I put the Bonneville Salt Flats into my phone and headed due west. I thought the place was ten minutes out of town -- it was two hours. And after my warning the day before, I wasn't keen to speed (too much).
The place itself is a wonderland. A different planet. Vast expanses of white flatness in the powerful desert heat. I paid the $10 entry and followed the cars. Though I think I could have simply driven past her with a wave and gotten through just fine.
The "highway" in is a series of witches hats, some with the 55mph speed limit posted. But no lanes. And about 400 metres of space to play with. Everyone just did what they wanted. Driving on the wrong side; driving slow; driving quick. It worked and was perfectly safe because there was so much space between us all.
I drove into the pits at walking pace, right down to the end at first, just to see what was going on. Then I drove back the way I'd come, stopping to jump out any take photos of some of the cars that caught my eye. At the kind-of checkpoint, I asked which way I go to the start line. Some people said I needed a wrist band, some said I needed a pass on the car. Nobody was checking and nobody cared. You just did what you did. I couldn't help thinking back to the motorkhanas I used to do as a teenager -- the most basic form of motorsport in the country (and probably the world) -- where everything was scrutinised to a tee.
I found the start lines. On land speed vehicles, the start is incredibly boring. The most boring part, probably. These machines are geared purely for top speed, so none of them can even move off from a stand-still under their own power. There's either a guy behind pushing the motorbike, or a car with a tyre strapped to the front to give it a nudge until it starts to gather speed.
Back on the road, I dialled in Pahrump, NV, into my GPS. It told me to head south on this country road. It was the road that followed the Pony Express. Two hours in I found my first town. Then nothing for another couple of hours. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. Rolls of hills, crumpled up like a rug that's been pushed, and a road that cut straight through them.
As the sun was dipping below the horizon and I was driving through a national park, I drove past some people who were trying to get a car out of a ditch. I turned around and pulled up. The couple were clearly as redneck hillbilly as you can get. He had long hair and a biker's moustache, and she was missing a front tooth or two. The front left tyre had popped and spat them off the road, beaching the car. I didn't have a snatch strap in the rental, so I dropped the rear tyre pressures on their ute down to a guestimated 15-20psi, then grabbed the soft case for my guitar. When I ordered it, I'd ordered it with a hard case, but the soft case came with it. I'd used it to carry the spare stickers, despite not having a use for the case or the stickers. But I did now. The rear right tyre was just spitting dirt and stones and digging a hole. I put some rocks underneath, then shoved the case under the tyre, then stood on the rear tailgate as he reversed. We got it out of that stuck, but she couldn't reverse out. He put it in D and it started to bog again, but I was able to give it enough push from behind for him to drive it out and onto the flat.
He had a spare, but no jack or crowbar. We spent a few minutes going through the Tahoe, but eventually we found the jack and everything. Only, his lug nuts were a different size. So I gave him the can of coke I hadn't drunk yet and his wife and I drove down the road, looking for a town. They live in Idaho, but some friends of theirs who had moved to Las Vegas had called them from Ash Springs, saying they needed help (gas or a tyre or something). Ash Springs was only ten minutes down the road. She literally had no idea what she was going to do. Her ability to assess and make a plan in a situation was lacking. I told her to go to the gas station and see if she could buy a cross bar or borrow one, then hitchhike back up to the car. By this stage I was covered in a fine dust.
I left her at that gas station and kept on my way in the dark. Eventually I found Las Vegas again, and marvelled at her enticing, shimmering lights. Pahrump is about 20 miles west of LV. I'd specifically wanted to visit Pahrump, because it was featured in two episodes of one of my favourite TV shows, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The episodes revolve around the police station/courthouse, and a diner across the road. Predictably, the town is nothing like how it's depicted. It's more like Torquay in size. The police station is the local government building, as is common in these parts.
Driving south for Los Angeles, I soon realised that San Diego was only 40 minutes more. I could be there by 4am! I don't think I drove through Death Valley (that was north-west from where I was driving), but I was in some desert with some giant boulders, though the moon set early and it was very dark.
Half of the freeway to San Diego was closed, so that complicated things for me and the tiredness I was carrying. I tried to stop in at a Target car park. It was very big and very dark. Security quickly drove over and shone a spotlight on me and told me to move on. I thought about explaining that I was extremely fatigued and only needed a nap, but I didn't. I saw a sign for Oceanview, which I remember my friend Hayley telling me she lived. I looked up on Facebook the exact suburb and headed there, though there was no real logic behind my thought process. I eventually found a carpark that wasn't too private and wasn't too out in the open. That was 4am.
At 6am I woke to the light, very groggy. I got some breakfast from the 24 hours McDonalds up the road and headed for San Diego. Hobart wouldn't be a completely inaccurate comparison. I found three aircraft carriers in the harbour, one of which was a museum, and wandered around. My attire helped me fit in with the rest of the homeless that were checking the bins.
Hayley got in contact with me and I headed back to where I'd been, to her office. I was fighting fatigue every mile of the drive, unable to find a comfortable temperature or volume from the stereo. It was great seeing my friend. I've only seen her once since she and her boyfriend (now husband) had moved over about four years ago for work. Today Hayley announced that she was pregnant, and it made my day. She also gave me very cool new wallet from Armourdilla, as my old one was literally falling to pieces.
Back on the road, this time heading north to Los Angeles, I was really struggling to fight sleep. I was getting eye wobbles and my body kept spasming, and I decided that I needed to get off the freeway. I wasn't far from the airport, but I thought I should dip my feet in the ocean, symbolically marking the end of my roadtrip from east to west. Typical Baywatch/OC-style scene, with one exception: the massive power plant just up the beach.
I filled the car up, took most of the rubbish out of it, packed my bags, and dropped it off at the rental car agency. Most of my afternoon has been spent quietly stressing over whether I'd get a flight tonight or tomorrow or the next day, and how I'd go about sleeping in the terminal, all as I played on my computer on the marble floor against the window of the checking-in hall.
The Qantas lady was very helpful and was able to put me on the later flight to Sydney, leaving at midnight. The TSA crew were all in a jolly mood. A few of the Dodgers were fast-tracked (baseball, I think?). As I waited for them to go through my bag to find the cologne I'd forgotten to take out, I found myself standing next to Terry Crews, who is an actor of the silver screen variety. I told him that it should be him screening everyone else. He laughed politely.
Through security I was finally able to change into some fresh clothes and freshen up in the basin. I'm fed and now I'm sitting at my gate for my plane to arrive and take me home soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment