Death Valley: so good they named it "death".
I begin to make the long slog back to the Venetian for another shot at the richest purse in poker (about $2,500 for first) but, having nearly got there, I decide instead to stop for the juicy-looking cash game at O’Shea’s, the rough and ready “Irish” casino on the cheaper side of The Strip (think the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street as opposed to the Selfridge’s end).
Its poker games are played inches from the sidewalk, which means you can check out the characters taking part. There appear to be two tables going – from one I hear the dealer say: “Family pot!” and from the other the dealer says: “Six to the flop.” If you’re into poker you will know why this is a good thing to hear. Loose old games...
I jump straight into a 1/2 no-limit game with four drunk but funny and good-humoured American men in their early 40s on my table. It was midday and they’d been playing since 7.30am. They were making the most of the free Black Russians and urged me to have one but I steered clear of such madness – playing live poker sober the previous day was a novel experience I had enjoyed and wanted to repeat. And besides, the temperature was set to soar to 90 degrees.
The boys were very loud and kept getting louder. They were also unsurprisingly playing very loose and I quickly built my $120 up to $160. The elderly woman to my right was seeing every flop – and she wasn’t the only one. Even a couple of the people who seemed to know what they were doing – old Chinese guys and kids with hoodies, a la poker games the world over – were calling the $2 to see a flop. You’d be stupid not to – hit the flop hard and you were going to get paid off. And no amount you raised pre-flop would thin the field, so just call.
After a couple of hours the woman – who had drizzled her stack away – stood up to leave. One of the kids said to her jokingly you can’t leave, it’s your button! She sat down again... and promptly won three monster hands in a row. In the last one she took about $40 off me after just calling all the way down with pocket queens on a 9-high board (I had top pair).
I leave after three hours – that’s usually enough for me, and besides, the constant noise of the midget barker dressed as a leprechaun and equipped with a deafening PA system to entice passers-by into O’Shea’s is a lot to endure. In the evening, R and I walked down to The Cosmopolitan, which had impressed us with its crazily angled towers and dazzling threads of blue neon glowing in the darkness.
On the way we witnessed the most bizarre sight of the holiday so far – a man in Elvis costume having an argument with his somewhat plain girlfriend, Penny, with him constantly “storming” off, but not really wanting to storm off, preferring to keep turning round to tell her how he had her computer and was going to keep it. When she offered him some notes he said I want all the money. He was through playing games.
In the middle of this, her phone rang and she said sarcastically it’s probably your girlfriend. Elvis took the phone and without missing a beat warmly greeted a friend and said that he and Penny were “heading over there” right now.
When the conversation was over, he and Penny went straight back into their row, with him all finger pointing and her all slouching behind in a T-shirt.We have a video of this and it will be on here at some point.
Disappointingly, The Cosmopolitan – which opened four months ago – has no rooftop bar and keeps the punters down on the bottom three levels.
Crazy restaurant suspended in Cosmopolitan atrium.
But we did have a great meal in one of the restaurants, Comme Ca, a welcome haven from the madding, much louder, less chilled crowds that had now arrived for the weekend.
Another drink in Monte Carlo and then home.
New York, New York
High:
R: My glass of pink champagne at Comme Ca
T: Meal at Comme Ca
Low:
R: The heat
T: The walk from O’Shea’s back to the Luxor
Day 22
Finally we leave Las Vegas, but not before, on the morning coffee run, someone wishes Rachel “an exquisite day”. You don’t get that on the Piccadilly Line. It’s not long before we’re in California, our final state. A long drive through the 100-odd miles through Death Valley, including a lunch stop at a strange little “town” (it wasn’t a town, just a cluster of shops someone had thrown together and declared a town) called Stovepipe Wells, which included a brief exchange with two really crazy-seeming dudes (sorry, crazy-seeming dudes!) at a motel.
Our improvised lunch of Ritz biscuits, processed cheese, ham and hotdog mustard is eaten while, not to put too fine a point on it, sweating in the car park.
Onwards. Death Valley is beautiful, its landscape frequently switching from mountains to pure sand dunes to flat, white, mineral-rich desert, and the roads alternating from hairpin bends to dead straight stretches that rise and fall in dips shimmering in the heat.
For one 20-mile stretch we are told to switch off the AC to prevent the engine from over-heating.
Check in to Dow Villa at Lone Pine, a motel where John Wayne sometimes stayed when making his westerns.
It’s a lovely small town with spectacular mountains on either side, and there is a strong, warm wind blowing that makes thousands of tiny, pasta-shell shaped leaves dance madly round our feet in circles.
Go to dark, typical smalltown bar, where grizzled old guy gets to his feet and muses to the barmaid about what he’s going to have for dinner: “Peanut butter and jelly or Cheerio’s... But you know, I don’t think I have any milk...”
Ridiculous BBQ chicken portions at restaurant, then back to hotel for Crime and Order: Los Angeles, and lights out.
High:
R: Rainbow Canyon in Death Vallley - "just when I thought it couldn't get more beautiful, it did"
T: Sitting in the Lone Pine bar having a beer and watching the 2010 World Series of Poker on telly.
Low:
R: Arriving at Stovepipe and finding the strange men and no food.
T: The camera battery running out just before the best bits of Death Valley (got them the next day though).
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