Thursday, May 12
12:52 p.m. We have just had a Burger King lunch in the parking lot of the Gold Strike Hotel and Gambling Hall in Jean, Nevada, just south of Las Vegas. LA CLASSE.
The thing you don’t know is that in the boot of our rental car, we have TWO PAIRS OF THE OLD GRINGO COWBOY BOOTS, one for me and one for Maud, a last hurrah from the Boot Barn as we pulled out of Vegas. And I will tell you right now that I will put them on and BLIND YOU WITH MY GRACE. Boots are a lightish, weathered brown, with blue stitching in swirls and little stars. When I hit London this fall, I will be wearing these ALL THE TIME. People will say, “Are you an editor or a cowgirl?” and I will have to say, “I think it is clear.”
(It could be clearer still if I had also gotten a fancypants gold-and-silver belt buckle with my initial on it, or maybe one in the shape of hearts, but I somehow held myself back. My friend Tom wears his “T” belt buckle very well, in fact he rocks it, but maybe that is because he is from Omaha, Nebraska, whereas I, let’s not ignore the facts, was born in Kuala Lumpur, nowhere near a horse.)
Got to Las Vegas yesterday afternoon. Maud called for a room as we headed to the city, and the tourism office offered one at Casino Royale on Las Vegas Boulevard. Oh, yes, please.
Room 313 smelled like a cheap whore. We pushed open the sliding windows for a view of the carpark and the kidney-bean pool.
Slowly but surely, I am beginning to feel like I am losing control of reality, losing control of my mind a little bit, the further West we go. It seems like ten years ago we left New York City, driving into the pissing rain of New Jersey. There have been cities—Northern and Southern—and there have been mountains, and valleys, and desert. And now Vegas, and it’s almost like I don’t know how we got here, and I don’t know that there is any way to describe Las Vegas.
Yesterday in the late afternoon, we walked up the Strip. Stimulation, simulation, and for all the lights there is very little sparkle. Animated billboards; hustlers lining the sidewalk handing out strip club cards; skin skin skin; shorts and socks on wrinkled, veiny legs; loudspeakers always on, voices intermingling, “Blackjack, craps tables, we will we will rock you”; and the canals at the Venetian smell like disinfectant; and my head was pounding like a jackhammer.
We walked past Paris and its Eiffel Tower, past New York and the Chrysler Building, past the Mirage the Monte Carlo the Flamingo, to Egypt at the Luxor. Sixteen ninety-five plus tax at the Pharoah’s Pheast buys you all you can eat and a whole dessert station with neon green tarts and a do-it-yourself soft-serve ice cream dispenser with THREE TOPPINGS in chocolate, strawberry, and rainbow.
In the Luxor Casino, all sorts of Asian ladies with painted eyebrows behind the poker tables. A tubby man sat at one of the tables, “Oh yeah oh yeah hit me oh yeah mm gimme a big one.” We dug into our wallets for spare quarters and played the slot machines, whereupon, on the machine called Rich & Famous, WE WON THIRTEEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS.
We printed out our win ticket and cashed in our winnings, and then clearly it was time to call it a night. Down the Strip, we entered our hotel from the parking lot like coming in through the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.
At a quarter to ten this morning, the sun was out and there wasn’t anyone in the pool. We put on swimsuits and dipped our toes into the cold. I jumped into the heavenly, and the sun played through the water. A dead moth floated on the ripples. We lounged on yellowed deck chairs while the sour smell of garbage out back wafted in through the palm trees.
12:52 p.m. We have just had a Burger King lunch in the parking lot of the Gold Strike Hotel and Gambling Hall in Jean, Nevada, just south of Las Vegas. LA CLASSE.
The thing you don’t know is that in the boot of our rental car, we have TWO PAIRS OF THE OLD GRINGO COWBOY BOOTS, one for me and one for Maud, a last hurrah from the Boot Barn as we pulled out of Vegas. And I will tell you right now that I will put them on and BLIND YOU WITH MY GRACE. Boots are a lightish, weathered brown, with blue stitching in swirls and little stars. When I hit London this fall, I will be wearing these ALL THE TIME. People will say, “Are you an editor or a cowgirl?” and I will have to say, “I think it is clear.”
(It could be clearer still if I had also gotten a fancypants gold-and-silver belt buckle with my initial on it, or maybe one in the shape of hearts, but I somehow held myself back. My friend Tom wears his “T” belt buckle very well, in fact he rocks it, but maybe that is because he is from Omaha, Nebraska, whereas I, let’s not ignore the facts, was born in Kuala Lumpur, nowhere near a horse.)
Got to Las Vegas yesterday afternoon. Maud called for a room as we headed to the city, and the tourism office offered one at Casino Royale on Las Vegas Boulevard. Oh, yes, please.
Room 313 smelled like a cheap whore. We pushed open the sliding windows for a view of the carpark and the kidney-bean pool.
Slowly but surely, I am beginning to feel like I am losing control of reality, losing control of my mind a little bit, the further West we go. It seems like ten years ago we left New York City, driving into the pissing rain of New Jersey. There have been cities—Northern and Southern—and there have been mountains, and valleys, and desert. And now Vegas, and it’s almost like I don’t know how we got here, and I don’t know that there is any way to describe Las Vegas.
Yesterday in the late afternoon, we walked up the Strip. Stimulation, simulation, and for all the lights there is very little sparkle. Animated billboards; hustlers lining the sidewalk handing out strip club cards; skin skin skin; shorts and socks on wrinkled, veiny legs; loudspeakers always on, voices intermingling, “Blackjack, craps tables, we will we will rock you”; and the canals at the Venetian smell like disinfectant; and my head was pounding like a jackhammer.
We walked past Paris and its Eiffel Tower, past New York and the Chrysler Building, past the Mirage the Monte Carlo the Flamingo, to Egypt at the Luxor. Sixteen ninety-five plus tax at the Pharoah’s Pheast buys you all you can eat and a whole dessert station with neon green tarts and a do-it-yourself soft-serve ice cream dispenser with THREE TOPPINGS in chocolate, strawberry, and rainbow.
In the Luxor Casino, all sorts of Asian ladies with painted eyebrows behind the poker tables. A tubby man sat at one of the tables, “Oh yeah oh yeah hit me oh yeah mm gimme a big one.” We dug into our wallets for spare quarters and played the slot machines, whereupon, on the machine called Rich & Famous, WE WON THIRTEEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS.
We printed out our win ticket and cashed in our winnings, and then clearly it was time to call it a night. Down the Strip, we entered our hotel from the parking lot like coming in through the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.
At a quarter to ten this morning, the sun was out and there wasn’t anyone in the pool. We put on swimsuits and dipped our toes into the cold. I jumped into the heavenly, and the sun played through the water. A dead moth floated on the ripples. We lounged on yellowed deck chairs while the sour smell of garbage out back wafted in through the palm trees.
Labels: Travel: Road trip USA
posted by stellou at 7:08 AM
3 Comments:
quelle merveilleuse poésie !
what, you woke up at a quarter to 10??!! Honey, you need to get more Vegas out of your LV.
But, am happy to see you ate at Burger King. For awhile I was beginning to wonder if you were really in the US.
whatever will you spend your $13.50 on? also, are you doing the old-person thing and stealing food away into your bags from the "all you can eat" buffet so that you'll have shtuff to munch on later? inquiring minds want to know!
- kat
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