After our party split up for our separate mini-holidays, we decided to check into the Stratosphere for a night before two days of roadtripping before we left for San Francisco. The rooms themselves aren’t anything to rave about, but any trip to Vegas can’t be complete without a trip to the top of the hotel, which features jaw-dropping views (best seen at dusk) and four rides to really put the height of the spire into perspective.
After my last buffet breakfast (thankfully) we set off to Flagstaff, and surprisingly (for somebody who hadn’t seen the topography of the area) the desert soon ends and the rocky hills make way for even larger earthy orange mountains. Small towns are inexplicably spread throughout the countryside – and since there doesn’t seem to be any agriculture of any kind out here I’m surprised how you’d make a living in any of the towns, unless there’s good money in tumbleweed or yellow desert grass.
We took another detour to “experience” historic Route 66, which was nice although I must be too young to feel the nostalgia. We pulled into Flagstaff just after dark, so we had no real idea of it’s size. The local Radisson looked promising, and due to the swift promise of black ice we decided that we’d found our hotel for the night.
You really know you’ve left the big-smoke when everybody in the town says hello, smiles, and actually looks you in the face, and I didn’t meet one person in Flagstaff (Radisson or not) that wasn’t at least well-mannered. It’s a marked difference than I’ve found in most of the major cities I’ve been to over here, where just making eye contact with anybody in retail makes them extremely uncomfortable.
Top marks to the Radisson for nicely sized and decked out rooms, friendly staff (even of a night, which is something altogether different) a tasty restaurant and even free WIFI. Everywhere else I’ve been so far has charged at least $10US for a day’s use or just not had any internet offered. I must admit to my major felony over here however; another hotel, another hotel pen.
The next morning we left early in the hopes of seeing a few more towns before hitting Vegas again before dark. I was glad I didn’t sleep in the car overnight, because the bottle of water I left inside froze solid. Never again will I mock heated seats.
The threat of black ice was repeated along the road so much that we started to wonder what the big deal was. It was daylight after all, and with the temperature at around 15C any ice would have been melted an hour after the sun hit it. While traveling up a nice windy mountain on our way from Sedona to Prescott, we found somebody just as foolhardy as us.
The driver of a 4WD had managed to hit a patch of black ice on the road that was no wider than a car tire, lose traction and ram into the cliff face on the side of the road. Traffic resumed after a half hour, and everybody proceeded for the next two hours at 10km/hour. It was the most tame accident I’ve seen over here though, with the worst being just south of Vegas where a guy crossed the highway into the dirt median, hit the edge of the road on the other side, flipped his car, and did a tumbling dive out the front windshield. As we drove past some passersby were forcing him to lay down on the road. I’m not sure if it’s the fast cars, the insanely boring straight-arrow highways or just impatience but it seems Americans sure have a lot of nasty road accidents. A cabbie on the strip told us (after witnessing a “6 out of 10 accident” on the other side of the road) that there’s around thirty accidents a day in the city.
We had a bit of time up our sleeve, so we decided to take a small detour to the dot on the map entitled Laughlin. Turns out we’re going to spend a few days here next trip, as it’s a really nice old-vegas type place with a strip of casinos adjacent to a river; something Vegas can’t even manage. After a drive around we decided to make our way back to good-ole Vegas for our last night in town.
We’d shopped around the night before and decided that the Excalibur was suitably cheap and somewhere we hadn’t stayed before, and I must say it’s not a bad place for the price – nowhere near as central as Bally’s, but it’s nice and close to Mandalay Bay, and my next-time hotel, Luxor.
I spotted the House of Blues while walking around inside and remembered that Fiona Apple was playing that very night. Now a few weeks ago I would have thought this an awesome fluke to be able to see her live after such a great album, but anybody who reads this often would already know about my rant regarding the new album, “Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine’d Retail“. Considering I was to see Aberdeen City the very next night, I decided to skip Fiona and get the rare holiday full sleep ready for San Francisco.
I’ve started feeling very weary of switching hotels, considering in two weeks I’ve stayed at Buffalo Bills, Primm Valley Resort, Bally’s, The Stratosphere, a Radisson, and finally the Excalibur. Although my check in/out skills are hardened, I really can’t wait to settle into the house we’re renting in Orlando. 
