Vegas and area: Day four

Zabriskie Point, with sunrise coming over the mountains. Death Valley.

Grasslands, fed by underground stream. Tecopa, CA. Sunrise, this morning.

Dirt road to nowhere. Mid-day in Crystal, Nevada.

Dunes in Death Valley, near Stovepipe. Late afternoon.

Another stitch from The Neon Boneyard. (Wow, what a place that is).

Lake Mead, a few miles east of Las Vegas.

Church at sunrise, Tecopa, CA.

Midday today in nasty sun, but maybe that\'s best for Vegas (?). New York New York, across from my hotel. Love it or hate it, it is captivating.

And the weirdest frame of all -- my room, Room 474, Tropicana Inn Hotel, Vegas.

I sort of re-fell in love with Tecopa, California, this morning. The light was amazing just after 6am. I was on the way to photograph this church, when I ran upon these natural grasses growing. It would be an awesome location for a bicycle ad, or some kind of anti-depressant medicine, because there’s just no way in hell you could feel depressed if you were walking here. There are these giant “mud hills” as they call them. They must have been silt runoff, from a zillion years ago, but they’re just gently rolling low hills. And this one underground stream under a mountain feeds the town of Tecopa, with water. It’s hard to see how surreal this is, because there’s no way to show in a photograph that you drive for like a solid HOUR off the main road, thru absolute desolate desert with no water, and then miraculously, these green grasses start to appear. I sat in The Crowbar Cafe this morning, and talked to the locals about just HOW that people came there by wagontrain, and did not die or starve to death. I am such a wimp compared to those people — I get pissy if the temperate goes much above or below 72, or if the humidity goes up, or if the Internet connection gets slow, but these wagontrain people came from like MISSOURI or something, over land, at about two miles an hour, and somehow, they survived. I have no idea how. I promise you they did not try it in June.

There’s another frame above, of Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, quickly stitched, (six vertical frames put together from the P45+; you should see the file at 100%; stunning). To view a larger JPG of this file, click here.

Anyway, I leave Tecopa, and head back into Vegas, and grab a room at The Tropicana. I walked in the room, and my jaw dropped. There were mirrors on the headboard, on the side walls, and on the ceiling. There’s no way I’ll get to sleep tonight, will probably end up on the floor. I feel like I asked the Front Desk for the AARP Discount, but instead they punched in XXX Discount by mistake.