He finally came, and I checked-out. The casino was still quite busy, it seemed to me, for being extremely early on Sunday morning. I guess if people who want to gamble come here on a junket for the weekend, theyl'l spend all their time gambling and none of it doing social work.
In the entrance to the hotel, I began stringing-up my packs. One of the bellhops sauntered over and talked with me about motorcycles. Normally, I'd welcome that but I was sort of tired and really wanted to get out on the road and beat the heat. Torn between politely following his conversation and hooking up my packs, it took much longer than usual to get rolling.
He told me a near-fatal crash story about a buddy of his who had an old CBR-1000. For ten years ago, the bike was quite a rocket. Apparently, his friend dumped it on the interestate just north of the city. Cars somehow came up and I mentioned my RX-7. That did it again: another near-fatal crash story about his sister's fiancee, who was a rich prick and had just bought one but ended up badly stuffing it.
Finally, I managed to get out on the road. I knew that some of the guys were going to an all-nite strip joint, so I cruised by to see if they would be there. Sure enough, they were just leaving. What luck! I talked with them in the parking lot for a whie; they realy were drunk and decided to relate a story of a dancer who had an obscene 60-inch bustline. Just what I needed: a third near-death story!
I shook hands with them each and they hopped a cab. I went sailing onto I-15 northbound and started making time. Just outside of the city, I caught up to a pretty girl in a Nissan Pulsar. She rode along aggressively, waving to me. She finally got off at an exit ramp near the northern-most edge of town and waved one more time. It was a little flattering, to have her pay attention to me. But it made me wonder why she did it. She could see nothing of me under my leathers and helmet. She knew only that I had a big motorcycle with Washington state plates and didn't know better than to stay out of the desert. About 30 more miles went by before I was completely drowsy. I pulled off at the exit just before the Moapa River Indian Reservation. There, I rolled into the truck-stop part of the gas station and put the bike's center-stand down. I balanced myself on the bike and napped in the shade of the sign.
About 45 minutes later, I rousde myslef. I wasn't ever really asleep, just a bit unconcious. I hopped back on the highway and powered further north. As I made the turn towards the ramp, I realized that the town was showing no signs of life at all. It was about 545am, now, and there wasn't a damned thing happening here.
Upon the highway, the true nature of my mistake was made known: the sun was rising over the hills and pounding hard, straight into my eyes. With my drowsiness, I could not stand to do battle with the sun as well. As I-15 plows out of Vegas, it drives north east sharply, straight towards the corner of the Arizona border with Colorado. Near the end, it bends to the east just a little, cutting the corner of The Silver State. And so the rising sun was aimed straight at me.
Fighting valiantly, I made it to Mesquite. It lies right on the Arizona boarder, and features a few cut-rate resorts--hotels with golf courses-- to attract tourists on their way to Las Vegas. Or, to eek the last dollars out of departing visitors. Or, to make it possible for gambling junkies to get their absolutely last fix before heading out of Nevada.
The parking lot of the resort was completely filled with grass hoppers. They were all over the place, starting into the air as I crusied towards them. I zipped my jacket to my neck and parked my bike. As I got off, they crunched under my feet and you could see the squished carcasses of the less alert specimens in a trail through the parking lot, the way I had come.
There were no rooms at the in, and the receptionist wasn't friendly about it at all. I guess nobody is in a good mood at 630am. So, I rolled down the road to the next spot. It wasn't quite as nice; certainly a motel instead of a hotel like this one. But they had rooms at $29 for the night, and that was perfect. If I decided to nap and then leave, it wouldn't seem like such a waste of money. And if I stayed, then I stayed!
After parking and battling the grasshoppers again, I crashed out in my room. There was some sort of golf tournament on ESPN, and I watched it half-heartedly as I fell asleep. I woke around 1pm, and was starving. I hadn't showered, but I also wasn't out in the oppressive heat. Staying up and sleeping late left me quite disoriented, so I thought it would be best to stay the night at the hotel and truly get my money's worth. I've stayed at hotels for less than three hours, just to get out of the rain, but this time I would end up staying almost 26 hours.
After washing up, I went into the tiny casino. They had some two-dollar tables and a few five-dollar tables. All the people here were middle-aged. It was really something. I walked through the casino and got a submarine sandwich in the "sports bar", a lame excuse for a restraunt that didn't have any gambling--presumably so you could feed your kid before sending him back to the go-kart park across the street and returning to the tables, yourself.
I downed my lunch and found a table. The folks there were talkative, even though we weren't from the same generation. The dealers weren't as smooth as they were back on the strip, and that was fine by me: more fun for everyone. It was almost the same as Winnemucca.
The table was quite fun. I didn't move the whole afternoon, and kept drinking Bud Lites. I was down $50, then $100, then quickly caught a run. Before I knew it, I was up $250 again! The pit boss came by and had me sign up for the casino's players club. I got a rating card. Heh!
A fellow came to the table with an impressive set of stitches and a metal immobilizer around his wrist and two of his fingers. He explained that he had suffered an industrial accident; he had caught a running power drill as it fell from a platform. It tore his finger almost off and ripped a huge cut into his palm, hand, and forearm. Four near-death stories in a day!
The casino had a goofy special where you'd get a special cupon if you hit blackjack with the same suit. The cupon entitled you to go spin a wheel and win a prize from the wheel. I amassed three cupons. When I finally became bored with the table, I went to go try my luck with the cupons. I won a round of golf, a free night at the hotel, and a comped buffet. Sheesh! So, my amazing twenty-nine dollar stay actually became free, and I could go eat.
And so, before turning in, I treated myself to the buffet. It really wasn't that bad, tho the Treasure Island buffet was much better. I read the paper as I watched a family of nine come through. They didn't fight much, but the kids were very very unruly. It seems like there is sometimes little hope for the human race.
I stomped downstairs and back into the parking lot. The heat was still oppressive, at 9pm! I hot-footed it back into my room. Once there, I studied it. The maid had come in and fixed everything up, and I felt a bit guilty about that. But the room appeared completely new to me, since I spent so little concious time there.
The early news had a story about the amazing grasshopper infestation. I imagined my bike covered with the little monsters tomorrow morning. And I dozed off.
Posted on 20 January, 1999.