Sunday, August 12th
Today was an early day, as we started out hours before the sun rose. We knew it would be a long day of driving, plus we knew it would get hot quick, so there was no reason to dillydally in the tent. A couple hours later we finally hit the Nevada border, right at sunrise.
. And, as is the state custom in Nevada, there was a scuzzy little gambling hall called the Say When Casino located just feet over the border. The Say When is open 24 hours, and it has 25 cent slots, so to celebrate getting to Nevada we stopped. Even at 6:30 in the morning there was a crowd inside. We walked to the closest slot machines to the door and dropped in our quarters; with Chase’s quarter he won back 50 cents, and is probably the only person in the state of Nevada who is currently 100% ahead in gambling winnings.
Leaving the Say When we drove for a while as the sun rose, creating a beautiful light in the northern Nevada mountains, until we happened upon The Griddle in Winnemucca. The Griddle was a great old-style American breakfast place, with fresh-squeezed orange juice and great food. We had never thought of mixing up cream cheese in eggs before, but after Charla’s breakfast, it’s definitely an idea we’ll be borrowing.
From Winnemucca we jumped on the I-80 for a short hop to Battle Mountain and then took Highway 305 south to Austin. Highway 305 felt like an extremely lonely road, and it didn’t seem that there was any reason for someone to drive it unless they lived or worked out there; and despite a couple ranches and mines, we can only assume very few people lived or worked out there. Ironically, Highway 305 dead-ended into Highway 50, which is billed as the Loneliest Highway in America (despite having more tourist traffic). Highway 50, though, is an amazing road. We immediately entered the town of Austin, which is a quaint little mountain town. Steeped in gold rush (and oddly enough, Pony Express) history, the town was situated at 6,600 feet elevation and when we pulled in the air temperature was exactly 100 degrees. We did the only obvious thing, and stopped at the Toiyabe Café for ice cream.
On our way out of Austin the road started climbing, and climbing, and climbing, until we finally reached Austin Summit at 7,484 feet, which has been our highest elevation of the trip. From there it was all downhill. (Las Vegas is all the way down at 2,181 feet elevation.) Highway 50 to Highway 376 to Tonopoh to Highway 95 to Las Vegas! On the way we passed some sketchy-looking military outposts in the desert, including the alleged Area 51; we also passed Angel’s Ladies, a legal brothel in the desert, though we didn’t want to investigate the quality of the ladies who would choose to work in the rural desert when Las Vegas was less than hour away. Managing to avoid military security, aliens, and prostitutes, we soon found ourselves driving down Las Vegas Boulevard, more popularly known as The Strip.
Pulling into the Stratosphere, we commented that neither one of us could remember the last time we had been in a parking structure so large. The hotel has more than 2,800 rooms, making it approximately ten times the size of the Hotel Alyeska, where Chase works in the winter. Exiting from the parking garage, guests must drag all of their luggage with them from one end of the casino to the other to check-in for the room before dragging all their belongings back across the casino to get to the elevator. There are three elevator banks, depending on which part of the hotel your room is in. We finally found our elevator bank, and sped up to the sixteenth floor for our mountain-view room. We barely left the room, instead relaxing and reveling in the fact that for the first time since July we had walls, electricity, air conditioning, a shower, and a bed.
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