Yes a night in Elko Nevada is on the cards, so we pull up at the Casino and the drives get some sleep before heading off for the spare part at first light. Me I’m on the bus, but first some food in the Casino. Inside some rustic looking people stand and sit at the slots, some look connected by their hands possibly there all night. The sound of Buck Owens drifts around the room mixing gentle with the bells and more bells of the machines, and some electronic Yellow Magic Orchestra type sounds, its a soft prickly conveyer belt of harmonics. Four oldish woman gather around a machine, a man about my age stands with his baseball cap round the wrong way sipping a beer. He is clearly the only game in town as they swoon to his every word, to me he looks like a goof, a misfit even. Together they trade laughter and words over some hand gestures and teasing looks, and then the tannoy. The female voice beckons people to play Poker, right next to Starbucks. Its empty, Sunday night in Elko seems like a quite one. As i walk to the bus in the cold night air i spot three men loading guns into one of the hotel rooms from a pick up truck, they look like they might be in a rush but they pay no attention to me as i waddle by like some distant Alan Whicker figure in the night. In the bus i wonder if I’m safe, i rest on my bed and hope of the best, a very expensive tour bus in a parking lot full of dodgy looking cars and pick up trucks. Im so tired i can’t give a toss. The other bus must be close to Minneapolis, we still have 20 hours to go once this valve is picked up from Salt Lake City in the morning. Im ready for some still, some bed under the sign of the Red Lion Casino. Elko is famous for its surrounding mines, mostly all now closed down, some gold some silver. Its also famous for local prostitution which is legal here in this one horse town. I saw no signs of this as we drove in down the long wide main street, all i saw where cheap motels and shops with not much inside. I could not be far enough away from home, from the village life and from the ones i love. I might sneak out to dig for some gold in them there hills, and then again i might not. Thinking about it the motels looks very busy back there. Sleep please and a few more chapters of that wonderful Elvis book. I love having him read it to me, its like he is in the room, Jackanory with Elvis Costello.