Who would have thought that I would be on a Greyhound bus? But short of driving three hours each way this is the only way to get from Victorville to Las Vegas. The train system is not scheduled to come online until 2011, when a controversial high speed train called the _________ is expected to begin operation.
I went online to book a flight when I realized I would have to fly to San Francisco to connect to a flight to Vegas. The 3 hour drive looked quite appealing when compared to the 5 hours it would take me to fly from Ontario (the closest airport) to Las Vegas including the layover.
I decided to take this on like I do just about everything else. I looked at it as a new experience and an opportunity to take a lot of pictures. The problem with that plan was that this journey did not prove a very good photo opportunity. The landscape was the same for approximately 200 of the 221 miles of highway, dry ground, shrubbery and the horizon limed with power lines. Of course there is the occasional house (homestead, ranch or old farmhouse) motel and rest stop. Oh yeah, and the billboards you pass direct you to the various exciting events and activities that await you in Las Vegas. We pass billboards advertising restaurants, shows, casinos and of course the slightly clad males and females that will be on display upon your arrival.
But I did have some interesting company on the bus, from an old couple going to visit their son, a young mother and her 4 year old who were moving to Vegas with her husband driving the U-Haul with her other two children, two scantily clad young ladies in obscenely high highs. And no bus trip would be complete without the ‘ghetto’ chick with bad hair (this one had burgundy braids)traveling with her baby boy, a toddler who could barely talk but was quite capable of saying the word shit when repeating his mother’s complaint about one of his toys. Between his crying and her loudness, no one was disappointed when her stop was Barstow, the last stop before Vegas. This is where the bus takes a twenty minute rest stop. Then the 2 ½ hour drive across the barren landscape begins. About 1 ½ hours into the ride I saw rain for the first time I over three weeks. Out here I don’t think too many people complain when it rains. Unfortunately, it did not last long. This is a far different ride up to Vegas than my last trip. It was January, raining and dark when we drove into Vegas. Then TRAFFIC and I mean car stopped, not moving, traffic. It started to inch ahead going literally less than five miles an hour. Apparently something had happened ahead of us but there was no telling what or how far ahead. To add some excitement to this and I kid you not, there was a guy walking along on the apron for about a half mile then all of a sudden he started running. Everyone in traffic started to take his picture. The bus ride had developed some excitement. A few cars started driving across a dirt road leading to a side road. Our driver was contemplating if he should follow. Some people agreed and others complained because no one knew what road it was. The driver took the detour and we started following a trail of cars cutting across not a dirt road but a path cut through a barbed wire fence. One of the passengers had to get off the bus to help the driver clear the opening. The road ran along the highway and it was about ½ mile across the field. We passed literally thousands of cars stalled in traffic until we got to an intersection. Apparently the cops had closed the highway and were diverting traffic to this same road. We could see the highway and there were no cars heading northbound. Se whatever happened had literally shut down the highway from the Lucky Strike Casino. If we had stayed on the highway it would have taken a minimum of two hours to reach the detour.
As we got farther along, we saw the cause of the traffic tie-up. We passed the clean-up crew and
a tow truck loading an SUV that was badly damaged. We are unaware of how many cars or people were hurt. The young mother said her husband said he heard on the radio that a person had died. My heart goes out to the people involved, whoever they are, and GOD be with them. After passing the crash site we reentered the highway at the next exit. With his decision our driver was able to keep us almost on schedule. We arrived at the terminal in Las Vegas only 15 minutes behind. That’s better than I can say for the five or more buses that left us at the rest stop that we passed on the highway.
What I thought had become a mundane trip across the desert became an interesting experience but it was still a poor photo op.
