Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Summer Vacation 7 (enough roman numeral bullshit)• Utah Splendor
September 10,2020
Got freaked by the chance of hitting cold weather as I started to climb in altitude. Stole a pair of leather work gloves from the hardware store in Cedar City. There were so many Trump campaign signs in Cedar City it looked like Nazi Germany. Made me want to steal more than just gloves but I demurred.
As expected there was a chill at the start of the day. The ride out of Cedar City towards Panguitch is fuckin gorgeous. Another breathtaking canyon with a river deep at the bottom of it. It climbs and climbs and as with most of Utah, just when you think you’re breath has been taken away the next turn makes you gasp even more heartily.
Came to Panguitch via Duck Creek Village. Mediocre steak and eggs. But at least they served me breakfast in the after noon. The customer is always right.
Panguitch through Circleville revealed a valley nestled between a low flat cluster of mountains. A river meanders and spirals in directions that don’t seem to make sense babbling along the cow pastures and miles of beautiful sage with yellow flowers. I stopped at a bridge used exclusively by cowboys and snapped a few photos. It’s the picture of Utah. One of it’s many images worth admiring. 
I passed a collection of boxcars near Candy Mountain. I knew immediately it was the place to stay for the night. I made a note but continued on to try and find the hippie hot springs in Monroe which ended up being a bust because of the pandemic. I skipped back to Sevier and slept in a boxcar. The guy who ran it was an old rail road guy, of course. He was much impressed by my search for meaning through this motorcycle trip. He offered me beers. I took him up on one but wasn’t feeling sociable. I slept soundly. 
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Summer Vacation VI• Vegas to Cedar City
September 9, 2020
Passed through Mesquite on my way north to Gunlock via Beaver Dam. I tried to go by way of Gold Butte but the road to Gold Butte is utter bullshit and the heat made me think better of the idea. Still, it’s a damned interesting part of Southern Nevada. A collection of oassisses, clearly constructed by man situated where no man should dwell. Heaven and hell. Palm trees and alien plants from other worlds followed the road here and there along what passed for a road out in space. 
I passed the storied Bundy Ranch and simply didn’t give a shit. About 5 miles on that shit road I gave up and headed north to the back door road off Beaver Dam. It led through a small joshua tree forest then a break in the mountain, not nearly as dramatic as the gorge leading to St George but still worth seeing.
At Shivwitts I saw a port-a-john knocked on its side due to wind the night previous. The amphitheater for their yearly rodeo is the first thing you encounter when you enter Gunlock from the south. At 70mph I only caught a glimpse of Gunlock but it appears to be an amazing picture of Americana yearning to be innocent, cursed to be free. It’s not a one horse town in that regard. Cute houses and the ever present lifestyle of the cowboy make it one of the most “western” towns I’ve ever seen. I was smitten.
On thru Veyo, and Enterprise, I turned right at Beryl Junction. I got a room in Cedar City. I remember thinking Cedar City was adorable when I came through there at 15 years old with my family on vacation. I wasn’t as impressed at age 48. It was probably the abundance of Trump flags that made it ugly. Hateful.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Summer Vacation V• Home•
August 30- September 9 2020
Thankful to visit my parents. Lucky beyond measure to be able to hibernate in their coccoon. In a celebration of civic concern someone arranged lights in the shape of the state of Nevada on the mountainside just outside my parent's backdoor. It was a welcoming presence. Ate good food with mom and dad. Drank, even gambled, an activity in which I rarely partake. I actually won $100.
We watched hockey, the new normal in Las Vegas I'm guessing. Hate sports, but was happy to waste my time watching that bullshit on the screen. When is time not a wasting?
My parents live way the fuck out in Anthem which literally puts them on the edge of town. I've always felt the most comfortable on the outskirts. Over the next few days I made field trips into the city to photograph my obsessions. The forgotten, the ruins, the abandoned. An endless art project I've been trying to make exist in my mind when I dream about Las Vegas. Now when I come to town I find I'm trying to capture lightning in a bottle, or a camera lens and continuously falling short. Like a tourist. What I've become when I return. Like I never spent 23 years of my life living in this valley. Which is depressing as well as being a weight lifted off my chest.
As dark and destructive as it can be it’s also a security blanket that forgives and easily forgets, allowing me to close my eyes and sleep with ease, knowing nobody cares. That, is freedom.
No matter where I end up I'll always be fascinated with this world built out of dirt and free beer with charms that could kill you in a matter of hours if not for the collection of humanity that resides there symbiotically. I like to think people are looking out for each other. I've been foolish enough to beleive that in the past. I hope there's other people as foolish as me to believe in such nonsense.
I used to dream about Vegas in vivid colors. Not the strip. Not the lights. It was the dark. A reoccuring dream followed me for years. Set in a creepy parking garage filled with shadows, barely illuminated. Menacing. It usually ended the same way, an elevator ride and a loudly snapping cable bringing about a terrifying free fall ending with me awakened and shaken. Sometime it turned into the Willy Wonkavator flying through the sky. I haven't had that dream in a long while. I sure do miss it. 
My home town. A level of comfort and security I will never know in other places. I moved here with my family in January of 1980, the start of a new decade. There was no way to see how far removed the desert would be in a short while. There was barely a town here but it was still trying hard to be the biggest thing on Earth. Often succeeding. It was show biz but still had plenty of room for dirt bike riding and lizard catching.
I wish I could see it again. I can still see it in the cracks in the sidewalk. Or a pile of tires carelessly tossed in what's left of vacant lots, which are getting harder to find. You just got to know where to look.
KVVU-TV 5 Henderson and Laaaaass Vegas.
The first place we lived was an apartment complex still somehow standing on Charleston and Marion. I can only imagine what the inside looks like all these years later. Hopefully better than the squalor I remeber. The only thing around at that time was the Sev on the other side of Charleston and a Von’s Supermarket.
I saw kids, nervous, running, excited, laughing and hiding on our playground while a firetruck zoomed by towards a small fire in the desert next to the Ole’s Hardware store. They were guilty but unashamed. They spilt up in all different directions when I asked what they were doing. I've felt that way at different time in my life. Have I finally learned to be unashamed?
Always lived on the East side. In the past I tried to make an issue out of East Las Vegas versus West Las Vegas. There’s some validity to that, but probably only in my mind. The side of town with Frenchman Mountain and Sunrise Mountain will always be the heart of the Las Vegas valley. And the soul.
I haven't lived in Las Vegas for nearly 20 years, honestly it don't take long for the thrill to be gone but I'm still obsessed. Time spent here feels like a dream. Time is precious. There’s never enough time.
I worship this place. It’s repulsive. Still, I feel like I could fall asleep on the street’s here if I had to. The truth is I’d surely be eaten alive if it came to that. So I’m working on keeping that from happening.
Every time I return I need to document it because it's like a trip to the moon. Or the planet Mercury. Like a tiny rock floating in the giant majesty of the sun, closer than anything else to the sun. Something you might not know about Mercury, it's got the hottest and coldest surface tempoeratures of any planet. Dut to a lack of atmosphere. I leave it at that.
Years ago I made a corny series of videos I named "Vegas That Doesn’t Change." It was a part of this folly to catch it in a bottle so I could put my finger on it. Observe it. Translate it? It was a failed experiment.
Cracked and bleeding. I don't give a fuck, I could watch video of drives through dirty, left for dead, back streets of Las Vegas all fucking night. I could walk those streets all night. It’s probably best I don’t, although it was a childhood fantasy that I would be meant to walk those streets, not sure what to do with myself. I take little comfort in knowing I'm not alone in this crowd of faces who are not sure what to do with themselves, or the world we've been blessed with. It's a mistake to think it's beyond our control. But I'm becoming an old man, and there's no way to stop that. 
I didn’t reach out to friends my entire stay in town for reasons I’d rather not mention, but mainly due to depression and the danger the virus poses. As I made ready to renew my trip on that last morning in Las Vegas I jokingly asked my parents if I could stay another week. But the heat had subsided that day, and the smoke had cleared from what was at the time California’s worst forest fires ever up to that point. I left about 11am.
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- Chad Simmons
- portland, oregon, United States
- I grew up in Vegas. East side by El Dog. It will always be my hometown for better or worse. Currently living as a labor activist in Portland, Oregon. For better or worse.
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