Vegas

We leave Bishop around 10 AM it’s a 4 1/2 hour drive to Las Vegas. Seven and I start out with a half a tank of gas and question if that’s enough.

We get through the first windy highway of our journey and realize we have 15 miles left. We take a detour towards Dyer to fill up the small at the smallest gas station I’ve ever seen and pay $5$/gallon for 87 unleaded. The small Jeep I rented takes 12 gallons and we get moving again.

Another hour goes by and we’re cruising, it’s a one lane highway. The speed limit is 70 and cars are passing us and we’re passing cars. We get towards the famous Area 51 section and a cop flips on the lights and pulls me over.

“Good afternoon, do you know how fast you’re going sir.” Police Officer

“Good afternoon sir. Just under 70, sir.” Me

“ Speed limit here is 55, I had you coming in at 70.” he says

I hand him my license and tell him I don’t have a registration because it’s a rental car. He says not a problem and tells me he’ll be right back. He comes back and tells me that he’s currently working overtime and the reason why is because people have been speeding on this road. There is a literal 1 mile stretch of this particular area to where the speed limit drops from 70 mph to 55 mph and I entered it going too fast. It’s Area 51. Yeah, famous Area 51

He tells me that this could be a very expensive ticket because it’s supposed to be $10 for every mile per hour over but instead he is going to cut me a break because he now knows we are visiting from California and that we were slowing down before we saw him.  The officer hands me a ticket for $75 and tells me that it will not be a surcharge as long as I pay it. I read the ticket and it says that I was being fined for “speeding in a rural area.” Spider-Man meme everyone gets one. I’ll take it.

We drive the rest of the way slowly and stop at a Walmart and then an REI. It’s about time to be replacing shoes again for both of us and REI is the place to get shoes for us. I try the Olympus on instead of another pair of Lone Peaks and don’t like them. The heel padding eeh not for me. I guess I’ll go one more pair of lone peaks .

We get into Vegas and grab a hotel room at the Excalibur. It was 58$ for the night probably the cheapest place we’ve stayed so far on trail.

We grabbed food and then walked the strip at sunset. Sevens never been to Vegas before so I show him the sites. Nothing too exciting for us and as they stay what happens here stays here. Plus we are only stopping by because tomorrow we head down famous Route 66 for our next week of hiking