LR3

Here I am at McCarron International in Las Vegas, my whirlwind three-day Land Rover/Nevada Passage adventure coming to an all-too-short end. It has been eye-opening to say the least, particularly for someone who doesn't do much in the way of offroad driving and who thought of Nevada as comprising just two distinct entities: Las Vegas and desert.

No, there is much more to the state than all that, and the past thirty hours showed me in vivid detail. I'm here for the Land Rover G4 Challenge, a team competition twining endurance sports with offroad driving. At the crack of dawn yesterday, the ten two-person squads drove out of Vegas in their LR3's, a sensual yet rugged beast that handles the most rugged roads with great ease. There was a trail run after that, along the bathtub ring that now defines Lake Mead's depleted shoreline. This was followed by a bout of kayaking, and then a punishing drive straight into the heart of Nevada's rugged countryside. I followed along at the wheel of a press LR3 as we veered north across Highway 15 and then picked up a dirt road. What followed was eight hours of ass chapping four-wheeling, driving past herds of grazing cattle, wild horses, a single desert tortoise standing alongside the road, and too many small gray bunnies to count. There were mountain ranges and wildflowers that marched up the hillsides like a sort of floral wildfire. There were moments when the road disappeared altogether, and the LR3 became a lifeboat of sorts, making sure that we would not topple off the hillside into the ravine far below. I stood atop mountainsides abundant with pinon and pine and burnt out husks of Joshue Trees, their grotesque torsos still showing the results of a long ago fire. And, just when it seemed like all this diversity was a mighty slap in the face to my preconceived notions about Nevada, we saw a pair of A-10 fighter jets blasting low and fast above a bone white alkaline dry lake bed, hurling themselves into the night.

That's right. Night. We drove through the hot afternoon and into the night, arriving at our Hell's Half Acre campsite at around 9. The teams had already arrived, and -- this being Land Rover, and having a reputation to uphold and all -- a catered barbecue dinner with Sierra Nevada's and a fine pinot was served. I made it a point to pitch my tent before drinking, thinking that assembling a tent in the dark was already difficult enough without that sort of impairment.

Throughout the day, I shared driving duties with my old friend Jim Garfield, with whom I have had many adventure around the world. There was a moment about midway through the four-wheel segment, when the sun was still high in the sky and we were sure the campsite had to be near, that a voice on the radio informed us that we still had more than 60 miles to drive -- which, at 10-20 miles per hour, meant more and more hours in the saddle. Our hearts sank along with the sun (I know, that description is a little too pat, a little too trite, but I'm writing on deadline, so work with me, people). We had been listening to a great blues station on the satellite radio, lost at first in the disconnect of being able to listen to the radio in the middle of pure wilderness, and then lost in a sort of bluesy funk all our own. There was another fellow in the car, a new friend with a fine wit, and a chatty woman who seemed to know all there was to know about Nevada. Which is nice, when you need to find a way to pass the hours.

Anyway, as we saw those wild horses on a hillside looking down upon us (regal beasts, not at all flea-bitten or mangy), and then the sunlight left us, it all got a little much. The conversation ceased. The blues station was replaced by the sturm and drang of the classical station, if only because words were almost repellent in that luxurious little jail of a car. A lot of road trips are like that, we all seemed to remind ourselves at the same time. It was an antsy moment of reflection, made all the more despondent by the knowledge that cold beverage and flame-broiled chunks of meat were waiting at our destination. So we road through the fine desert dust in almost total silence those last few hours, our butts getting numb and the concept that we might soon arrive feeling like some sort of joke. But we made it. The food was great and I slept like a stone under a black mountain sky shot through with stars. And this morning as I awoke and reveled in that serene moment where you unzip your tent and step into the calm morning air, those long hours in the car were as forgotten as the pains of competition upon crossing the finish line. It had been good, all of it, a journey-means-more-than-the-destination triumph of driving and scenery and sturdy backsides. There was more competition today -- a trials course, mountain biking, and orienteering -- which I watched while reclining atop a brown boulder before jumping in the LR3 for the two-hour drive to the airport (somewhat cruelly, there was a paved highway very near to our offroad path. Could have shaved hours off that long day. Ah well. The road less traveled and all that). There are two more days of racing, which will be covered by a second shift of journalists. It's home now for me. And now to catch that plane...