Day Thirteen: Las Vegas - Valley of Fire

We reluctantly headed out of our temporary home for another stop at the ‘Bucks. Starbucks, that is. We made small talk with locals and a policeman outside the shop before pedaling out to Las Vegas Boulevard, which we followed all the way out of the city. We passed the famous Pawn Stars shop, about 5,000 tacky wedding chapels, and last but not least, the Heart Attack Café, which offers free meals to customers weighing over 350 pounds—what’s wrong with the United States? The city became more and more sparse as we crawled by the mile markers, and soon the only businesses left on the sides of the roads were “massage” shops and other storefronts that plague the Las Vegas outskirts.

Our endpoint for the day was the Valley of Fire National Park, but we were still about 40 miles away from the destination. The road to the park hosted the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, an Air Force Base, and ATV off-roading sites, all with vehicles going about ten times our speed. After climbing for miles with the wind in our faces, we stopped at Love’s for cold drinks, admired their heinous selection of clothing, and killed a few minutes in the shade. We carried on 10 more miles to yet another gas station, and by that point, the temperature had reached a blistering 110 degrees. After just minutes outside, a man in a mini-van pulled up to the sidewalk and hollered, “ Do you guys need a ride somewhere?” We asked him which way he was headed, and he responded, “I’m goin’ toward Vegas.” We had just come from there, so we were headed the opposite direction; but to that he replied, “Don’t matter. I got no schedule.”

We hopped into the nameless man’s burgundy van and shoved our bikes in as well. He towed us a few miles down the road into the entrance of the Valley of Fire State Park and left us on our way. Thanks, Hombre! The ranger at the front, Dick Morris, asked us if we were bringing a vehicle. We looked down sheepishly at our banged up bikes, and he did the math. “I’ll charge you a buck a bike,” he said with a smile. Two dolla’ for camping—that’s what we like to hear! He asked about our trip, then gave us his cell phone number to keep in touch. He even offered a shower and a warm meal at his place the next day (which we foolishly never took him up on). We waved goodbye and rode three miles downhill to the campground and were astonished by the beauty of the park. We were surrounded by monstrous red rock formations that towered over the desert valley, and we were greeted at our campsite by the entire cast of Snow White (chipmunks, lizards, bunnies, yada yada). And unfortunately, there were also dozens of tarantula hawks. What’s a tarantula hawk, you ask? Let’s talk about tarantula hawks.

Tarantula hawks are little spawns of Satan. Picture a wasp ten times its normal size, with a jet-black body and electric gold wings. Its legs dangle alongside its body like limp, withered limbs the length of unwound paper clips. The poisonous bug that looks more like a bird flies slowly in a straight path like a drone with a steady, deep, BUZZZZZZZZ, and it looks as if it is prepared to unleash hell on anyone in its path. We were warned about these hellish creatures by our PCT hiker friends, and we laughed at their descriptions of the buggers because we believed we would never encounter them ourselves. And yet, here we are, in the desert, surrounded by the sons of bitches.

So, while ducking violently to avoid the hawks, we set up camp amongst the red rocks and ate awkwardly warm turkey sandwiches and oily limón flavored Lay’s. We shared our dinner with the chipmonkeys (as we like to call them), who crawled hesitantly toward us to snatch chips, and then sprinted vigorously away to bury them in the dust. We were so entertained by this that we ended up feeding them most of our dinner—let’s just say they’re set for the winter.

We spent the end of the night conversing and laughing with a German couple that we met at the campground. Rolf and Ute are retired and made a trip to the United States to travel by RV along Route 66 and other famous places throughout the West. They gave us advice for our adventure, pointed out cool sites to see along the way, and offered us food (which we politely declined, but shouldn’t have). By the time we left, they had even welcomed us to visit them in their quaint German hometown someday, and exchanged phone numbers and addresses with us to make sure we would keep in touch. We took cold showers before tromping back to the tent for the night, and slept absolutely horribly due to the heat and the group of underage drinkers who apparently didn’t sleep at all. Nonetheless, we couldn’t help but admire our amazing surroundings—so seriously, check out the pictures.