2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Zero

Greetings from Las Vegas!

It's been four years since I've done this, but I'm doing it again. I am in town for the World Series of Poker. I am planning on staying through Sunday, June 29 — the longest I have yet stayed in the city.

I'm doing things differently this year. Lynn Kendall and I drove into town in Lynn's car, arriving shortly after midnight this morning. I am renting a budget suite (or, as they put it on the sign out front, an "efficiency studio") from Extended StayAmerica.

I was in the final stages of putting together my things for my two-week Las Vegas adventure when Lynn Kendall called: she was running just a bit late, and did I mind if she got to my house later than the 10:00 AM time we had set? I told her it was fine. I didn't tell her that I was running behind schedule also, or that her being late was something of a relief to me. I got all my things together and ready to go, and I even had time to finish the last bit of the book I was reading (Black and Blue by Ian Rankin) so that I wouldn't have to schlep it with me for the sake of a few pages.

Lynn arrived. We loaded up the car with my things. I got behind the wheel and drove: first to the Oaks Club, where I wanted to withdraw cash from my player's bank account there. Because there are Bank of America branches in Las Vegas, I was comfortable leaving the bulk of my bankroll in my B of A account to be withdrawn at my convenience; but I wanted to have some ammunition on hand at once; and there was enough in my account at the Oaks for a good start. I took it out in cash, and stashed it away in a safe place.

After that, a brief stop to top off the car's gas tank. Then it was onto the road, heading east on Interstate 580, leaving Oakland at about 11:15 AM.

Even with the price of gasoline, being over $4 per gallon at home and more than $5/gallon at some places along the route, I was expecting to save money by driving to Las Vegas rather than flying. But Lynn and I were doing something else, too: the high price of gasoline is not a temporary thing, and so this could very well be the last chance for a road trip along California's byways — a favorite pastime of mine — that I would be getting for a very long time.

Half Dome as Seen From Olmstead Point Originally uploaded by abostick59.

We followed I-580 and I-205 to Manteca, in the San Joaquin Valley. From there we continued east on California Route 120, through Escalon and Oakdale, into first the foothills and then the actual Sierras. Once we entered Yosemite National Park and headed higher, we stopped the car frequently to gawk and take pictures. But I was feeling the press of time. The directions provided us by Google Maps had suggested that the driving time between Oakland and Bishop (our planned stopping point in the Owens Valley) was just short of 6 hours, meaning we ought to get there just about 5:00 PM. But as we made our way through the park, approaching Tuolumne Meadows, it was getting late in the day, and I was hard put to see how we could get to Bishop in two hours or less.

Despite my concerns about time, the drive and the sightseeing was splendid. The Tuolumne Meadows are gorgeous, looking as close to Paradise (at least in summertime) as I could imagine existing on Earth. I want to go back again; which makes my feeling that this could be my last road trip ever to be all the more wistful.

I've only driven over the Sierras a few times, and each time I've done so on a route other than I-80 through Donner Pass I've felt a strong attraction to the high country, to the granite landscape sculpted by now-vanished glaciers. There are ways it feels to me like coming out of the dreamy depths of the lowlands up into the real world.

We continued on, over Tioga Pass (at 9900 feet of elevation) and then down along the side of a steep gorge to Mono Lake, where the road joined US Route 395. This was now familiar countryside to me, since I had taken 395 south through the Owens Valley on a previous road trip a couple of years ago. We were still quite high up — altitude 7000 feet — but although we were still in the high country, it felt like we were out of the mountains. The sharp crags of the eastern Siearras were to our right as we headed south, past Mammoth Lakes, and into Bishop.

My original plan was to spend the night in Bishop and take the next leg, through Death Valley and Pahrump to Las Vegas, the next day. But I suggested we eat dinner before finding a motel room; and over dinner Lynn and I looked at each other. I said I was feeling the pull to press onwards. I said that one of the downsides of this was that we would be going through Death Valley at night and thus wouldn't see anywhere near as much. Lynn replied that if we pushed on, we would pass through Death Valley at night when it was cooler, not 110 degrees in the shade (if there were any shade to be found). Moreover, the moon was a few days past its first quarter, what Lynn called a "rustler's moon." The landscape would not be completely dark.

We sold each other on the idea, and so after finishing dinner, we saddled up again and hit the road, south through the Owens Valley. This valley feels to me like an ensmalled Gondor, a river running through an alluvial plain between two mountain ranges, one sharp and snowy to the west and one rounded and arid to the east. Bishop isn't the least bit like Minas Tirith; but what was to the east of the eastern range was a passable imitation of Mordor.

Once we cut east from 395 towards Death Valley, we were almost completely isolated. The sun had set behind the western range, and it grew dark. We encountered perhaps one car coming the other direction every twenty miles or so. We took another stop as the evening gloom deepened, to appreciate the clarity and silence of the desert. Desert silence is like no other sort of silence I've encountered. The crunch of dirt under my feet, the breath of my companion, or my own heartbeat, seem almost intolerably loud in that stillness.

Then we descended into Death Valley itself. A few hours ago we had been 9900 feet above sea level. Now we were below sea level on this darkling plain. I couldn't see much outside of the glare of the headlights while I drove; but Lynn was able to see the moonlit landscape as we drove through.

And then out of the valley, along a stretch of road populated by suicidal jackrabbits, to the Nevada border, and Pahrump, back into civilization. We got into Las Vegas just after midnight, and found a Motel 6 in which to spend the night for cheap before I could claim my suite the next day.

2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day One
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Two
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Three
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Four2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Five
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Six
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Seven
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Eight
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Nine and Ten
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Eleven and Twelve

Tags: wsop world series of poker poker las vegas road trip yosemite sierras owens valley death valley california nevada travelogue

Posted by abostick at June 13, 2008 01:11 PM