Wednesday 13 June 2007

"6 days on the road..." 368 miles

I am going to have to boil the car I have decided. The heat and the sand and the sun tan oil have left every surface stained and smudged. If I continue my regime of "man moisturiser" and the factor 30 my face is going to slide off. It makes for interesting reactions at truck stops when I open the door with my "melting Goth" look.

Visalia to Parhump was today's trip which took me up through the Sierra Nevada and then down, down, down into Death Valley - reputedly the hottest place on earth and 260 feet below sea level. Temperatures as high as 120f have been recorded here. However, luckily for me I chose a mild day with a positively balmy 107f. Stocked up with water at Lake Isabella and decided to leave the air con off in case it overheated the engine. It didn't, but I did.

There is a splendid and slightly unnerving feeling of isolation driving mile after mile over a deserted and not very smooth road with few if any other vehicles. With no mobile signal, there is at the back of your mind that "what if..." feeling.

As Parhump is in Nevada, despite it being a one horse town it is also a gamblers paradise. Sat at the bar in a small casino with the same video gaming machines set into the bar top that I saw in Reno. Meanwhile a woman behind the bar did her best to drum up custom.

Sitting reading the paper and this voice says "you wanna Jaegermeister shot with that?".....nearly at the bottom of the glass and ...whack...another drink arrives. "erm I didn't order that..." "you don't wannit?" "well now that its here I'll drink it". She didn't charge me for the last one.


www.bbc.co.uk/radio2

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

RE:With no mobile signal, there is at the back of your mind that "what if..." feeling.

Never think " What if"...just go for it matey!

;-)

x

Anonymous said...

Cheeky

artictractor said...

takes me back to a similar trip we did in20 01 just makes us want to get up and do another trip have fun and keep it on the black stuff

Unknown said...

Standard Greetings Alex!
A lot of what you've done on this trip so far, my parents have done too . Whilst in Death Valley, did you get 'buzzed' by US military fast jets? My parents did!!