Aug 8th: to Las Vegas

230 miles driven, 0 photographs taken, 3 Americano Grande’s drunk, 1 Starbucks City Mugs acquired (Las Vegas)
Accomodation: Boulder Station Hotel and Casino (Less than adequate)

An light day today, late up and a few hours spent in a Laundromat followed by a long drive to Las Vegas. Driving in a straight line across the desert on interstate 15 is an experience to say the least. It just goes on, and on and on. The sheer vastness of the landscape defies photography and then you get to Las Vegas. I did not expect to like it and I was not disappointed. Checking into the hotel was a depressing experience; rank upon rank of slot machines, multiple easy ways to get access to money and credit. I walked through reception twice over a half hour period and the same people were sat by the same machines, over half smoking, virtually expressionless. A carbon based set of automata.

On order to occupy the long journeys I bought an FM Transmitter for the iPod and downloaded audio tapes of the early Discworld books. This works well in the country, but in the big cities there are just too many radio stations and you can’t get a clear signal. So we switch to listening to religious broadcasting of the extreme variety; personally I find the idea of a world resting on four elephants standing on back of a giant space turtle more credible and slightly less scary. This afternoon we were delivered a lecture on Islam. This was condemned on the basis that it is based on belief in the word of God being revealed in a book, arising from contemporary records and assembled after the event; now just where did the Bible come from?. Figures were provided on the growth if Islam in the US and we were told that Britain had been taken over by extreme Islam with France expected to follow shortly. You get a sense of the idiocy? We were warned that we might wake up any morning to find millions dead the the interstate highway system destroyed by terrorists, but not to worry as the final days were upon us.

I really don’t like Las Vegas