In A Land of Wretched Excess

In Delta, Utah the roll-out sign in front of the Deltan Inn promised:

"VERY CLEAN ROOMS"

I would beg to differ.

Though it was romantic and soothing and sleep making to hear the whistles of the trains as they rumbled past this SW Utah town - the general dinginess of the motel room wins out. The deep pile carpet, I know, harbors untold billions of hair and skin cells, fingernail clippings and things that crawl on 6, 8 and more legs. The crumpled pea-green shag is gritty with Carpet Fresh and reeks of Mountain Breeze.

I thought I'd send e-mail from the room but the greasy phone cord couldn't be unplugged and the phone-jack itself was between a wall and the dresser.

In the space: much fuzz of the mysterious kind and what looked to be a refugee from a Happy Meal ... something purple and plastic and made for a child. I did not dare reach into the gloom.

We try to sleep under the honest-to-God fly-specked ceiling.

Before I can shower I kill an earwig that had hoped to conserve water. And while soaping up, I try unsuccessfully to avoid having the shower curtain touch me.

A pre-dawn escape makes life wonderful again and as we drive out past untrimmed shrubbery and abandoned Big Wheels, we notice the second roll-out sign in front of the Deltan-Inn:

"MOTEL MANAGER WANTED"

It makes so very many things clear.

Heading out of town we see the first of two “WE HEART USA” signs made by jamming red Solo drinking cups into chain link fencing. Again we are forced to face the reality of the new America we are driving through.

On the outskirts of Delta we stop in the desert – and are amazed at the multitude of stars and how quickly the sky lightens over the mountains.

The drive across Nevada is a thrilling series of ridges, steep drops and 90 mph straightaways across the basins.

The friendly people of "The Battleborn State" correct our pronounciation of their homeland and gladly take quarters from us.

And, for the same price as the dingy fly-specked room in Delta, we get a view of The Biggest Little City in the World, from the 20th floor of Circus-Circus and a promise of Mai-Tai's or perhaps a "La Ronde Cooler."

Quite unusual.