Bail Bondsmen, Wedding Chapels, Pawn Shops - May 7

Monday, May 7

The day starts out with a frustrating & ultimately fruitless 4-hour search for a motorcycle shop, that will help getting the exhaust de-coked, but not one of them will touch the thing. Quite a different attitude from when the second flat was being fixed, but here they either deal with new stuff only, or with Harleys only. An air conditioned hour at Barnes & Noble helps my spirits somewhat, after which I head for the cheaper El Cortez hotel room I booked last night.

Picturesque as this old hotel may seem, the left hand side of it is modern, and 15 stories tall.

It's the same area I visited yesterday, so I decide to walk some miles towards downtown, visiting along the way some of the many pawn shops, in one of which the owner turns out to be a fellow former New Yorker. On top of that he has Danish roots, and recalls having visited his family in Saxogade in Copenhagen, less than a quarter mile from where I live. Oh yeah, he also mentioned Peter Madsen, who is in the news over here too...

Picture at this pawn shop was taken through heavy bars, while other pawn shops

used thick plexiglass partitions. Bulletproof ones, I guess.

Note the American and Danish flags on top shelf.

The next pawn shop was more upscale, with things like this Norman Rockwell original painting priced at $10,000.

Across the street there were bail bond offices and a long string of places to get hitched.

Right year, wrong colour. Elvis Presley figured prominently at some places, and what could be more 'Elvis' than a pink '67 Cadillac? I ended up taking a half dozen pics of these guys with gold capped teeth all sitting on the hood of another pink Caddy, but annoyingly forgot to take one on my own phone.

Then of course all this Elvis stuff could get kinda silly....

The cheerful combination of gun, girls and cannabis.

In the evening temperatures have dropped to a reasonable level, and the partygoers are out in full force. I won't be with them, as getting going very early will be necessary for tomorrow and for next day's visit to Grand Canyon. Looking at my time schedule, and the number of people I'd like to see along the way, I also decide to skip Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. A pity, really, but seeing that right now the MZ is only good for 200-mile days, it'll save me three days of riding.

Las Vegas is big on musicals, too.