(4/11) Road Trip 1999: To Las Vegas Via Rhyolite and Death Valley

On the road early today, and man, we were expecting a hot one!  Not gonna lie, the drive south through the Nevada desert is I-5 Washington level boring.  Just a lot hotter.  But we did have some cool shit to see on the way!

First up was Rhyolite, which is Nevada’s largest ghost town, and located on the eastern edge of Death Valley.  Something strange happened when we pulled into Rhyolite.  It started to rain.  RAIN.  By Death Valley.  What?!  We didn’t sign up for that!  But even though it was raining, it was still so damn hot that the ground stayed dry.  The water was essentially evaporating on contact.  Crazy stuff!  Now as for the ghost town itself, there were a LOT of buildings that were still standing (or at least parts of buildings), and some, like the jail, that you could even go into.  Definitely a place that I need to come photograph!

From there, it was off to Death Valley itself. Holy hell, I have never experienced temperatures this hot. Mid day in August, right! It was so hot that there were signs on the road to turn off your air conditioning, so as not to overheat your car. It physically hurt to put my arm out the window while we were driving. But still an awesome experience to check off the bucket list.

And finally, it was off to Las Vegas!  We came in from the south, so we passed Mandalay Bay, and then the giant Luxor pyramid, and finally the giant medieval Excalibur castle, before we go to New York New York to check in.  I’d say NYNY was a pretty good into to Las Vegas!

We hauled all our crap to the room, and by the time, we were both hangry again.  We couldn’t find a buffet at New York New York, so we ended up going to the Excalibur.  Now I know all you Vegas veterans are cringing over the fact that we went to the dinner buffet at the Excalibur.  Cut us some slack man, we didn’t know any better!  But hey, if powdered mashed potatoes are your thing…………

Another early night, as the next day was going to bring something very very groundbreaking…. An Area 51 Invasion!  We had one last item on the agenda though – a quick trip out to the airport to rent an SUV, because there was no was the green Mazda was going to be able to handle what we were going to do!