Nevada has the honor of being the only state whose photo I took during the course of the project itself; I had a photo of one of the indoor canals at the Venetian from our trip last year, but on our weekend in Las Vegas last month, my trip to the Neon Museum’s boneyard was a photographer’s paradise (not that I’m a photographer). The gravel lot was filled with signs three or four deep, stacked up against one another, random letters strewn about, and fantastic, poetic juxtapositions all around.

That trip was my fourth trip to Nevada, I think, the last three to Las Vegas in 1997 on our road trip, and 2007 and 2008 now that we’ve moved to Los Angeles. My first was a family trip to Reno and Carson City, sometime in the early ’80s, of which I recall some vague casino memories, Harrah’s Auto Museum, and a meal at Louis’ Basque Corner, still the only Basque restaurant I’ve ever been to. I took a lot of pictures (with my little 110 cartridge camera) of cars in the Harrah’s collection, Ferraris and Porsches and Bugatti Royales, and Herbie, of course. I recall that the massive collection was about to be sold off, so we worked a visit into the trip (or did we build an entire trip around that visit?), and I remember it fondly.