


There is a lot to learn about this country while on a cross country flight especially at night time. It's amazing how sparsely inhabited they are. The cities or hubs of any kind of activity seemed frighteningly rare. I know that our suburbs where most of the people live hardly have any street lights and in the dark I wouldn't have been able to spot any major ones, but just the thought that all these people burn a whole lotta fuel in their cars to get to the cities everyday painted a sorry picture in my mind. And so did their indiscreet use of energy to keep the cities and the skyscrapers well lit all day and night!


But there was definitely one thing that made me smile - the sight of a baseball field from high above. From the plane it looked smaller than a golf ball - but I could distinctly see the boundaries on the field and the flood lights and it somehow looked very cute. It gave me an idea of how high I probably was and it was an exhilarating feeling in some proud sorta way!  :)


Anyways, as we entered Nevada, I kept looking for the Vegas strip and all I could see was endless dots of light everywhere. There were some patches which were more densely lighted than others and I kept waking up hubby dear to ask him if any of those were the strip :P Finally when we were about to land, I got a good view of the city and again, I mistook it to be the strip. In fact I never really saw the real strip from the plane. When we got off, we could see all the hotels from the airport. The air was so clear that they seemed closer than they really were and I felt like we could just walk towards them and check in. Infact I was also a little disappointed that they were all smaller than I imagined them to be. I hoped to see some skyscrapers and all, but I didn't! But I did get a sense of what Vegas really is...just another city with a casino themed patch of land, which made it one of the most visited places in the world. It wasn't just casinos and hotels as I always imagined but a real city!


I was a little disappointed and very hungry after the 6 hour long flight. After taking our luggage we headed towards the taxi stand which had more people than my entire plane waiting in line for a cab. Thank god it wasn't Delhi else we would have easily witnessed a stampede at a taxi stand :P


After checking into our hotel - more like a condo - which we booked because we were going to be there for only half a night this time - we stepped out at 2:30 am to find some dinner. The roads were almost empty...not as deserted as roads in some other cities that I have seen but definitely not Vegas-y. My ideas obviously came from our Hindi Bollywood movies where there is loud music and partying on the roads in Vegas - so I sadly trashed another dream of being in a really lively American city :P Hubby said it is like I imagine it is but only on weekend nights and the Friday crowd has still not shown up...so I decided to give my dreams another chance :P  - 


Our only options for food that late in the night were the 24 hour cafes at the casinos. We decided to go to the nearest one - Earl of Sandwich at Planet Hollywood. To go there we had to cross the hotel's shopping arcade and the casino. The arcade was a real delight to see. They had sky like ceilings which made it look like an outdoor European shopping street and had me awestruck! :)
And then came another shock - we entered the Casino and I saw skimpily clad women pole dancing on the various gambling tables. Ok I know I might sound a little nineteenth century here but you have to trust me...it is something else to know about it, or have seen it on TV/movies...and totally different to see with your eyes - almost naked women dancing in front of thousands of men and women. And they did it with no expression at all. Their movements were as mechanic as a robots. I felt ashamed looking at those women doing all that there. I fail to understand how can anybody consider this insane act an entertainment of any sort??? Hubby shrugged it off by saying "it's Vegas for you". And I guess that's all you can say about it - it's Vegas! But I have to add...it's not fun (or funny) for sure! All I did was look away and kept going where I was going. We headed to the sandwich place and had some greasy vegetarian sandwiches and really creamy heavy soup. Perfect for an after alcohol binge but made us sober souls quite uneasy.


The next morning we woke up...had a nice breakfast of Starbucks coffee and yummy Zucchini muffins, soaked up some beautiful Vegas weather (I like it a little hot, dry and sunny - so Vegas in the morning was perfect for me) and headed for Grand Canyon with our other two friends!

   Vegasy Morning

The landscape just as you leave Vegas - I would say, is different - neither stunning nor boring - just something that I hadn't seen before - and also the desert was a much needed change after the super green terrain of the east coast. I had planned of stopping at Hoover Dam on our route but because we were running late by an hour, I thought we should may be skip it! But as we came close to the dam, the first glimpse of the beautiful blue waters of lake mead (over which the dam is built) hit us! The road seemed like it will take us to into the lake and I couldn't resist making that stop.

Lake Mead

It was already 1 pm by the time we got there and it had become unbearably hot by that time. Almost a 100 degrees! We still walked all the way to the center of the observation bridge, saw the beautiful dam and the lake and all those people with their boats around that place. It was just so beautiful to see that blue water in the middle of the desert that we decided to go down to the visitor center for a closer look of the dam and the lake. Of course we did not have enough time to take one of their tours and know more about the history of the place. Also it was so hot and crowded that we couldn't stop for too long and decided to move ahead.

Hoover Dam from the observation bridge.

Closer look of the lake

Even as we moved higher on the rocks, we could see the beautiful blue lake and it seemed like a wonderful start to a long trip :) The one thing I really liked about the highways was that they haven't tried to commercialize the whole place. Like most busy highways, we did not see a crazy number of rest areas with their chain coffee shops and pizza/burger joints! In fact we did not see any of those. After driving for about 30 minutes we finally saw a diner in the middle of nowhere. And I was very happy that we weren't going to eat at any of those shitty chain food restaurants. If there is one thing I really hate, it's those junk food graveyards! 


I don't remember the name of the place but it was a typical highway route 66 type diner. 3 of us in the the group were vegetarians and 2(including me) of us don't even eat eggs...so we couldn't find anything interesting on the menu for us. I ended up eating grilled cheese sandwiches which were nice. But the jalapeno poppers we tried were yummy! Jalapenos filled with fresh mozzarella cheese, dipped in batter and fried! I am salivating right now just thinking about that melted cheese in my mouth :P 


The people there were friendly and told me more about an alternate route we could take to go to the canyon which goes through the more scenic Route 66! We decided to take it and it ended up being a very wise decision. It is the historic highway of America which stretches from Chicago to L.A. It does not exist on any maps anymore but it has been preserved as an American icon and is a must do if you are on a road trip in the west. There is even a tribute song by Bobby Troup which goes like...

If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, the highway that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66!

Even though the stretch we covered wasn't very long but we did get our fair share of what it represents - freedom, migration West, and the loneliness of the American heartland. We saw quite a few interesting small shops on our way which were selling route 66 memorabilia and we duly picked the one for us :D I would say if you ever get a chance, do experience this route...and if you listen closely, in the air you will hear the story of what (once) made America a great country!


To be contd...