The EPIC Road Trip: Part Two

I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times since the day we visited in 1972, and it has changed.  Not for the better either.  Back then, the city was vibrantly alive with sights and sounds.  There was excitement in the air!  You could hear the slots clinking out coins and lights would flash with bells going off when a jackpot was hit.  People were visibly having a great time.  Nowadays, it’s very quiet.  No money clinking, no sounds, no excitement, just people losing their money in hushed tones.  The whole atmosphere of the place makes me sad when I think back to how it used to be.

Are Kids Even Allowed Here?

I don’t think Dad really had us kids in mind when he took us there, because Las Vegas of the 70’s was NOT a place for children.  Heck Las Vegas of today is not a place for children!  We got to Las Vegas at night and, WOW, what a place!!  It was amazing!  It was nothing like these mid-western boys had ever seen before!  The entire town was lit up with millions of lights and sounds were everywhere.  It was sooo cool! I distinctly remember the Golden Nugget as we drove by thinking “Holy cow! This is amazing!”

We stayed at a place called Circus Circus.  I think we stayed there for 3 days and do not remember ever leaving the place. The first day us kids just sat in the hotel room watching TV while Dad disappeared gambling somewhere.  We did get fast food for lunch and dinner so that was step up we thought.  The next day Dad let us go into the casino, but we were limited to the second floor only.  The second floor was kind of a balcony that surrounded the whole place and was open to below.  It also had a large “Minors” area with lots of pinball machines and such.  We could also look over the balcony and see the 24 hour circus acts performing.  We got $5 to spend for the day and we blew through that in a few hours even though we were trying to ration it.

We’re Bored! There’s Nothing To Do!

By the third day, we were complaining about nothing to do, and I guess Dad had a bit of luck at Black Jack.  I think he said he had won a few hundred dollars.  We sat down with a map and tried to find someplace we could spend the next 6 days or so and after a few choices, we all settled on Yellowstone Park.  I don’t think us kids were all that excited about it because Yellowstone conjured up images of yellow snow, and that was no fun.  Little did we know how amazing it would be, and that it would inspire a lifelong quest for me to revisit the place.

We traveled through Nevada and Utah to Salt Lake city, and we must have stopped at a hotel for the night, but my next memory is us at Yellowstone Park.  We again had to pay a fee, but at least it was expected this time and the shoestring budget had apparently been replaced with a brand new set of Keds shoestrings.  The only thing any of us, Dad included, knew about Yellowstone is that you could see BEARS.

Old Faithful…and a Geyser

It was towards evening when we got there and every campground was full, so Dad decided we would go to the biggest tourist sight in the park and see if we could find Old Faithful.  We found out they had a big beautiful lodge there made out of logs.  It was a pretty cool place to see and explore.  They did have a few rooms, but the price exceeded even our new found Vegas riches, so in the spirit of true manliness, we decided to rough it.  I mean REALLY rough it.  I mean “all four of us and a dog sleeping in the parking lot of Old Faithful in a Ford Pinto all night” roughing it.  Little did we know the sadness and despair we would experience later that dark night.

We were pretty much all to ourselves in the parking lot by the time we tried to go to sleep.  We had watched Old Faithful go off a few times and the novelty had worn off.  Sparks was the name of our dog and she was a great dog!  She hung with us the entire time and was very well behaved.  When Dad would whistle, she would come running no matter what.  We all thought she was a wonder dog.  Sometime in the middle of the night she started whining which meant she needed to go.  Every other time this happened without incident.  We would let her out and after about 5 minutes Dad would whistle and she’d come running. 

Dog Gone

So we let her out but when Dad whistled, no Sparks.  He whistled and called for her for about an hour and all of us kids went around the parking lot and immediate area trying to find her.  We were kind of scared to venture very far because of the bears and falling into Old Faithful plus we only had the one flashlight.  We called for her off and on all night long but she never came back.  We were so sad.  We were sure that she must have fallen into a geyser or that a bear or mountain lion had eaten her.

The next morning we had resolved that she was gone and that we must press on.  After the ordeal of that night, we had fallen asleep pretty hard.  We woke up when the sun was already up and cars were coming into the parking lot.  We opened the doors to get out and stretch and who do you think we found under the car?  Sparks!!!  We were so happy, and couldn’t believe she had survived.  If only dogs could talk.  She would have had a tale to tell in this adventure.

We Saw ONE..Bearly!

We spent the day driving around the park and seeing the amazing sights and landscape.  As a young boy I just wanted so bad to explore every sight further, but we had to head back to Lincoln and didn’t have time to adventure forth.  I don’t remember if we found a campsite or not, but I do remember that as we were leaving the park we were very disappointed that we had not seen a bear.  Just before exiting, we hit a small traffic jam that was caused by…you guessed it; a bear!  So we actually did get to see one up close.  The next thing I can remember is us driving through Wyoming and Nebraska at night in a severe thunderstorm.  We were passing a semi-truck when it got hit by lightning!  It scared the living daylights out of all of us!

I have heard multiple people say that no one remembers a trip or camping adventure where everything is great.  It’s the ones where you had to overcome adversity and difficult situations that stick in your mind and make memories.  I think it was because we “roughed” it for most of this trip that it has stuck in our memories.  Trust me, riding all day in a cramped Pinto is most definitely roughing it!!

Something strikes me as I write this.  All of this was at a time when there was no internet, no computers even.  No cell phone.  No wireless anything.  No Wiki anything at all.  Any information came from road maps and encyclopedias.  I don’t think people who were born in the 90’s and beyond can even fathom what that would be like.  This was truly a trip into the unknown and worthy of a Tom Sawyer adventure.  Thanks for the awesome memories Dad!!!!