Simple Living in Vegas

Somehow, at the end of the first week of our project about simple living, we found ourselves headed to Las Vegas. We’d spent the last few nights in Utah’s Maple Canyon, talking to and climbing with Spencer McCroskey, proud dirt-bag and all-around good guy. Our next destination was Ventura, CA, and we had resigned ourselves to the fact that eleven hours of towing our Airstream through the desert was too long. And wouldn’t you know, there in the smack-dab middle of the route–Vegas.

We’d been enjoying getting into living skinny, munching happily on the crusts of our PB&Js and patting ourselves on the backs for smartly crafted canned-bean creations. Spencer had greeted us with our most balanced meal in days, veggie omelettes and fruit salad, and after days of dried food and Clif bars, it was better than a gourmet restaurant.

We were all grumbling about stopping in Vegas, but once we pulled into the city the neon buzzed in the hairs of my head and I was swept up and excited in spite of myself. We had finagled a spot in the Tropicana parking lot and it was 10 times too loud and 30 times too hot to even attempt sleep in the Aistream, so we decided we’d take our chances on the strip.

We were tired and dirty and it had been days since I’d even given a thought to my face or clothes, but years of pop-culture influence kicked in and told me I was supposed to look fancy. In a heat trance I pulled out the one black dress I’d brought, a one-sleeved number at least a size too small. We bumbled around for deodorant and mascara, our molten bones sweating out of our pores and evaporating into the night.

The three of us might as well have been holding a poker game of dirtiness, seeing one another’s five unwashed days, occasionally raising the ante with a mountain bike ride or midday hike. Today Allie was winning, as a day prior Greer and I had stolen away into Ephraim, UT, and hunted down the showers in a community college recreation center.

Our first mission became scrubbing Allie up, and we hunted through the terminal-like hotels for a pool house or secluded fountain. We finally gave in to our circumstances and made do in an MGM bathroom–Allie pulled out her washcloth and Dr. Bronner’s and she and Greer set to work washing her hair in the sink. A woman walked into the bathroom in the midst of all this and barely batted an eye–she herself was barefoot, and undoubtedly this was not the most outrageous thing she’d see that evening.

Once we were all reasonably clean we headed to the strip and boarded a bus, sharing the space with a gaggle of Russian pre-teens, the oldest not older than 15. He was wearing a utility belt and a ball cap, his arms crossed, and stood and watched his friends with darting eyes, keeping track and giving directions. It was easy to imagine him as a concerned father, suddenly realizing his gross misjudgment of an appropriate place to spend the annual family vacation.

A few well-placed phone calls had yielded an “in” at a new club, and we went there and watched the expensively-dressed clientele drink Grey Goose and cranberry and pour themselves tequila shots at their tables. We stood gawking at the excess, three does in the headlights, our culture shock and creative hygiene separating us from the masses. The music played, people danced and we watched, and at the end of the night we joined the army of barefooted girls marching home into the sweltering desert night, tired and anonymous.

Lisa Montierth

23 feet