The View From My Window

I could see the mountains from the window of my ninth floor hotel room. Their resemblance to the eroded, snow-covered hill outside the airport terminal in upstate New York was just as I’d expected. My memories of the foothills on the outskirts of Tucson were still vivid, more than thirty years after my short time there.
This wasn’t Tucson though, it was Las Vegas, but the mountains were the same. I wanted to stand at their base; the place where the city ended and the impenetrable landscape took over. It didn’t look that far, a few miles at most. The round trip would be a distance I’ve run many times. It was only seven and the freight wasn’t due to arrive at the Hilton until three in the afternoon. I had plenty of time to make the run and have breakfast before meeting my coworker. I did a little stretching in my room, took the elevator down to the lobby and made my way through the busy casino to the street.

The air was cool and dry. February is a good month to be in Vegas, with the temperature never exceeding sixty-five or so, perfect running weather.

After finally finding my way under the highway that splits the city in two, I followed a graceful curve around to my right and spotted the majestic peaks ahead of me. The sidewalk was dead straight now without interruption and the mountains looked close enough to touch. Strip malls lined both sides of the wide thoroughfare, malls whose signage was primarily in Chinese. Interesting. I never knew Vegas had a Chinatown.

I passed a digital clock on a sign outside a convenience store. Forty-five minutes had elapsed since I’d left the hotel. The six miles I anticipated should only take me an hour or so at an easy pace. I didn’t make the connection. I had a goal and was determined to reach it. Eventually, the strip malls gave way to free standing buildings, then to gravel lots and quarry sites, and eventually to neighborhoods of single story homes packed tightly into narrow side streets and cul-de-sacs, behind tall, rough block walls. I could feel yesterday’s heat emanating from the stones as I passed, holding up my hand just shy of touching their coarse surface.

The neighborhoods evaporated and the landscape was nothing more than fine sand and gravel, whose colors precisely matched the striations in the hills ahead. I could only guess, but it felt as if two hours had passed. I didn’t have a watch, or my phone, or even a dollar in my pocket, only my driver’s license in case of emergency, and the key to my room. Just one more block and I knew I’d be able to see the base. Just one more... long block... then another... and another. I looked up, suddenly realizing my destination was no closer than it had been when my journey began, and I still had to get back. A park came up on my left. Water. There has to be a working fountain. I crossed the street with little hesitation. The traffic had died down. Even the bus stops had disappeared some time ago. As I approached the stainless steel basin, I could tell it hadn’t seen any action in quite some time. I tried it anyway.

Surrendering to the illusion of distance seemed to be my only alternative. I stopped briefly, turned around, and was shocked to find the hotels on the strip barely visible through the haze of the morning. The deceptiveness of the desert had drawn me in and then abandoned me, like a sailor lured to his death by the promise of beauty. There was no illusion now. I knew I was in trouble.

I remembered a Wal-Mart a mile or two back, of course my concept of distance had been somewhat skewed all along so I couldn’t be sure. There would certainly be a water fountain in the store. It would be the first time a retail chain would be part of one of my runs, but it was necessary.
I was alternating between running and walking now, concerned about dehydration as well as getting back to my hotel at all. There were definitely moments when survival was questionable. Too bad I didn’t even think to have bus fare in my pocket. A lesson learned.

After a couple of misguided and frustrating attempts at shortcuts that caused me to backtrack, I found my way to the strip, with my hotel only a few blocks away. It was almost over.

When I pushed open the door to my room, nearly five hours after leaving, I was delirious, desperate for water and had only two and a half hours before my workday was scheduled to begin.