Jan. 18, 1999 - We pull into Needles three hours late and left the train along with a handful of other travelers bound for Las Vegas. The train went no further than the Needles train yard, opting to wait for another engine to come down from Barstow to pull it the rest of the way to Los Angeles.
And so let me tell you about the most noteworthy of my traveling companions to Vegas. A short, stout, middle-aged woman with a penchant for complaining who had dragged her ailing eighty-year-old mother across the country from New York. In short, the traveler from hell.
Her name was Gina, and my first encounter with her was back in the Chicago station when she was complaining about some unknown Amtrak employee that she thought she was treated unfairly by because Gina was Puerto Rican. She also complained about the train being late into Chicago from New York. Oh sure, there was a terrific blizzard bearing down from Detroit and on to parts east, but that's no excuse for being ten hours late. Ahem, yes it is.
Later on in the trip I overheard a conversation she had with Paul the car attendant about her eighty-year-old mother and how bad off she was, and how Gina thought he wasn't giving enough attention to her situation.
Luck would have it that Gina and her poor mom were part of the handful that got off at Needles to catch the van to Vegas.
The train was about three hours late as we pulled into the yard. Gina had brought along a shitload of luggage, and I being Mr. Nice Guy helped with hauling the mess off the train and the half-block over to where she remembered where the van was to pick us up?
She's done this routine before? Not with mom in tow I hope.
If we had came in on time we would have had a two hour wait for the van to pick us up. But here we were an hour after pickup time so we fully expected the van to be waiting. Amtrak states that this is a guaranteed connection. But alas, no van was present so Gina starts going through the motion of accosting Amtrak employees and anybody remotely official looking. The other passengers in our group wandered around the corner to the offices of the commuter van services. Gina told them not to go there since the van was supposed to pick us up at the depot. I, however, remembered from my notes that we were indeed supposed to go to the office, not stand around at the depot.
While Gina goes about doing what Gina does best, I am tending to her mother who seems tired but nonplussed about the situation. She says to me, "My daughter gets crazy." In a respectful, attentive tone I replied, "Yes, ma'am. I can see that."
A security guard comes rolling by and Gina approaches and explains the situation. He offers to let us into the van offices where we can wait comfortably. Gina wants him to haul the luggage over but he declines offering liability reasons, so guess who comes to save the day but lil' ole me.
We join the sensible passengers at the office and wait for our ride, which offered Gina a perfect opportunity to hold forth before a captive audience. I wasn't going to take much of this shit. I hopped on the phone and called Greyhound to find out where and what time I could catch a bus from Needles to Vegas, then went outside to patiently wait, far from the obnoxious tones of Gina.
I soaked in the serenity of early morning in Needles as I paced up and down the street opposite of the office. I had peace for about fifteen minutes before Gina came out and walked over to me to continue on about her situation.
I was pretty much at the courteously controlled stage of abject hate at this point. But lo, my knight in a shining van came to our rescue. Seems that the driver we were supposed to have for this trip was a no-show, so this poor schmuck was roused from slumber and drove over from Lake Havasu to get us on our merry way.
The only thing I wasn't looking forward to was a two hour trip in a crowded mini-van with Gina holding forth all the way. But fortune blessed us and ten minutes into our trek she shut her yap.
It was pre-dawn by the time we got to Las Vegas and Gina was trying to finagle a free taxi ride out the driver, but he would not relent and only offered to drop her off at a 7-11 along the way of our route. I quickly hauled her luggage to the front of the convenience store and just as quickly hopped back in the van to bid her and her poor mother adieu. The driver had told us at this point that he had dealt with Gina before on a previous trip. So when he had pulled into Needles to pick us up and noticed her in our midst he wondered, "Why me?"
At this point I had a major need to hit the can thanks to last nights meal of 'Colon Blow Wrap' so I opted to be left at McCarran Airport. My first lucid thoughts in Las Vegas were held in the relative peace of an airport toilet stall. Isn't it always that way?
No. Only with me. Ah, the pause that refreshes.
After attending to the curse of Amtrak vegetarian cuisine I sought a place to pick up an elusive city bus. After ten minutes wait I relented and made the half-mile trek up to Tropicana where I could catch a bus. Two buses later I was on the other side of Vegas tromping my way through muddy street construction and the streets of a sedate subdivision only but a mile or two in from the fringe of urban sprawl.
I came upon Barb & Al's home and a pair of cats greeted me upon my arrival with some interest which waned quickly as I set about relieving myself of my mud caked shoes. After 63 hours straight in a new pair of Converse high tops my feet were a crinkled, clammy wreck. Before I did anything else I stuck them in the tub for a cold soak. After that I lomticked on some Einstein Bros. bagels and hummus (or was it peanut butter), hit the shower, removed the mud from my shoes and the wheels of my luggage and generally relaxed.
Later that afternoon Barb rolls in, with Al not too far behind. The memory has faded so much I can't recollect what we did that night. I did know we stayed mostly at home and I retired early.
Jan. 19 - I woke up before the rest of the clan and muddled about. Al went to work, and Barb as well but with me in tow to exploit a ride. Barb keyed me in on a breakfast place that wasn't too far from her work so I made a beeline to this inner city strip mall joint called Omelet House.
Decent staff, pleasant working class eatery motif. I browsed the menu and was dumbstruck by the sheer magnitude of omelet dishes offered. I was not to be disappointed. I ordered an omelet with green chili, cheese, onions, tomato and such. It was the size of a deflated football! And it came with a memorable side of potatoes: sliced thin, fried crisp, and seasoned. All that, coffee, English muffin and a big ass glass of orange juice, had me stuffed to the gills. I wandered east down Charleston towards downtown. After a pit stop at a classically seedy Greyhound bus station (sorry, no glory holes), I wandered out to inspect the remains of the original main drag of casinos—Frontier Street.
Frontier Street used to be the heart of Vegas with casinos lined up and down for several blocks. It was appropriately seedy as well, with any number of vices available for the taking. With the advent of the casinos along the Strip, Frontier Street got seedier and a little run down.
And from the people who brought you such memorable fiascoes as the pedestrian malls of Ottumwa and Las Cruces came the Four Horsemen of Urban Redevelopment to remake Fremont Street into a shining scene of homogeneity, or as they would say in the media, mainstreaming.
Along a four-block stretch of Fremont closed off for pedestrian traffic, the powers that be plopped in a bunch of plants and benches and capped it all with a roof which at night lit up to reveal the world's largest tourist advertisement complete with accompanying music. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, they put a roof over Paradise and put in a tourist trap. For a seasoned traveler like me—accustomed to such earthly delights as dingy French Quarter gay bars and Mexican border town bars with the under-the-counter communal piss troughs still intact—I was thoroughly disgusted.
And the Lord took pity upon and brought upon me a disciple. "Hey," the young black dude said in subdued tones until I took notice and turned around. Upon his outstretched hand was one of the fattest, tarriest looking buds I'd seen. "Weed?" he said. I shrugged in an easy, matter-of-fact fashion, smiled and said in a knowing, easy way, "Nah."
I wandered through the wasteland of this open-air mall, called upon from the casinos by pushers to come and gamble there. I'd have done better scoring the bud. I reached the other end of the gambling mall and looked upon the stretch of Fremont before me that had autos, and shops, and real people going about their business.
And the Lord put forth a blessing and gave me a sign: CIGARS.
I stumbled upon the Don Yeyo Cigar Factory—a little shop among other shops in a brick building where they sold hand-rolled cigars. Like a kid in a candy shop, I came in drooled as I watched the Hispanic laborers going about their trade, rolling the tobacco. A young gringo smoking a fat one, steps up and shows me to the display room where I gazed upon a wall of hand-rolled goodies. With so many different types to choose from, I opted for the sampler.
I walked down the street a happier man and ran into the purveyor of leaf again. He still had some left, but I held up my bag of cigars and told him I was covered.
From the advice of the cigar store owner I sought out Main Street Station which made its own micro-brewed beer. I found the joint easily enough but was an hour early for the restaurant/bar to open so I wondered about and blew twenty on the slots.
I hit the Horseshoe casino newsstand, grabbed a paper, and found a spot to sit and read for awhile. I lit a cigar and wandered down Las Vegas Boulevard. with a major nicotine head rush. After a few blocks I stumbled upon the Crown and Anchor Pub where I quaffed a pint of stout, a couple of glasses of pop, and some nachos.
I quite a day at this point so I went back to the house and hung out with Al and Barb that night. We went to a local pizza joint for dinner. It was an okay pizza but not noteworthy.
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