The Southwest - Part 19

August 30th - Pilgrims in an unholy land

This is it guys.  The moment you've been waiting for.

Today, we left for Burning Man.

Leaving Las Vegas one is struck by the utter desolation that is the state of Nevada.  Seriously, no one lives here.  Not even Mormons.  Nothing grows, except the burning realization you should have topped up on gas before you left.

This is bat country.

The road to Black Rock Mesa took nine long hours.  Along the way we passed all of five cars, two houses and incontrovertible proof that the Pentagon has too much money  a naval testing base.  In the desert.

For the first time in the entire trip, we found ourselves out of range of NPR.  Hold me I'm scared. 

As always, one could tune into the station that only plays Glenn Beck.  Desperate to listen to anyone's voice but each other's, we did just that.  Now my soul hurts.

Arriving in the first town for like, a bajillion miles, we were wondering how we managed to get lost in a state with only three highways.  Remembering the Cisco incident, I was skeptical.

Thankfully, it was inhabited.  As we drove toward what was surely the last gas station on Earth we wondered how we were going to find a place that doesn't exist 51 weeks out of the year.  Pulling into the station, we found this:

Property of Washington Inner-City School Board

Yep.  We were definitely on course.

Apparently these guys (all 30 of them) had driven in from Michigan.  This was actually their second bus, as the first one had broken down somewhere in Colorado.  Naturally, they had to take a few moments to pimp out their new ride.

They gave us the final step of directions: turn right, then drive 70 miles into nowhere.

Sounds good to me.