Stage 3: New Orleans - Las Vegas
17 November. Beaumont, Texas. 302 miles, 1 state line. Passed 3,000 trip miles today.
Well I came 300 miles just to say I'd been here. Driving west through Louisiana I had miles of straight flat roads through sparsely populated farmlands. Most fields were empty but but in some they were growing sugarcane. I had a bad back this morning, probably from all that walking around with the backpack, and thought I wouldn't get very far as it got uncomfortable very quickly. I pulled over in a waffle house for an early lunch and took a couple of paracetemol. After that it got better. As I approached Texas the skies grew progressively darker. I'd hoped for a sign I could take a picture of but the approach was all interstate. I got into Beaumont about four just as the rain started. I pulled into a motel that said it had a laundry room and was the cheapest I'd stayed at so far.
I suppose I should have moved on when I saw the sign in the window saying they were fumigating next week. But I didn't. So I'm stuck in this terrible room watching a program saying how bad the weather is in Texas today – with floods in Houston barely 50 miles away, it might not let up tomorrow, and I got roaches. I've seen a couple of small ones already, but I've read 'The Roaches Have No King' (a great book – look it up) so I know if you see one there are probably 50 you don't see. The rain has just stopped although the wind has got worse and there have been flashes of lightening. I don't think I'm going out anywhere tonight – but just hope I can get away tomorrow, or before the roaches get any bigger. And I don't trust the machines in the laundry room – the look hungry. At least I've got a car port for the bike.
18th November. Wills Point, Texas. 263 miles. Now over 10,000 miles on the bike.
It rained all night, I hardly slept and when I got up this morning there were roaches all over my stuff (well 3 or 4 at least, and this despite the fact I left the lights on purposefullt to keep them at bay). However it had stopped raining by the time I got moving – and before long the skies cleared into a beautiful day. Afer the dissappointment of Beaumont I was hoping Texas would get better. I was expecting rolling plains of desert or giant roaming cattle herds. What I got was trees – lots of them and still very green. I spotted a small bike shop along the way and pulled over to get some chain oil. The owner specialised in building trikes, from Goldwings. He had one complete one that was his own and was working on another. He tod me how he had spent months looking for just the right conversion kit, with independent suspension in each rear wheel. It looked pretty good – for a Goldwing at least. He was really helpful and gave me a map of Texas. He also warned me to watch out for snow at the Grand Canyon.
The roads were long and straight. I stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant with an all you can eat buffet – and filled up. Then it started going down hill. It had been windy all day but in the afternoon it really picked up and was blowing me around the road, I was leaning over just to go in a straight line. It got cloudy and then the rain came down – suddenly and hard, with the temperature dropping.
A few minutes of this and I wanted to get off the road, I don't think side winds and a slippery blacktop make for good biking. A motel loomed up on the right so I pulled in. They had a car porch so I could put the bike under cover. The owner said I could stop and see if it cleared up – so I waited half an hour but it was approaching four anyway (close to dusk) and not giving any appearance of getting better, so I checked in. Its about 40 miles outside Dallas which was my target anyway and I didn't want to face it at rush hour.
Naturally ten minutes later the rain stopped and the wind died down. C'est la vie. This place is a little run down but at least there are no bugs and there's a steak house next door.
19th November. Brownfield, Texas. 433 miles – a new record.
Texas did not dissappoint today. I was up and out early to a cold start, and it took 100 miles and 3 hours to detour round the edges of Dallas and Fort Worth – which held little of interest as far as I could tell. From there it was due west on US 380 all the way. The traffic died away as I got further from the cities, the road narrowed, and the surrounding country opened up. This was cattle country – pasture land, cows and the occasional ranch entrance complete with overhead signs declaring their names – The Double V Ranch, Hang 'Em High, being the most memorable as well as some more boring ones like “The Jones Corporate Ranch Inc.” The sky was a huge, flawless blue and it quickly warmed up. As the day wore on the pastureland gaveway to scrub with an increasing amountof cactus. Not the tall pointy variety, but fat dinner plate leaves sticking out of the ground and balanced improbably on top of each other. There were small towns, ten to twenty miles apart with nothing in between. Many still had the look of frontier outposts, though not exactly prosperous. The desert began pushing through the scrub, rust coloured sand, I drove on bridges over dried up river beds. Then suddenly, just past a town called Post, I rose up onto a plateau – and there were miles of cotton fields, as far as I could see on either side. Some had been harvested and every so oftern there was a bale of conpacted cotton the size of a container.
Brownfield is in the middle of the cotton, unfortunately its doesn't look like a frontier town. So in all it was a great days riding but I should have stopped fifty miles back in Post. The building lining the main street had an old brick facade with crenelated gables of the sort the baddies would hide behind with rifles in the main shoot out scene while the hero walks down the middle of the road, killing them all with his pistol – and perhaps rolling around for dramatic effect. It even had a hotel that was just called “Hotel” as far as I could tell.
Rush hour, Texas style.
20th November. Roswell, New Mexico. 169 miles. Passed 4,000 trip miles today.
A bit of a mixed day today. It was cold again this morning – its a feature of the desert to be cold at night and still get hot during the day – which it did in the afternoon. Anyway I set out a little later than yesterday and if anything the road was emptier and the land flatter than before. I wasn' t feeling too good so pulled over at a petrol station. It seems I picked up a case of the Texas Trots this morning – must have been the dried apricots I had for breakfast that I bought yesterday. So I had some immodium with a suasage burrito and hash brown.
However, toilet stops aside (and New Mexico is emptier than Texas), there is another reason for not travelling far today. Roswell is actually quite a nice place. I came for the UFO Museeum (and Research Centre – lets get serious here) of course – but aside from a few themed cafes and souvenir shops, the town is not awash with aliens. It looks like one of the best small towns I've come across – so I decided to stay the night. I by passed into the Bottomless Lakes State Park yesterday, looking for the necessary – but it looks like quite a good place to hang out for a few hours – you can swim in one of the lakes as well (they obviously aren't actually bottomless), I might go there tomorrow.
21st November. Santa Rosa, New Mexico. 266 miles.
Its been a day of minor set backs. I woke up early to discover that I had traversed another time zone yesterday – but as I hadn't noticed I failed to take advantage of it, I could have spent the afternoon at those lakes. I decided not to wait for it to warm up enough to visit them today, so I set off heading north. Things started out well, I even saw old Wiley Coyote – dashing across the road in front of me. Until I decided to stop for a picture and discovered I had left my batteries and charger back at the hotel, plugged into the wall. I decided to go back to Roswell, nearly fifty miles behind me. So in total I lost 100 miles and about 2 hours – to get me back where I started. I got the charger and set off again – retracing my earlier tyre treads north. New Mexico is really empty, on one 50 mile stretch I decided to count cars. I saw exactly 12 on that road in over an hour.
This brought me to Fort Sumner, notable for two things. The first is the site of a major Navajo Indian relocation experiment that went badly wrong. Thousands were rounded up and brought to this place, and the fort was built to guard them. Unfortunately it turned out that the land couldn't support them, and a lot of lives were lost before the reservation was abandoned. Secondly it is the final resting place of one William H Bonney – Billy the Kid. There was a small museeum beside the graveyard (and several others in town all vying for trade), covering both his story and giving a flavour of what life was like back then, also some coverage of the other people buried here who helped build the town. It was a little bit corny but well worht the three bucks. My favourite items were the saddles – straight out of a John Wayne flick. From there it was another 50 miles or so to Santa Rosa, not particularly attractive but is sits on the old route 66 highway – which I expect to be mostly on now all the way to California. The one attraction they do have is the Blue Hole Lake – a circular pool about 60 ft across with very sheer sides going down about 200 ft, with crystal clear water. It was supposed to be well signposted but I circled round for at least half an hour before I found it. To be fair there were roadworks going on that might have disrupted the signage. When I did find it there were a few scuba divers about to go in – its popular for that but too cold to swim, but it was getting dark so while I could certainly see quite a long way down – I don't think I got the full impact of the experience.
Tomorrow morning (about 2 am here) it is of course Rugby World Cup Final day. I've found, after much searching, a hotel with free broadband internet so that I can follow it as best I can.
Here lies Billy the Kid.
22nd November. Grants, New Mexico. 207 miles
Lunchtime. I've really been dealt a blow by the weather today. I was up for the rugby, and though all I could get was a text based commentary I was still cheering all the way (but quietly, sort of). As I wasn't going to be able to sleep again I decided I might as well hit the road early. The weather channel had said the wind would pick up in the afternoon so it made sense to get my miles in early. So I left at around 6.30 am heading west on I-40 and what is left of route 66 (which inreality is not very much). The sun was coming up, quite good as well because of cloud cover. The desert plains gradually became more mountainous – those rocky outcrops with flat tops you've seen in the westerns (lots of film references recently – but it is a lot like that), but mostly still with wide flat valleys that the road followed. I was wrapped up warm – and became glad of it as the wind picked up – which it really began to do past Alberquerque. Tumbleweeds were blowing across the road withincreasing frequesncy and speed. Huge lorries thundering past didn't help much either.
It was getting to be hard work, so I stopped here in Grants about 10.30. There is a state visitor information centre here so I went in and asked what the weather was like up ahead. They said more wind and in Gallup which is the next major town it was snowing! I spent half an hour studying my options and in the end decied to stay here for a few hours to see what happened. Although the sky was clear blue when I went into the centre, when I cam out there was low cloud rolling in, and I could see dust clouds picking up. So I parked up and went to visit the small New Mexico Mining Museeum – about the only distraction in town. They discovered uranium ore here in the late forties and it was mined to death for 30 odd years, at one point the largest supply in the US. It was pretty good actually. They had a lift going down to an underground reconstruciton of a mine with recorded narration from real miners. I must have been in there about an hour or so. There was also a brief history of the town, named after the Grant brothers who were responsible for the first railroad in this part of the world. When I came out it was raining, the lady at the front desk (i was her only customer) said it had only just started, then as I watched it turned to snow. Its now about 1pm and I'm sitting in a Pizza Hut thinking I might be stranded here tonight. The temperature has really dropped although the snow appears to be easing off, and is not sellting anyway. My pizza has just arrived and its enormous, I'm glad I didn't go for the large one, but at least its hot.
Its now about 3.30. Its not snowing any more but the wind is still up. I was tempted to get back on the road, but in the end checked in to a motel to see what tomorrow brings. The weather channel says its going to be even colder although the winds should have died down. If I push back south now I will miss quite a few sights – including the Grand Canyon, but I don't think I will have much choice. I've now got time to kill, but a lot of notes to write up, and maybe a story that's been running round my head for a few months.
23 November. Winslow, Arizona. 248 miles, 1 state line
Far from being able to take it easy (Dad, you at least should pick up on that one), its been a tough day. I don't know how cold it was this morning, but it was well below freezing. I'd be willing to bet that despite clear skies all day it didn't get much above zero centigrade all day. Last night I left a small water bottle in my top case. This morning it was frozen solid, and despite being in a black box all day – it was still mostly frozen this afternoon. Two of my padlocks were also seized up first thing – even a dose of WD40 struggled to free them. However I decided not to take the easy option and head south for Phoenix – a full days ride and around 70F today. It would have meant a big detour – and potentially not getting to the Grand Canyon.
I wasn't in a hurry to get away and was on the road around 9.30. Avoiding the interstate I took a more scenic route through a Navajo reservation. There was snow on the ground either side of the road and the occasional patch of black ice on it. Despite the heated hand grips and 3 glove layers, the tips of my fingers were going numb. My toes were worse though I kept scrunching them inside my boots. I crossed the continental divide at 7,500 odd feet elevation, which is higer than the Blue Ridge Mountains although I was still really in the plains. The worst thing however was that it being off season most of the tourist traps, ie places to stop and warm up, were closed. At Zuni, a major town in reservation terms, I found a local corner shop open. I went in and asked if it was okay for me to just get warm for a few minutes. They looked at me and shrugged their shoulders but it was clearly a local shop, for local people. I made a show of looking around for something to buy but left fairly quickly. I finally got a proper break to warm up around twelve at a petrol station where I had a burrito as my first food of the day then got onto the I-40 again.
I pulled over for the Petrified Forest National Park, which also included the Painted Desert. It was a 40 odd mile drive and I really wasn't expecting that much. Even though it had warmed up (relatively anyway, I was still wearing 4 layers and even walking did not feel exactly warm), I thought I would zip through. However I really liked it and stayed for a couple of hours. There were lots of places to stop walk around a bit and admire the views. Some of the fossilised trees were enormous. There were logs ten metres long, albeit broken into pieces, but still obviously from a single tree.
I was a bit concerned leaving the park as dusk approached because my petrol light was on and I had to go 25 miles before I ofund somewhere to fill up. I have gone ten miles further than that back home, but its a very different feeling when you're on a vitrually empty road, miles from any civilisation and sub zero temperatures threatening. I knew I had enough to get me to a populated area, and therefore a fuel stop, but I was still a bit on edge.
When I got to Winslow I was really feeling the impact of being cold for the whole day, so checked into a slightly more expensive place than usual because they have an indoor pool and their own bar and restaurant (most motels don't). So tonight I am pampering myself a little and have no need to go back outside again. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer but I'm not counting my chickens. However after getting through today's weather I feel like I could handle almost anything (touch wood).
24 November. Williams Arizona. 225 miles
It was very cold again this morning but not quite as bad as yesterday. The only parts of me that got uncomfortably cold were my feet, even with 3 pairs of socks. I think my thick pair must be pretty useless, so I'll look out for some new ones. The cold laster most of the morning, until I got to my main destination – the Grand Canyon.
Unfortunately for you I find it difficult to describe it in words. Awesome and huge spring to mind but are inadquate. I followed to south rim road, maybe 40 or 50 miles long, and the main tourist area, but only a fraction of the 200+ miles in total length. Even looking at it its difficult to appreciate the scale. A board at one of the view stops pointed out features, one of which was some kind of temple on top of a very precipitous looking pillar of rock. I'd have guessed it was 2 or 3 miles away – but in fact it was nine. The average width of the canyon is 16 miles, but here there were visible landmarks 40 miles away.
Try this link here to get some idea of what a small part of it looks like.
What I did come to appreciate is that there are probably only two ways to see this place properly, and both would be necessary. The first is the helicopter ride, the only way to really see the scale of the thing. The second would be hiking, a much more visceral way to appreciate the size, probably spending several days and camping out. Unfortunately its the wrong time of year for both, and I am definitely not equpped for a hike. There were a few hikers about and they were seriously kitted out. I was told that guide insist on people carrying crampons at this time if year. With the sun low in the sky there is little direct sunlight at the bottom – and it can be colder than at the top. There were patches of ice and snow about, the altitude at the top is around 7000 feet. I did take one rocky path down about 100 ft or so – and climbing back up again I noticed the effect of that altitude. Or perhaps I'm just unfit.
In total I spent about 3 and a half to 4 hours there, but had to leave as the nearest town where I could be sure of a room at a reasonable rate was 50 miles away. There are of course all sorts of options much closer, but I wanted to be sure as most of these get well booked through most of the year. Despite the cold this was definitely the most populated tourist site I'd seen. Both yesterday at the Petrified Forest and today I was asked several times about my trip, most of them turning out to be bikers themselves, and all of them thinking I was crazy to be out in this weather.
Williams is a small, rather run down looking place, but because of that almost everything is within walking distance. There is a steakhouse opposite my motel (which is cheap, less than $30 but clean) and a couple of bars just up the street. Crucially as well there is a laundrette (or laundromat) next to the steakhouse. And this is where I am now, writing these notes wearing my last almost clean set of clothes. Most of them I have worn at least twice – especially the cold weather stuff. There are lots of machines for such a small town, and not the only one I spotted. The other customers are either Native Americans or Mexicans, all women who each seem to have come along with all their stuff as well, 4 or 5 machine loads each. I guess its another sign of a poor towm where a lot of people don't have their own washing machines.
26 November. Las Vegas, Nevada. 283 miles (mostly yesterday). Passed 5000 trip miles.
I didn't write any notes yesterday, so this is two days rolled into one. Yesterday I was bumping into Brits all over the place. First while packing up the bike to leave Williams, a retired yorkshire miner spotted my license plate. He and his wife had been driving around for 3 weeks. We chatted for ages, he is an old bike enthusiast and wants to restore old Nortons and BSAs when he gets home.
I set of heading west on I-40/route 66. It was wamer again but still cold enough to require lots of layers first thing. Mid morning I stopped at the Grand Canyon Caverns on old 66, east of a place called Peach Springs. Its a series of underground caves of limestone with a range of crystalline structures. Its not a particularly unique place but the guided tour was very good, given by an old boy with a very entertaining account of the history of the site. Incidentally the only connection with the Grand Canyon, which is over 70 miles away, is that this is where the air for the caverns comes from. This is where I bumped into British couple no. 2 . These were not very talkative probably because he made a very British joke which fell on totally deaf ears with the rest of the group.
These emergency rations were placed in the caverns for use as a fall out shelter during the Cuban missile crisis
After that it was west for a few more miles, then north through the Mojave desert to Las Vegas. I went over the Hoover Dam on the way – had a quick stop for a look around, as did many others. They had vehicle security checkpoints on the approach to the dam – presumably a terrorist prevention measure, and as I rode towards the policeman I thought he was going to get me to open up all my various boxes, but he waived me through without the need to even stop. The dam, which blocks the Colorado River at the lower end of the Grand Canyon was quite impressive. It was surrounded by power cables heading off in all directions. It also marks the boundary between mountian and pacific time as well as the border between Arizona and Nevada, so I am now in my most westerly time zone.
Pushing on to Vegas I saw a sign for a lake, beach and recreational area and as I had time and the temperature had warmed up considerably, I decided to check it out. The best part of it was the road – winding down between close, rocky hills to a valley below. The lake was quite picturesque although it was clear that recreational fishing and motorboats were the thing here. The 'beach' was more rocks than anything else – you wouldn't swim here. However it did give me a chanve to shed another layer – I was feeling a bit like an onion.
Vegas for the most part looks much like any other American city. The exception being The Strip, a single road where all the big casinos are, which is of course the only reason to come here. There are the shows of course – but they are just designed to entice more people into the web. The yorkshire miner told me he and his wife came here but not to gamble – I can't imagine why they would want to.
I'm staying at Circus Circus towards the northern end of The Strip. It is one of the big hotel casinos but this being a relatively quiet time of the year the room rate, for almost a suite, is not more than the average motel rates I am paying – around $35-40 per night. The Strip, even more so than the French Quarter in New Orleans is 24 hour entertainment. As night comes down the neon replaces sunlight and its sources seem almost endless. I went out wandering around 6.30 through at times the heaviest pedestrian traffic I have seen in the US. Each new hotel tries to out do its neighbours and as you head south they seem to get bigger and more outrageous. There's Treasure Island, with a pirate themed frontage complete with two model ships in a lake. They have a show here several times a night where the goodies fight the pirates and sink their ship, then sing a song about how good it would be to come inside the casino. Paris has its own not so miniature Eifel Tower; New York New York with a skyscraper outline – the Empire State Building, Chrysler building, Statue of Liberty, plus a rather tacky tribute to the NYFD. Ceasars Palace is a mock up of the Collosseum, and Luxor is a massive pyramid, entered between the paws of an equally impressive Sphynx (with intact nose).
Almost as big as the real thing.
Enter any casino however and they all start to look alike. The slot machines dominate, more than you could believe possible. I'll bet (its catching) there's almost one per person. A lot were not being used last night. The slots are largely occupied by women – mostly older women but also the type you can't help but immediately stereotype as 'white trash'. They sit there silently, with blank expressions, pushing coin after coin into the machines, carrying money by the bucketful. Some are even playing more than one at a time. They all promise high jackpots, and talk about 97 or 98% payback rates, but I reckon this is where the biggest profits are – simply because of the sheer number of machines. Not for me. Craps, the dice game, looks incomprehensible; roulette far too risky; poker and baccarat far too serious. I was out for Blackjack.
What surprised me was the size of the stakes even ordinary looking people were playing with. Most tables have a minimum $10 bet, and a lot play with $25 chips. I had planned not to spend more that %50 a night gambling, so this was too rich for me. Then I found a table in one casino, Boardwalk, with a $3 minimum, much more my scene. So when a seat became available I bagged it – this was around 9.30pm. I found myself sitting next to a very friendly Welshman and his wife. He had the perfect attitude to this game. He didn't want to play serious money, so win or lose it did not matter too much – he was here to have fun. He would chat away to the dealer (who was changed every half hour or so), tip them frequently, and this encouraged everyone else to talk to each other as well. So it was very sociable – not like any other tables I had looked at. In blackjack of course you play against the dealer, not each other, so you can be happy when others win – its rarely at your expense, unless they get the card you wanted. And the dealer wants you to win as well. I noticed that you tip a dealer at the beginning of a hand. If you win that hand, they get the tip and double it from the bank; if you lose the bank gets the money. So they will advise you, as much as they are able, because winners make tippers. I started with $50 and played at that table for six hours, finally cleaning out at 3.30am. Also while you play the drinks are free, something my welsh friend only found out last night after being here for a week! All you do is tip the waitress a dollar per drink, though this is a custom not a rule and they don't blink if you don't – they just won't come around again very quickly. Sometimes during the night I was up by as much as $30 but eventually I lost it all, and even then I twice went down to my last bet and crawled back up again. So for about £35 I'd had a very entertaining evening, a few drinks and still spent less than on a night out back home.
I eventually got into bed around 4.30, but I think I must have reached the point of no return sleep-wise because I only dozed lightly until 8 o'clock. A couple of days ago I had decided it was getting time to change my tyres. The rear especially was getting very bald. So that was my task for this morning. With a bit of pfaffing about it took me a fair chunk of the day but I now have two drand new dual sport tyres which will equip me for the more off road elements of my trip that I anticipate will lie ahead. In comparison with my original road tyres they feel a bit strange, altering the handling and cornering feel especially, but thats just something to get used to.
So now its about 5 o'clock, the sun as gone down and the lights have gone up for another night in the self styled entertainment capital of the world, though of course to most Americans the USA is the world. I'm outta here.