A Note From The Road: San Francisco To Vegas

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, then it is walled with posters for bad conventions. All along Interstate 15 the view out the window is nothing but visual pollution (Lance Burton, one of these days I will hunt you down and take a scythe to your testicles...I had to see reproductions of your bastard, ugly mug no less than seventeen times down that endless stretch of desert and by the end I was praying that I would be given the opportunity to make you and your boyband-chic bangs magically disappear) and bat country. No, I did not get to pull over to the side of the road and utter that line from Fear & Loathing. Yes, I thought about running to the front of the bus and ordering the driver to hit the brakes, but the bus was packed and I figured such an act would be considered poor form.

This is not where our story begins.

Our story begins, as always, in a Greyhound station...and in this case it's L.A. I've been in Los Angeles for approximately forty five minutes and thirty seven seconds waiting to change buses and I'm already desperate to leave, mostly because it's getting hotter every minute and uglier every second. We were given a small tour of the city before we reached the main depot, even briefly pulling into North Hollywood and the only remotely interesting sight out the window was the sign for Mullholland Drive. Yes, I squealed. Inwardly. As for the rest of the place? If you're unfamiliar with the sights and smells of Los Angeles, well, think of everything negative you've ever heard about it. It's all true. Think of everything positive you've ever heard about it. Right. I'm going to assume they were talking about Disneyland which, for the record, is in Anaheim. Not L.A.

Twenty two minutes and sixty three seconds later, the line for the Vegas bus gets moving and we're off into the desert. I have found the secret to scoring your own seat on a Greyhound bus. If the bus is packed to the rafters, you have no chance whatesoever, suck it up and spray some perfume so you don't have to choke on the aroma of stale rum wafting over from the drunk next to you. If there's only one seat left and you want to be the lucky bastard who gets to sleep horizontal, nay, the bastard who gets to sleep period, then here's what you do:

1. Gather up all your hand luggage (you will need at least two items) and pile it on the empty seat next to you.
2. Assume the position: scowl on face, arms crossed over your chest, knees up near your hand luggage on the seat next to you.
3. As soon as passengers start boarding, cough up a lung. As loudly as possible. Hack up some phlegm if you wish. Your chances are doubled if you mutter to yourself afterwards.

It never fails. I should know - I've taken over fifteen Greyhound trips and I've only had to suffer the company of strangers four times. I got lucky on the LA - Vegas bus, the people you get on this route are all the American weekenders with dreams of cash windfalls that are the size of their triple-stacked, cheese-laden Louisiana fried chicken buffet platters. Unlike everyone else on the bus, I didn't have to spend the next few hours with my cheeks pressed against the window and someone else's cheeks spilling over onto my thigh.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the boredom began to take hold. You know you're in trouble when this is the sight that greets you out the window. I loathe to think of what the road is like beyond Vegas if the next place of note is Salt Lake City, christ. We scored a lunch break in the delightful dustbowl that is Barstow. The blast of air that floated upwards as we all exited the bus was furnace hot and through the haze and face-melting I could spot little more than a Starbucks, a Macca's and...well...I think you're starting to get the picture. I'm considering my options for instant heart failure when a stray black kitten pops up from behind a rock under the bus station, spys me, freaks and crosses my path in order to get away. I'm not usually one for superstition, dear readers, but you can and should look upon that event as foreshadowing.

The only other real town on the desert road is Baker and all I've got to say about Baker is that I witnessed the towering structure that is World's Largest Thermometer as we flew past and I now feel that my life is complete. Sleep overcame me, and I woke up just in time to see a giant pyramid. And a castle, which looks inflatable and would probably be a lot more entertaining if that were true. And a rollercoaster circling the landmarks of New York City. There is only one place in the universe pathetic enough to contain all three of these complexes. I had arrived.