Las Vegas II (Electric Boogaloo)

I started on the path back to Vegas with more than a little frustration. I had such intentions, so many more plans but, as Mr. Burns pointed out, “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,” or some kind of crap like that. All I could do was go forward. I only had about twenty-four hours left before I had to get on a plane, so I figured I might as well make the best of it. I started when I got back to Mohave County.

I started with a Virtual at a disused bridge off the side of Route 93. The location seemed a fairly popular trailhead for runners and bikers, so my presence was barely even noticed. It drew me to the photographed benchmark, its age the answer to claim it (and no, the resolution on the photo isn’t good enough to see it, so no armchair logging!). Full Disclosure: I actually misread the date, but the CO was kind enough to let me keep the find. I continued, picking up a cache here and a cache there along the road. I stopped in Chloride for a Virtual and a Traditional with another short search for one I didn’t find in the cold. I didn’t know at the time it was once the county seat. If I had, I might have gone deeper into town, but I mistook it for a ghost town, primarily because it’s about a hair’s breadth from being one.

Somewhere around here, I realized I had never gotten that lovely voice welcoming me to either Arizona or Nevada. I slipped into Boulder City for a bit, and it was like driving into Chinatown. The broad streets and palm trees shading the bungalows felt like stepping into the Los Angeles of film. The town was constructed for the workers building Hoover Dam and has retained the charm of the 1930s. At the same time, the tumblers and tai chi and yoga practitioners in this park spoke to the modern day. I feel I could spend a couple of days there vacationing. I grabbed a couple of Virtuals and hit a trackable Hotel with a long list of trackables in it, but only a couple in residence. Log your trackables, folks!

Once I got back in into town, I picked up another one of Las Vegas’s many highly favorited caches, A Special Memory. You literally have to drive up to a wedding chapel and ask for it. That’s different. No wonder it’s the 16th-most favorited cache in the country! It certainly earned one of my stingily hoarded favorite points. Of course, I had to pick something else up before it. I drove off into the desert north of town for another ammo can.

Ladies and gentlemen (or however you identify—I don’t mean to be gender assumptive), I give you Nevada’s county challenge, C WELL SEWN COLD HEMP (which they explain in the description [because that’s a silly name]). I also grabbed a couple more in the desert, one of them now being my westernmost find ever (at this point, that is).

After getting some sleep, I grabbed a bunch of LPCs and then, around 5 a.m., once the excitement had died down, I hit the Virtuals along the Las Vegas Strip.

I navigated around drunk people and vomit. I even wrote a log entry in Latin (from memory because thank you, classical education) and one in French (because thank you, Google Translate)! And I even found myself back at the Las Vegas Sign to find a Traditional that I didn’t stop for when I was there the first time. And, as the sun rose higher, I made my way to the airport. But I still had time on my hands. There’s a Virtual (that’s also called Welcome to Las Vegas) in McCarran/Reid International Airport so I popped over to the appropriate terminal and grabbed one last cache.

And, with that, I was done. I caught my flight and headed home, prepared to examine in detail the many failures of this journey.