32. Las Vegas Trip: The drive to Death Valley (What to do outside Las Vegas)

Johnny Mack and Travel is back. We're back in the car. I'm in Las Vegas. It's the end of February, and I find myself with some extra free time, and I've decided I'm going to do an unplanned drive to Death Valley, probably a little crazy. Ways tells me it's two hundred and two miles from where I am. We're gonna take US ninety five and then State Road one ninety. I have no idea what is planned, but I got my rental Buick here. Let's start her up. Let's hit the road. See what we fine. Travel is back. I've been driving about fifteen minutes now, heading north on US ninety five. This is one of those highways two lanes in either direction with a big wide median. You see these kind of in the middle of nowhere often and where there's plenty of room to expand this to four lanes eight lanes someday, but not anytime soon. Now. It's remarkable to me. And I'm from the East Coast, which is very tightly packed, and I always feel this way when I come out West. Is just the sense of I call it big sky and wide open spaces. I'm lucky around me on my left hand shoulder. Some beautiful mountains. One of them looks snow capped, which is pretty cool for Las Vegas. I guess I don't know. I'm not a local. To the right. Whole lot of nothing. See you gets to the mountains straight ahead, whole lot of nothing in the rear view mirror, whole lot of nothing. Looking at the waves map, whole lot of nothing. You gotta plan this trip. I also don't have a sense of how the Nevada State troopers like to rule. So I'm sitting in the right hand lean speed limit seventy, cruise control seventy. So far, very peaceful drive and very different than the New Jersey Turnpike. I am enjoying myself, and this should be quite an adventure. I had to fire the requarterback up. I cannot believe what I just saw. I saw a billboard. So I was passing through. I don't even know where I am. I passed by an air Force base. A little north of the air force base was a gas station slash quickie mart slash casino, of course, and there was a billboard. And the billboard said Burger King two and a half hours ahead. Apparently, if I keep going two and a half hours, I will come to Tanta Paw and there's a burger King. Talk about being in the middle of nowhere. Burger King two and a half hours away. Wow, welcome to Cactus Springs elevation thirty two thirty. Here's another sign for Tonapa station two and a half hours ahead, food, hotel, casino. Good thing, I've got two hundred and sixty eight miles left in the gas tank. This is easy driving. There's just me and the occasional truck. So I am missing my car that has the keep the car in the lean technology. I've gotten really spoiled with that. You know, I might have a recorder in my hand as I'm recording this, so that feature comes in handy. But this is really it's just straight two line road. If state troopers weren't a thing, I could probably easily floor this and do one hundred miles an hour without being the least bit stressed about it. It's straight, flat and dry. It's beautiful out today. It's probably around on fifty degrees that desert, zero humidity, big bright sun. Its just it's one of those perfect days. But I'm not familiar with the area, so I'm not messing with that. Seventy miles an hour it is, and you know there's a burger King in like two and a half hours. Unfortunately, we're not gonna make it to the burger King because we are on our way to Death Valley and we're going to exit well before the burger King. But if you're jonesing for burger King, I could tell you where to find one. Welcome to Fort Amagosa. How you came across a gas station and I'm like, I'm gonna fill up because you never know. I got three gallons worth of gas for four dollars. In one sense, there's also snacks here. Let's see what I got. I got a bottle of water and dye coke. This is a healthy meal. I got some Kettle brand Holapino chips, some Kettle brand honey Dijon chips that either gonna to be lunch. I got a Milky Way, and I got a bottle of water, and I got a TwixT bar. Because you never know what I'm telling you, I'm in the middle of nowhere. I'm in the middle of nowhere. Also, I find it interesting here in the parking lot, I see the remains of the snow. Apparently it's snowed at some point and they shoveled it right up here against the wall. Backing out, We're about to get to the end of the part where I'm on US ninety five and I'm going to make this left turn. I forget the name of the road that we're going to take, but it should be about an hour from Death Valley. This gas station, I took a couple of pictures, but there's sand, and there's three pumps. There's nothing. There's really nothing. Oh, look across the street. Fireworks, fireworks. Here's the M eight hundred, the world's largest firecracker. I also have to pay attention here because I haven't explained it. I'm just like on a big, open sort of paved thing, and I don't want to accidentally start fighting myself on the highway, and I'm gonna gun it here behind this truck. It's a little actually activity here in Fort Emma. Whatever I said, A fed Ex truck. Let's see what this billboard is selling. Let's see is this my turn? Yes, I'm following the fed Ex truck. Stop recording your podcast and follow the directions shining back all right now, We're on State Road one ninety continues straight for twenty minutes to state speed limit forty five. Seems a little low for the middle of nowhere. Up here we go, we're crowsing up to fifty five now seemed to be heading towards the mountains. As I look around, there is nothing. Let's see what the sign says. We are sixteen miles from ash Meadows, twenty three from a Death Valley junction. That'll do it for me. And now the speed limit is back to seventy. Woo. Who all right, I'm gonna have my chips and uh, I guess I'll have to diet coke. I'll catch up with you guys in a bit. I just passed bank. I can't explain to you the bank being in the Millino where this road that we cut across. After I got my chips and stuff, there was a cop. I had the crew set to seventy. Sweet lived seventy, so I'm good. So there was a cop, and I think the cop was there because I found the elementary school. Do you just picture nothing? And then a two lane road that I don't know, maybe a picture like from close encounters. That two lane road from the close encounters ad so a lot of nothing. Oh, coming up on some ambulances here and a stop sign. Oh no, hold on, I gotta drive. It was not an ambulance. It's some sort of road crew and they were really really interested in making sure I stopped. Okay, let's see what's happening here. They appeared to be painting the stripes down the middle of the road. Okay, where was I? So? Yeah, this roads of milanowhere we came to the elementary school and I'm just looking at it. This is where the school is, because where are the people that go to the school? Nobody lives like down the block. Does anybody live within fifty miles? I would be so curious to know what the busting situation is with that particular school. What else did I see? I saw a restaurant, but I just got my chips and stuff. A post office, aweso in the middle of nowhere. And I don't want to make it sound like the post office was next to the school and next to the restaurant, as if we had some sort of civilization. No, these things were all spread out. Basically. What I'm looking at is in some sort of eighties movie where you're driving through the apocalypse. That's where I am. And then every now and then you come up to something that passes for civilization, and you're like, oooh, civilization, a post office. It's really remarkable. I'm having a ball. But for an East Coast or like be the amount of nothing out here, this is great. I love how the world works. I came up to a decent size hotel, really in the middle of nowhere, hotel casino, cross the street from at a bar. Good fifteen cars in the parking lot of the hotel casino, and then I drove another ten feet Welcome to California, and I see, oh, okay, so this is the casino that's six feet over the border. In case you want to gamble, totally get it's a now in California, speed limit drop to sixty five and even less civilization than there was before. This is so much fun. Welcome to Death Valley. I just paid my thirty dollars entrance fee. It's kiosk. You just pull over on the side of the road, pay it, and stick the ticket on your windshield. I don't know if I actually had two ann or how well that's enforced, but hey, I like the National Park Service, and I'm an honest fellow happy to pay it. So I'm hearing in the parking lot buy the kiosk again. I don't want to make you think this is some sort of big, fancy opening. It is not. Well, there's a nice dog here, a couple other cars looking at the mountains straight ahead, and next week we'll enter Death of Valley. You're gonna make my way to Furnace Creek. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, wherever you get your pods. See then from Death Valley