An Educational Trip

I’m afraid of marriage. That’s the simple truth. My thinking is that marriage demands too much togetherness. When a loving couple decides to get married it is a little like the Peter Principle applied to relationships; with marriage, the union has very possibly reached its lowest level of dysfunction and will either fail or become less harmonious. I do not think marriage is a necessary objective for a relationship. If I love the guy I would be perfectly willing to stay in a relationship indefinitely that does not have marriage, or even cohabitation, as its final goal.

Marty and I just gave our relationship a bit of a test. We went to Las Vegas and the surrounding areas for a few days. Last Saturday Marty decided that he was a little tired of the winter and he wanted to get away. I suggested Las Vegas. He seconded the notion. I became immediately excited. If I were unable to get the time off work, I was prepared to quit. I was that excited. Fortunately, quitting proved unnecessary. I made a little itinerary of where we could go and what we could do on the trip, then showed it to Marty. He went along with it, although I think a bit grudgingly. I told him it was not set in stone.

Our trip: The first night we stayed at the Gold Strike Hotel and Casino which is about thirty miles south of Las Vegas. It is kind of a weird place. It really needs some updating and is not the cleanest hotel in Nevada. But it was about $40 for the night, which is pretty darn cheap. Marty won $25 at the casino (okay, I gave $15 back playing the slot machines), so it was an extra cheap stay.

The next day we drove over to the China Ranch Date Farm about an hour or so away. I had read about it on the Net. It was really off the beaten path. I had a date milk shake. While we were there we went hiking out into the desert. About ten minutes out, I stopped and looked around at the beautiful emptiness of the landscape. The air temperature was in the 60s and the sun felt good though it had a kind of dusky, winter appearance to it. A mood swept over me and with tears of joy almost coming to my eyes, I felt compelled to hug Marty and to tell him that the trip was a great idea.

Later we drove by some hot springs bathhouses in the tiny remote, desert town of Tecopa. We stopped and inquired, but the pools were divided up by gender which of course for us was a non-starter. Still, it was a fascinating place.

That night we stayed in the town of Pahrump at a place called The Nugget. We had a nice dinner at a steak house inside the casino. Later that evening Marty lost about $30 playing craps and I lost about $25 in the slot machines. That pretty much ended my gambling for the trip.

The following day Marty wanted to go back to Las Vegas and see the city’s sights. I wanted to go into Death Valley, about an hour in the opposite direction. Marty sort of chuckled, shook his head and relented. We drove through the odd, miniscule town of Death Valley Junction (which has a theater, of all things), and a short time later we passed into Death Valley National Park.

The first little tourist spot we came to was long-deserted Ashford Mill, near the southern edge of the park. We looked at some of the ruins there and then I asked Marty to accompany me out across the desert. We went out about a half hour until we arrived at some small, barren hills. It was a weird feeling; the sense of total isolation where not a man-made sound could be heard. I took Marty by the hand and calmly told him that I had never “done it” in a National Park, and it was time I did. For an instant Marty was surprised. For a few seconds he just stared at me. Then he started to chuckle and asked me if I had the whole thing planned the first thing in the morning. I smiled smugly and confessed that I had the whole thing planned since we landed in the Las Vegas airport, though not necessarily "doing it" at that exact location. Ashford Mill will now always have a special place for me.

We arrived in Las Vegas that evening and stayed at the Silverton. We had a nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the hotel. Later that evening we got into our swimsuits and scampered out into the cool air to take a dip in the outdoor hot tub. Relaxing in the bubbling water out on a chilly, starry night was for me a wonderful, surreal experience. For Marty it seemed to be more of a turn-on, given what happened immediately after we got back to the room.

The next day I did a little shopping at the adjoining Bass Pro Shop store while Marty did some gambling in the casino. Later we visited Red Rock State Park just outside the city. That evening we toured The Strip. We flew back to Boston the next morning.

For Marty and me it was our first time together of any length, just the two of us. If it did not go perfectly, it went far better than I could have hoped. We both have sufficient amounts of the necessary give-and-take in our personalities. And perhaps more importantly, we give each other a little room to do our own individual things. Marty and I are our own people and we do not feel as though we own each other. This might sound counter-intuitive, but as long as he feels that way, I’m his.