Forest of Universes and the Desert Nucleus

Hello everyone...
I made it to the eternal day that is Las Vegas.  '70's tunes and cigarette smoke and JUST one more hand.  But more on this grandest of all Christmas displays in a second...

San Antonio to Amarillo - The running joke about living in traveling from South Texas is that to go just about anywhere, excluding Mexico, the entire first day is in Texas.  I've seen Texas many times so I figured I'd just read, sleep and think alot until I got out of Texas.  I dozed for a little, but could'nt really relax to well so I decided to think a lot for a while and caught myself really enjoying the ride.  When one gets away from the concealed weapon and mega church mentality that is swallowing Texas one can really see the best that the state has to offer, beautiful varied nothingness.  I was caught up over the beauty of the live oak trees, growing anyway and anyhow to sustain and before I knew it I was in the plains of the Pan Handle, which, if Texas would really try to secede, would be something like it's Nebraska...flat but beautiful in its flatness.

Something else struck me as I politely did not listen to the 50ish oil roughneck who really needed a drink were all the gutted downtowns we passed through.  Its hard to believe these little towns at one time were able to self sustain.  Downtowns were in bad shape before I was born but I do remember when all the Wal Marts started springing up on the edges of just about every small town I knew about and the towns seemingly becoming a host of empty buildings.  And, now I've seen the Wal Mart Supercenters suck whatever's left and selling one brand "Great Value", its own brand, of just about everything, as if America has become one big West Virginia Mining town in the early 20th century.  Or worse, a "1984" of some other world, have you recieved your ration of "Great Value" Gin and Cegarettes???  I can hear the rat in the cage shouting "Capitalism!"  I'm being opinionated, but its a real hard thing for me not to do and I am from Texas and I realized something as I saw a lot of it out the window on Wednesday....I love it.  I love Texas and it is a part of me, but so are those little downtowns.  And there probably a little part of you too, what does the downtown of your hometown look like?

The drive from Amarillo to Alburquerque - 3am take off, the bus driver swerved and stopped at every truck stop to hammer something on the side of the bus with something that wasn't a hammer.  It was a real drag, but we came upon a terrible wreck on the interstate just before we came into Alburquerque and I saw the remnants of a pick up and of someone who was alive, trying to get something to someone somwewhere and now the ambulance is not in a hurry to take them to the hospital for it is too late.  I felt a lot of sadness, maybe I was just real tired, but I do think it helped me enjoy the dawn a little more, and dawn over Alburquerque is pure beauty with all its hot air balloon color.

We hit the road toward Flaggstaff, AZ, passing through one of the most Amazing parts of the country, The Navajo Nation Indian Reservation.  Its surreal prehistoric landscape is enough to require all for viewing, but pictures of the "Indian Ruins", "indian Jewely" and "Indian Pottery" signs interspersed with all the casino signs should be in textbooks.  Beautiful people on beautiful land under the ugliest of circumstances, the Indian Reservation.  All the broken and rusty traior houses, spread out along a part of interstate 40 "Purple Heart Drive Federal Highway."  Again, I'm a little tired and have had too much coffee.  The ex convicts I took a drive with were great....young, but they sang and were so happy to be out of the joint.  None of them were over 24.

Flaggstaff is a wonderful Cowboy Hippy town that I was told that I would love, but my bus was late and I had to immediately catch a another one...so maybe next time.  I do love Cowboy Hippy towns, I think they are the best that America has to offer....in my opinion, of course...

THe trip to Vegas was in darkness, but I did catch a beautiful glimpse of the mountains between the forest land of Flaggstaff and the desert of Vegas...truly a purple mountain's majesty.

I got a hotel room in downtown Las Vegas and decided to walk to the strip but it was a very deceptive little jaunt and turned out to be little not at all.  I made it there, just in time to hop a cab and come back.  But the tatoo parlors wedding chapels and gentlemens clubs and massage parlors all looked like fine establishments.  Dawn in Las Vegas, to me, is cooler to check out...and if you look real close you can see the night things ducking around corners and into alleys...awaiting another night chances chances chances.

Manfred Man is singing me to the end of this post and the slot kings and queens are blinded by the light.  Its getting to real in an unreal town so I gotta catch a bus...take care everyone and take it easy or don't take it at all...

Talk to you next time from somewhere else...
Todd