bob_dobalina

the route between las vegas and los angeles is marked by a number of elevation changes. at its highest point, you're almost a mile above sea level. returing to LA yesterday morning, i was caught by surprise by the dense smog that surrounded my car as i made my final descent into the los angeles basin. cruising down from an altitude of 4,000 feet at roughly 120 miles per hour, i could feel my car flinch as it entered the thick, brown air a few miles before the junction of the 15 and 10 freeways. the sky changed three shades of blue and visability was cut in half.

and then there's the rest stops. you've got barstow, a town seemingly built around an outlet shopping mall. and then there's baker, a town that features inflated gas prices that boarder in absurd (even compared to what's available in LA) and the country store that boasts of selling more winning lottery tickets than any other lotto outlet in the state. ma and pa probably buy a few tickets out of desperation after squandering little johnny's college fund after a five day bender in sin city.

there's thousands of mobile homes along the way although i doubt that the trailers will ever get mobile unless a desert wind kicks up and deposits them on top of an unlucky resident. there's peggy sue's 50's diner that looks like it hasn't been open since the 70's. abandoned automobiles. boarded up and closed down gas stations. truck stops. brake testing areas for the downgrades.

i wonder what people will think of the route thousands of years from now. will vegas still be a destination or will the archeologists of the future scratch their heads and ask why some stretch of road between two deserts carried such significance. will some automated, cyborg indiana jones swashbuckle is way into a vault in las vegas to retrive the worlds first slot machine or mistake the feather headdress of some cabaret girl for something of religious significance? or maybe they'll understand it all and laugh because the people of the future will no longer have use for quantifiable wealth and see the lure of easy money and free alcohol as the downfall of the previous regime. on the other hand, vegas could just be the beginning and moe green, mayor oscar goodman, and countless of unnamed mob guys have layed the cornerstone of future societies where people wager their futures on hopes of finding something that isn't a mirage in the middle of the desert.