Going Out West (Part 1 of 2)

My husband and I just got back from a week-long vacation out West. The trip took us from the bright lights of Las Vegas to the back roads of the Mojave Desert and everywhere in between. The trip was borne out of a one-day work trip in Palm Springs, Calif. My husband proposed we fly into Las Vegas and road trip along Route 66 to and back to Vegas.
We flew into Las Vegas on a Friday evening. It was my first trip to Sin City and I couldn’t wait to see what all the fuss was about. We stayed at the Paris Hotel on the Strip, which was right in the middle of the action. Upon arrival, we immediately checked out the French-inspired hotel and casino, with ceilings painted as blue skies and a perpetual illumination of dawn or dusk (people were gambling during both). As I sat down to pull the handle on my first slot machine, my husband pointed out a lady casually throwing up in a trashcan next to us. This would be only the first of several people I saw having “too much fun” during my stay! Viva, Las Vegas!
The next few days we took in the shopping, the shows, and the casinos. We ate fantastic food and stayed up way too late. By Monday, it was time to hit the road for our road trip adventure, with our final stop being Palm Springs that afternoon.
Our first stop was the Hoover Dam, just 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas. After a walk over the pedestrian bridge overlooking the awe-inspiring views of the dam, it was time to get back on the road.
Our next stop was Mitchell Caverns in the Mojave Desert. With our iPhone’s GPS guiding the way, we knew our exit was in a town called Essex. Our stomach’s started to growl along the way, but we waited the two hours to get there for a pit stop. We hadn’t passed a store for miles.
The desert stretched out far before us and we were glad our gas tank was full when we started the drive. We pulled off our exit and headed to the town of Essex. We arrived to a ghost town of abandoned and burned-out buildings and tumbleweeds. Nothing was to be found here. Uh-oh. What had we gotten ourselves into? We turned back and found a gas station at the entrance to the Mojave Desert National Park. We stocked up on water, snacks, and gas. I asked the attendant about the sights in the park. She told me that one day she “hoped to visit, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” I wondered what she did do in her spare time, considering we were two hours from any civilization.
It occurred to me that everyone’s sense of adventure is different. In a short 2-and-a-half hour span, we had gone from the height of the modern world, luxury, and extravagance in Las Vegas to the most desolate place I have ever been in the middle of the Mojave Desert. And it was in this moment, we realized our cell phones and their all-knowing GPS were dead. How would we get out of the desert and find our way to Palm Springs?
Stay tuned next week as the Katie’s Western Adventure continues … Contact her at kewsolutionsinc@gmail.com.