t: We used the stove here to make coffee, and did indeed partake in the ranch buffet.
s: That buffet <shudder!>. A word about Fred Harvey here, as he’s insinuated himself into our lives and hence this story. Harvey is (was), of course, one of the Vegas/Reno/Tahoe casino kings, and he also invested in lodges and concessions in a number of U.S. National Parks. These are virtual monopolies (don’t like the food at Furnace Creek? You can always drive 50 miles and at least 2000 ft elevation to Pahrump for something different...). Still, they should be ashamed to charge almost $10 a head for half-cooked scrambled eggs, OVERcooked, dry, bacon and sausage, and cold, UNcooked, greasy, grated potatoes which cannot be dignified by the term "hash browns." I won’t even touch the biscuits and gravy - the lard quotient there could cause a heart attack on the spot. Oh, yeah. In the other half of the room they have fruit salad bar. The fruit is all canned. The staff is the most lackadaisical crew of losers I’ve laid eyes on in any establishment in which I’ve ever spent money. Yes, almost $20 for self-serve breakfast for 2. And you cannot go in just for coffee - you have to pay the buffet money just to enter the room. They could do a lot better at almost no expense to them, but they know they don’t have to, and it shows. Mental note: next time, bring our own breakfast stuff, preferably enough to share with at least one other camper. However, the steak house, while still overpriced, does come up with a fairly decent value for the money. They have three or four huge salads you can order, and the salads are good.
t: Did you ever wonder where Tim Conway came up with the shuffling old man character? It was the coffee-refiller lady at the Furnace Creek buffet. I kept expecting her arm to be pinned to the floor by the sheer weight of the coffee pot.
s: A new road cuts straight to Pahrump. If you make the D.V. to Vegas run, check for a 1998 map, because I think this was previously a dirt or 4WD-only road.
s: Going thru Las Vegas, we see the Manhattan Express roller coaster, built atop the MGM hotel/casino. Now this is something special, and I half-jokingly suggest we stop, then entirely seriously take the exit. It takes a little over an hour to find the place where you get on the ride, wait for it to open, ride it, and get back on the road. Well worth it.
t: Great coaster! Our first stop in Vegas was actually at a gas station on the outskirts of town. As we got back in the car, Steve spotted a $10 bill on the ground - bonus! The gambling opportunities in Nevada don't do much for us, but we're quite open to any jackpots that might come our way. We used this one for the coaster ride.
s: The line for the coaster is inside the building, winding through various video games, etc., and with TV screens hanging from the ceiling which show some nonsense about safety rules for the ride. The point here is that we are entertained while we wait. Seems to me the theme parks, with their "two hour wait beyond this sign," could do better at this. The coaster itself does a pretty serious climb before diving pretty steeply. It does at least one loop and one corkscrew, many twists and turns. At one point, I genuinely lose track of which way is up. A great coaster.
s: Once we hit I-15, boy, the speed limit is 75 and I set the cruise control for 79, and we fly (typical, however, of most of this trip, staying within 9mph - usually less - of the speed limit). The scenery, at first the usual drab, scrubby desert generally found around the Vegas area (and in fact most of Nevada), slowly changes as we chop a corner off Arizona and enter Utah. A little more color here, more odd shapes there. Also, we gain altitude most of the way. Off to the side, every now and then, you see a sudden gigantic canyon cut out of the desert, with layers of color in the exposed rock.