Californian Cowboys Part 4

Day 6 Death Valley
We spend two days in Death Valley.
We stop at a huge expanse of Sand dunes, pop a beer and lie in the hot mid day sun, in the sand. The sand is softer then anything I have ever experienced. Like silk. Like sinking your hands into a mound of sugar, but better. We drive down to Badwater, the lowest spot and the hottest. I'm starting to feel a bit over cooked. Once back in the van the hot sun on my arms as we drive feels amazing. Makes me feel like a warm and good. Since there are very few trees or bushes, the camping is just ok, not very private - but the bright sun peering over the mountains makes even a small RV park look beautiful. Our first night there, I pulled out my sleeping bag and had a 2 hour nap atop the aluminum picnic table, which is completely exposed to the entire park. I loved it. Outside naps are my favorite.
One the second day we leave the park by the south eastern exit - via Wild rose Road. It's a dirt road, much more rugged then the others. We have to go slow, and meander between sharply curving caverns for miles. On each side pink, red, green and yellow rounded stone walls tower over us.

Somewhere between Wild rose Rd. and Red Rock Canyon park, we stop at a used clothing store and I get a great plaid shirt and Hilary gets a blue polyester dress with tiny red polka dots. We also see the two hottest dykes of the entire trip. in this small town used clothing shop. We dissect what made one of them so unbelievably cream-your-pants hot, the rest of the drive. We both conclude it was attitude.

We pull into Red Rock Canyon park late afternoon. It will be our last night of camping. Our last night with Hale Pua. Our last night of cowboy. Red Rock canyon reminds me of the Flintstones. It's just like Bedrock. You can actually imagine that the Hanna-Barbera boys drove out here from Studio city for their motivation. It's a simple night, and we finish up our food, and call it a night early. We're both tired, and ready to get home.


Day 8 Bed Rock to LA
I wake up, and watch the sunrise for the last time through the van windows. My mind is already in Ottawa. I decide that I need to drive. that I want to drive through LA. Down Santa Monica blvd. Through Beverly hills. And I do. This was a rather huge defeat for me as I am quite nervous about city driving, especially driving a huge rental van through LA - city driving. I turn fear into excitement - and with the help of Paul Simon and Hilary on the Map - we do it. We even have time to stop in a Starbucks in the gaybourhood.
We bring Hale back to Bill and tell him our stories. He wanted to hear them all, which feels good because it's nice to remember them all too. He drives us to our hotel - and shows us on the map where we can go to get dinner. Our hotel - which is near the airport - yes - near the highway - yes and which shares a sign and a parking lot with the Hooters next door - yes. Oddly enough - they didn't mention that on the website.
This hotel experience was saved however by the hot tomboy receptionist, with beautiful hands and skin and eyes and shiny soft hair, who lets me flirt mercilessly with her while she checks us into our flights, since there is no computer available for guests. Which was a thankfully a long process because they were international flights and all.

Hilary and I shower and rummage up some clean clothes, go for dinner and call it a night.

Day 9 - John Wayne to O'Hare to MacDonald.
The flight home is beautiful as we fly under the clouds and I get to watch the states transform beneath me. The endless mountains and valleys sprawl from California to Utah, to Colorado and then it all turns flat over Missouri and Kansas. There the Farmer's Fields drape out over the landscape like a giant green quilt. We have a killer all-American meal at a diner at O'Hare - I don't think I have ever enjoyed a veggie burger, fries and a root beer so much. We buy trashy fashion magazines and go home.

Californian Cowboys Part 3

Day 5 Seeing is believing
We can't wait to get back to the desert. We head for Death Valley. We stop at Nevada Joe's - the pair of pink breast cancer ribbons entice us in. The large but empty store is filled with UFO and alien faced posters referring to Area 51. Throughout the trip we have had to bypass several fenced in military training facilities, which take over huge expanses of land - they are often bigger then national preserves. But the conspiracy theorists believe Area 51 is where all the freaky top secret X-files action happens. We buy more hot tamales cinnamon candies, and salty sunflower spits and keep driving. About an hour later Hilary sees UFOs, which I'm pretty sure are just fancy fighter jets.

We get to Scotty's junction - the most north eastern entrance of the park. Amazed at how much distance you can cover going at 100 km / hour, instead of the 50 we were used to taking back roads or going up mountains.
Here - we coast downwards... for hours. Death Valley is 85 m below sea level and we started out at around 3500 feet elevation. It's is the hottest place in North America, and folks round here don't even dare go in the scorching summer heat. In fact it was a clause in our rental agreement - NO TRAVEL TO DEATH VALLEY April - October.

Beautiful rolling slopping hills and trees are a welcome sight, but quickly transform into the rocks and dessert that we had grown to love. After about an hour we are surrounded again by dry arid land, bare desert, back roads and no one in sight.

Now it's my turn to see a UFO - an Unbelievable Flying Object.
"Hilary - what's that over there?" I say as I point to something small, and red floating in the huge expanse of beige rocky empty land.
"It's a red balloon"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, it's far off, but I'm pretty sure."
"That's what I thought. pull over"

I try to take pictures.. but the digital zoom, and the bright dessert sunlight just make the balloon look like a misplaced pixel.
We had seen several giant red Cloudbusters on the trip - I pointed them out in Santa Ana, at the used car dealership next to the place where we picked up the Hale Pua from Bill. I felt like they were some kind of reminder. Reminder of why I was out here.
but this.
this little rogue red balloon, floating out into my periphery, as if it had followed me and had come out to play - in the middle of fucking nowhere - this was unbelievable

"What does that signify for you?"Hilary asked me after I got back in the van.
I couldn't even answer. I just sort of sat there dumbfounded.
But it was a reminder of my reality - a reality that I had finally fully accepted.
and felt, from the bottoms of my dusty salty boots, so very ready to move on from.

"let's just keep driving" I said to her, and we did.

Californian Cowboys Part 2

Day 4 LAS VEGAS

We drove from Nipton to the big city, via Searchlight, which was the closest gas stop and we were running low. We took the back roads as usual, until the last junction where we had to meet up with a real highway and real cars.

When you drive a 4 gear Westphalia, you notice right away that they go slow up hill, and they go real slow up mountains. But this is all well and good when you just want to soak in the scenery, and take your time.

When we hit the highway, I began to blush. You really can't go 50 km/ h on a 110 km highway. It's just not kosher.

Anyway, luckily we finally climbed it, and rounded the base of the mountain to look down on the valley.

Las Vegas sprawled out in black, over the wide valley floor - like so many barren ones we had driven through. It's true what they say....it is an oasis, of sorts, smack dab in the middle of the desert. Especially if you go by the definition of an oasis - which is a whole bunch of shimmering lights - with nothing of substance really there. But you go - because you're in the neighbourhood and just have to see it.

You go because you want to see the lights, see the overkill, see the glitz and the cliches.

You go to gawk. jaw open, eyes glazed over - gawk.

And you go because there are gay bars with ladies nights and you "happen" to be there on one, and you go because this Tuesday night "happens" to be a wet t-shirt night.

Las Vegas, Moncton, Atlanta, Ottawa - gay bars, and the ladies that go to them are all the same. The bars are small and dark, with not nearly enough ladies of your liking in them.

The one striking difference about a gay bar in Las Vegas, is the pole. Or rather the pole dancer - in the middle of the dance floor. It is a sight to see, especially after seeing nothing but rocks and mountains for 4 days, to see a lady in a bikini, grinding up a fully dressed lady who is putting money in her... suit.

The second striking difference is the afore mentioned wet t-shirt contest. (Although granted...it's really just a matter of time before we run out of themed party ideas that require sexualized hotness... for someone in Ottawa to come up with that one)

The winner, I wouldn't even say had the nicest.. ah.. t-shirt, (which were actually white men's undershirts...*hot*). I think she won on.. on .. effort really. And the runner up, who was actually - the hottest all round, had a broken leg or something, so really it was rigged.

What I can tell you is that we, or at least me, felt like a true blue cowboy. When we walked in there we looked, and no doubt smelled, like we had been living in a van in the dessert.

Luckily for me, they had pool tables, and especially luckily for me, my traveling companion happened to be a pretty girl who can kick some pool playing ass, which got us some street creds. with the locals. The "locals" were a gaggle of surfer styled girls, who we were surprised to discover were our age. They were cute - no doubt and knew for certain that we weren't from them parts. Even could tell we were Canadian. They enjoying talking up my pretty traveling companion, and making her blush on several occasions. The bottomless drink special they had going on that night helped too.

But on a Tuesday night, after the games had been played, the asses kicked, the dances had and the t-shirts wetted, er whetted, we were all ready to call it a night. The hotel just wasn't the retreat we had expected, nor the shower as welcoming as hoped, and by morning we were thrilled to get back in the van again.

Californian Cowboys Part 1

Day 1 Picked up the Hale Pua, our VW camper van from Bill. He gave us some great tips and hugged us as we left. We love him and our van. Her name is Hale Pua.  We went down to Huntington beach, for ice tea on the sand. Drove south through lux Laguna beach along the Pacific coast hwy. Saw the ocean and the fancy shops. Stayed the night in San Mateo. 

Day 2

Drove through the San Bernadino mountains. 

They are lush and green this time of year, and will be brown and dry by the summer. It's a bikers paradise, these long winding roads. Stopped the van on the side of the road in an over grown lot in San Janctino. 

Tomato cheese sandwiches and beer. 

We kept to only back roads, and pass through long stretches of small towns then the desert. We drive past a salt mine, which consists of huge white expanses on the desert floor, and small bright aqua basins of water. we stop and collect huge chunks of salt crystals. as we continue the landscape becomes so vast, and barren. little small rusted out shacks are scattered in the distance. 

Asking ourselves, about their stories... why did they come here? how did they eat? what happened to them? 

We drive along Route 66 near Amboy for a short bit, vintage gas stations and Roy's hotel in red, white and teal. 

We approach the Mojave desert and stop for a beer to watch the sunset on the side of Kellbaker road. The gunshot holes in the signs, and the stream of fast moving pick up trucks, deter of from spending the night on the roadside and we decide to drive on to the next campsite in the dark. 

We start to mount Essex Road, towards Mitchell Caverns to find a remote campsite at 4,000 feet elevation. As the gas tank gage moves down, and the van slowly chugs up this barren mountain, we start to worry. 

no lights, so sight of life, no end in sight. 

We get out of the van and the bright moon lights up the sky. we are reassured. 

we continue. We find our site and breath deep sighs of relief. 

The sky is full of stars and the world is completely silent and still. 

Day 3

I get up early and walk out to the cliff. We are perched half way up a mountain, over looking the dessert and layers of dark to light 

blue mountains in the distance. 

I watch the sun rise over it all and watch as the warm yellow glow colours the mountains behind us. breathtaking. breath, deep clear clean breath. the air is so fresh and clean. 

We head out into the Mojave National Preserve. Up Cedar Canyon Road, which is dirt and swathed in Joshua trees. 

We spot small shacks here too, set way back from the road, at the end of small little dirt paths. Not many, and certainly no sense of community.  We watch the heat shimmer on the distant road. I am driving. 

"Now turn left onto Morning Star Mine road" Hilary tells me. 

I pull the van over. We get out and explore abandoned rusted out houses. 

We spend the night in Nipton station, an old town made up of a store, a hotel and a few camping spots. 

Turn left at Morning Star Mine Rd.

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This my friends, is What I am Talking About. 

I just got to say - google - brings travel planning to a whole other level. I just love it. You see, I just want to drive. I want to drive in the hot desert and  stop whenever we feel like it. I want to take high contrast black and white photos. I want the road to look like this. Our original destinations was to head south to San Diego along the coast and then over to  Tuscon and Phoenix. but once i took a look at the roads - which turned out to be interstates and suburban multi-lane hellscapes, the route quickly changed. Death Valley, Mojave, and the Grand Canyon are calling now. Some of the roads aren't even paved. 

That Is What I am Talking About. 

Anyhay, I have much to do before said trip next Saturday, including catching up on my chores, watching Spartacus with the Wren and  traveling-light-like-Clint Eastwood-packing: 

• 2 pairs of jeans, 
  
• 2 white undershirts, 
  
• 2 black t-shirts, 
• 1 long sleeve cotton snap up
• a light cotton skirt, 
• something warm for the cold nights,
• knickers,
  
• Pentax K-1000 and 2 rolls of Ilford HP4 150
• music, preferably with banjos, 
  
• a sleeping bag
• and 1 hammock*
  

* Ok...so maybe the lack of trees in the desert will impede my hammocking potential...damn.