"We were just outside of Barstow when the refried beans began to take hold."

(apologies to Hunter S. Thompson)

In our earth-violating Caddy with the seats that still mooed (at least in our Poe-esque Telltale-Skin imaginations), we hit the road from Phoenix to Vegas. This was the most visually stunning drives I have done since driving the entire north coast of Scotland. Weird vegetation crawls over the hills like fantastic alien parasites. At times the road opens into a flat, wide valley between ridges of lavender mountains, and the sky is so enormous and omnipresent, it's claustrophobic. We wonder how humans ever thought of settling here. Every last thing is spiky and inhospitable, but from a distance deceptively lovely. Teddybear chollas, shown here, are covered in what looks like frothy white fuzz, which is really razor sharp spikes.