Samaan aikaan toisaalla: Los Angeles – Las Vegas - Death Valley 3.10

I'll write one entry in English to help my small international audience keep track on the latest turns. And also a bit to keep my mom from getting too worried. You know how moms are.

The first California days were as far as you can imagine from the long waited crazy party trip with Maukka. I wrote earlier that I loved the full day train trip from Italy to Vienna, but the full day flying from Vienna to Los Angeles was everything but lovely. After major difficulties at the Air Berlin check-in counter in Vienna and a four hour wait at Dusseldorf International the fever rose again during the long flight.

I'll skip the description on how my condition got gradually worse as I approached Los Angeles, rendezvoused with Maukka and headed to Vegas, but I must tell that I was in a bad shape when I finally made my way out of the airport. Seeing Maukka pull up at the terminal with a big Jeep was a big momentary relief. He had upgraded our rental car to a proper American set of wheels.

The first things we did were to drive to a Wal-Mart, buy a GPS, enter the address “Las Vegas Boulevard, Nevada” and hit the road. I had to take the wheel despite the fever and sleep deprivation experiment because Maukka seemed to be in even worse condition to drive. He had slept even much less than me as he was too nervous to sleep at all on the plane or the night before. In addition to this a major nervous breakdown at Paris over troubles with insufficient ESTA form information had obviously set Maukka's blood pressure sky high. The GPS proved to be worth the money already during the first hour when we navigated out of Los Angeles. Without it I would never have made it through that maze of intersections and hyperactive Maukka was not exactly the perfect co-pilot.

The first big California sight was a fresh blazing forest fire we passed on our way out of the city. Very, very impressive. Thanks for the show, Governator.

It was soon evident that there was no way we would make it to Vegas that night. We stopped for the night at a small motel close to Barstow after about 250 km drive. The place had all the features of a road movie shoot out: a truck stop, a 50's diner and lots of desert all around. After obligatory Budweisers we went to bed finally after traveling about 30 hours. Still rising fever and the jet lag made that first night tough. Maukkas travel stress also made it interesting. When I finally fell asleep freezing under four blankets, Maukka jumped out of bed terrified and totally confused yelling: ”Jussi, there's a monkey in the room! It has ropes!” There’s never a dull moment with that guy.

The next morning I felt a bit better. We had a breakfast at the diner and headed to Vegas. I knew that it still was not going to be the big night at the casinos, but I had no idea how bad it would get. The fever got worse again as we approached Vegas and by the time we got there it was over thirty nine and a half and I was minutes away from checking into a hospital instead of a hotel. I dragged myself to Luxor's (that pyramid hotel with a beacon on top) 20^th floor and fell on the bed. Maukka got me an American survival pack from the pharmacy and went to check out Vegas and I stayed in the room half dead. Vegas, baby!

The next days it started to look like I would survive. We took it really easy during the day as I was trying to save all the energy I had to take at least a short Vegas night life tour in the evening. We would have to leave the city the next day and the idea of spending two nights at Vegas in a hotel room felt unbearable.

We watched The Hangover movie in the room to jump start the mood. It worked. We went out and saw it all: Caesar's Palace, Belaggio fountain show, stand up comedy at Hooter's, super cool night club at Mirage and late night lounge chilling at Cathouse. We had a great dinner at Bellagio’s number one restaurant with a ranch owner from Texas and his Ukrainian mistress. We lost a lot of money in blackjack at Excalibur and paid sixty dollars to get into a night club. It was at max a 60% performance from us but absolutely the best I could pull up in that condition. I hope we can return one day with reinforcements. Vegas is an unbelievably glamorous, fun, busy and sinful town. Tons of fun. From back home Henkka, Tomi and Juho would love it the most. But if we come back, we'll have to confiscate at least Tomi's credit cards and set a strict cash budget. Vegas can suck your wallet dry as the Mojave Desert.

The day after the night out was absurd. I felt relatively good, although I still had an awful flu with all the side effects. We had a plan of driving a scenery route through Death Valley and Yosemite Nature Park to San Francisco and stop somewhere for the night. I had done a brief map recoinnance mission and picked randomly the roads that looked fun. It was a lucky pick because the route proved to be a breathtaking drive with incredibly diverse sights. The Death Valley was nature's modern art exhibition with strange shapes and immense empty canvases. As many of you know Maukka is at his best the funniest man alive. No competition. The desert crossing was one of his finest moments. Classic stuff but there is no way to repeat any of that here.

At about seven o'clock we found ourselves in a small town that resembled the town from Northern Exposure TV-show (Villi pohjola). We had an awful dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Las Palmas. During the dinner we realized that we were completely beat and had to find a place to stay the night as soon as possible or we’d crash the car for sure.

The darkness had set while we sat in the restaurant so we didn't see the sceneries as we navigated to Mammoth Lake for the night. Maukka drove the last hour. We were both worn out from the long day in the burning hot desert, the previous big night at Vegas and a terrible flu (Maukka had developed one too). It was like a scene from Fear and Loathing. At some point we had the following conversation:

Maukka: "Hey where did that car go that just passed us?"
Me: "Well, nowhere. It's right there in front of you."
Maukka: "Oh yeah, good."

It was pitch dark and the car's back lights were the only thing in sight. Gladly we were almost there already.

The Motel 6 sign was a welcome sight. I was ready to fall asleep any second as I stepped out of the Jeep in the parking lot – into snow! We had drove so high up in the mountains in the dark that it was about five degrees minus and snow on the ground. A really bizarre moment. We got a room and a pot of hot water to mix with some flu medicine and went to sleep. We both blacked out instantly.