Day Ten - Williams, AZ to Las Vegas, NV

What a morning! An amazing contrast with the depressing evening which preceded it - although it did give me a chance to do some intense reading on American history....

Got the hell out of the dreadful [End of] Days Inn in Williams and drove downtown for a quick breakfast somewhere safe before getting on the road.

Shortly after Williams there is a turn-off to the old Route 66 which rides all the way to Kingman, following the Santa Fe railroad through the mountains and the valleys.

"Highway to Hell" - the best AC/DC album from the Bon Scott era was a great  way to start the day.... "Livin' easy, Livin' free...." - the first line of the title song and the album....perfectly summing up my Route 66 experience....

This was followed by "Back In Black" - the memorial album that AC/DC released in honour of Bon Scott after his premature death (one of the great Rock'n'Roll deaths - choked on his own vomit after an enormous drinking binge). The album is deservedly one of the best selling rock albums of all time.

With a massive grin plastered across my face - inspired by the music and the scenery - I headed through small towns with the customary motels and diners snapping photographs when the mood took me and tailing bike gangs as they rode out for a Sunday morning blast on old Route 66.

ZZ Top's "Eliminator" was the last of the rock music as I arrived in Kingman and had to make the decision whether or not to go up to Salt Lake City in Utah - home of the Mormons - or head to Las Vegas, Nevada - home of the tasteless, kitsch and desperate. Las Vegas won.

Highway 93 takes you across the desert through stunning scenery framed by mountains and valleys. Great vertiginous rocks chaperone the Colorado river as it weaves its way through Nevada and Arizona on to Colorado - and of course through the Grand Canyon which I visited yesterday, but where I was way too scared to look down and check if the river was still running through it!

My music selection for this diversion up to Vegas was "Pirates Choice" by Orchestre Baobab. The group is from Senegal and was formed in 1970 and focused on unique fusion of Afro / Cuban / Caribbean music mixed with African rhythms and beats from Senegal, Morocco and beyond. "Pirates Choice" is a session album recorded in 1982 and widely regarded as their best work - it is amazingly soulful, funky and mellow - all at the same time - with lyrics in Portuguese, French and Senegalese dialect. This recording features 6 previously unreleased tracks which are amazing.

But back to the road....

Arizona ends and Nevada begins at the Hoover Dam - a gift from President Franklin Roosevelt after his election in 1932 as part of his so called "New Deal" to lift America out of the Depression. It was completed in 1935 and its original purpose was to prevent floods from the Colorado river. It now provides electricity to the surrounding area including power hungry Las Vegas.

Next stop was Las Vegas where I had originally planned to visit a casino and blow some dollars at the roulette wheel.

Arriving in Vegas I headed down "The Strip" or Las Vegas Boulevard. One end is the old end with the sleazy strip clubs, faded small casinos of the 50s and 60s and the wedding chapels.

This faded neon / yesteryear end of The Strip has some charm - just a little....but the other end lacks any charm, taste and good sense. This is the end of The Strip with Caesar's Palace, The Venice Canals, The Eiffel Tower - including a replica of the Academie Francaise and of course the Pyramids - complete with sphinx. Add in The Mirage, a Trump Tower and the Mandalay Bay resort and the picture is complete...

It is horrendous. The only thing that impresses is the scale. This truly is the town that taste forgot - and indeed hopes never to remember.

Sin City in CAPITAL letters. Topless dancing clubs next to tattoo parlours next to giant casino resorts which dominate the skyline and all promise a better time than the next - except you know that there are no poor casino owners and someone has to pay for the billions of dollars that builds these megaliths.

Once a slightly naughty, seedy place favoured by the mob and its friends for entertainment and gambling, Las Vegas is now a multi billion dollar industry and has lost any sense of reality or charm. I decided to take a few photos and leave.

Orchestre Baobab are interrupted just for a few minutes by the low down and cynical Sheryl Crow song "Leaving Las Vegas" which only seemed fitting as I headed back Kingman and to Route 66. As I crossed the Hoover Dam again, Cesaria Evora took over the reins on the iPod and her "Best of Album" featuring some of the classics from the Barefoot Diva of Cape Verde kept me calm and sane in the mad traffic across the dam.

Next stop Kingman and then a trip through the Black Mountains of Arizona on the most dangerous part of Route 66....