Epilogue, Part 2

Day 15 (Wednesday, July 27) -- The landlord came over and fixed the moldy door, the hole in the ductwork, and the dryer vent.  He also took a cabinet full of stuff that they had missed when moving out and a hutch in the dining room.

We had found out when we signed the lease that the rental company isn't like the ones we had rented from with in Eugene; they had been the ones who we paid rent to, and who took care of maintenance, etc.  This company only handles advertising and finding a renter, after we sign the lease we work directly with the owner.  This had us worried b/c one of the reasons we picked this place was that the company was so friendly, and we weren't happy to find out that we would instead be working with a complete stranger.  But now that I've met him, he also seems good, and very prompt about fixing problems.

Also, we decided to go with a PO Box instead of having a mailbox installed.  So if you want to mail anything to us, don't send it to our street address.

We had planned on exploring this afternoon, but after stopping at the grocery store in Blairsville, the truck wouldn't start.  Jumping it didn't work, nor did bypassing the solenoid, so we had to go get a new battery.  Fortunately, there was an auto parts store right across the highway.  We carried the new battery about 1/4 mile in the hot sun, and installed it, but it still didn't start.  A baptist deacon stopped by and looked at it, then had us try bypassing the solenoid again and it worked.  Initial diagnosis:  bad battery AND bad solenoid at the same time.  What luck... if that had happened a few days ago we might have been stuck in the middle of nowhere in 105-degree Texas, or maybe even Death Valley!  As the deacon left he told us he hoped to see us in church at 6:30 tonight, but fortunately we didn't get the replacement solenoid installed and working until 7.  Maybe we'll visit church next week.

Day 14 -- Epilogue?

Unpacked some boxes, put together some furniture, entertainment center, etc.  Visited Helen, GA with the Holmans.  If you're ever in NE GA, Helen is the touristy place to go.  It used to be a logging town (like most other towns around here), but when the logging dried up in the 60s it decided to remake itself as a Bavarian-style village.  All the streets are now "Strasses" and all the buildings are Bavarian-style timber frame.  The three popular activities in Helen are 1) shopping, 2) tubing down the Chattahoochee River in a big neon inner tube, which only costs $3 and looks like LOTS of fun (NOT sarcastic), and 3) drinking beer.  Since we didn't bring water clothes and the Holmans generally don't drink, we were stuck with option #1. 

HOLD EVERYTHING!!! MAJOR WILDLIFE SIGHTING!!!  On the way to Helen the lead Holman vehicle spotted a bear cub next to the road.  They slowed down as they drove by it, but didn't point it out or anything so we in the trailing vehicle didn't notice it.  I explored the wilderness of Oregon for 5 years before I finally caught just a glimpse of a bear, and they see one on our first full day here.  This bodes well.

(Minor wildlife sighting... when we arrived at our new house yesterday there was a spotted fawn in the driveway.  It was seen at least 4 times that day.)

We found a few problems with our new place yesterday: 

1) The door out to the garage is half-covered in mold on both the inside and outside.  By half-covered, I mean, the lower half is literally COVERED in blue-green mold!  Gross.  The mold is probably caused by the following problems: 

2a) There is a hole in the HVAC ductwork in the garage.  Not a ripped hole, but a purposefully and skillfully-cut hole, perfectly round, where a branch should join into the main line, but there is no branch.  Instead, cold air is pouring into the garage (and surely, out the garage door). 

and, 2b)  The washer/dryer hookups are right above the garage.  The dryer vent hose runs through the floor, into the middle of the garage, and straight down onto the garage floor, meaning that the hot, moist air from the dryer just fills up the garage when the dryer runs.

3) We don't have a mailbox.  We found this out when we stopped by the post office yesterday to get money orders to pay our rental fees.  The lady said "Are you the ones who moved into the Sunset place?  We've been getting mail for you but we don't deliver to there."  Unexpected.


We were supposed to get the utilities transferred to our names today, but we didn't make it back from Helen in time.  Probably OK, since we don't have a mailing address to send bills to anyway.  We didn't let that stop us from signing up for internet service though.  They will install it the day after tomorrow (which is Thursday), so I'll finally be able to update the blog (which of course I didn't update until now, Sunday night, or really, 230 Monday Morning).

Tonight, after the in-laws left, we stayed up late and got hungry, and without having any groceries yet that means one thing... Waffle House!  It had been about 3 years since I had eaten at Waffle House, and the Texas Cheesesteak with hashbrowns scattered smothered and covered was just as good as I remembered!  On the way out, I saw a guy at the bar with a fiddle case.  I asked him if he knew anybody who repaired instruments (a peg fell out of place when I shipped my fiddle), and he said he could fix it.  He also had A LOT of other stuff to say, and I let him because I couldn't get a word in edgewise, so I stood in the parking lot listening to him for about 45 minutes.  I won't relate the whole experience, but suffice it to say I have decided NOT to have him work on my stuff, mainly because he threw up a couple red flags as he talked:  1) his friends call him "Snake", and 2) he is 24 and his girlfriend is still in high school.  More importantly, he didn't seem the least bit embarrassed or concerned about telling a complete stranger this (AND MUCH MORE!) information, so I just really don't trust him.  But I guess since he's the only person I've met, he's my new Georgia best friend.

Day 13 - Moving In

Left the farm around 5am with 2 sausage biscuits and a thermos of coffee.  Daisy did NOT want to get back into the truck, and as soon as she did she laid down and went to sleep.  She used to never sleep in the car, even on really long rides, but after this trip it has become her modus operandi.  Good for her, I guess, but I can't wait to get there so she can stay on solid ground for a while.

Got to the ABF terminal in Chattanooga around 830 AM.  Our trailer was parked where we couldn't access it, but they got it moved right around the time the Holmans showed up, so the timing couldn't have been better.  Some of the stuff had been stacked too high so we had a few pieces of broken furniture and quite a few semi-crushed boxes.  At least one sounded like broken glass when shaken.  We got the stuff transferred to the gooseneck trailer and tarped and tied down with come-alongs in less than 1.5 hours -- way faster than I expected --  then off to Georgia.  Lost one come-along right away, but the load held, so we kept going.

The new house is HUGE.  As far as we can tell, it was built in two phases:  Phase 1:  Build a chalet-type house (similar to the ones at Skiposium), with a loft/bedroom that looks over the living room.  Phase 2:  Double the size of the house by adding a new living room, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and another bathroom.  What was originally the living room is now a super-huge master bedroom.  Counting the loft, it could be three normal-sized bedrooms itself.  Oh, and because there is also a basement, the original basement is now a huge garage, and the new basement consists of a spare room (also big enough to be about 2 bedrooms), a hot tub room, a sauna, and a tanning bed room.  Sadly, they took the tanning bed with them, otherwise I'd be nice and bronze (and melanoma) by now.  Bottom line:  this house is WAY bigger than we need, and slightly more expensive, but it's what we could find and arrange from 2600 miles away, and I guess it's better than being too small.

So now we're here, finally.  Taking stock of the trip... Major problems: none.  Minor problems:  1) loose shifter on the truck -- annoying but not debilitating; 2) probably lost the GPS (biggest bummer), 3) some broken furniture (fortunately we don't have expensive furniture), and 4) some broken glass, which by the way, turned out to be just some cheap candle holders.

I think Rachel and I both feel a sense of accomplishment that we were able to pull off this move/trip on schedule and without any major problems.  Now we just have to settle in and, you know, start living.

Day 12 - At the farm

Yesterday I had wanted to start a project... clearing out a 300+ yard shooting lane to do some real long-distance shooting.  The first step is bushhogging, but it got dark before we got the tractor ready so this morning I woke up around 730 and started tractoratin'.  Cleared a lane up to about 200 yards, and mowed some of the area beyond.  Step 2 was to clear out some tree limbs that were in the way of the really long-distance shots, and Steve and I worked on that together, but it was slow-going because of a) the heat, and b) there was way more stuff in the way than we had thought.  Needless to say, we didn't get it done.  I went back later but some of the limbs were too high to reach even with the pole saw, so the farthest we could shoot was about 215 yards.  Will came down in the afternoon, and the three of us shot.  I had brought 2 exploding targets and Will hit one at 200 yards (with the scoped 30-06) and Steve hit the other at 100 yards with the Mauser (open-sights).  They were impressed by the big booms.  I had already tried to hit them, but I guess I took all my good shots at the beginning because I couldn't hit a damn thing near the end.  Always close, but never a boom.  Guess I'll have to find more of those exploding targets somewhere.

I had meant to reorganize the truck while I was down here, mostly to see if I could find the GPS (which we haven't seen since somewhere around Vegas or Bryce Canyon).  Started working on it around 11pm, and got done around 1am.  Didn't find the GPS, but I did find that the Nalgene bottle of milk that I had in the cooler had gotten hot and had spewed sour milk all in the cooler, so I had to clean that up. 

Tomorrow I will wake up at around 4am to head to Chattanooga, meet Rachel and the in-laws, load our stuff onto their trailer, drive to Blairsville to pick up the house key, drive to the house, check it out, back to Blairsville to sign the lease, then back to the house to unpack.  On 3 hours of sleep, it's gonna be tough.

Day 11 -- Into Tennessee

We decided yesterday to split up... Rachel is going home to Cookeville with her brother, and I'm going to the farm (with Daisy and all the gear).  Then I'll meet her and her family at the ABF terminal in Chattanooga on Monday morning, where we'll transfer our stuff onto her dad's gooseneck trailer, then take it the rest of the way to Young Harris.

I left out about 8am, took I-40 to Memphis, then US 64 to the farm.  Got there around 3pm... turns out I had missed Aunt Sue and Uncle Larry by about 5 minutes (they had stopped in on their way back from vacationing in Destin).

(By the way, Little Rock and the area about 50 miles on each side wins the award for Most Tailgaters, although OK City wins the Worst Drivers award.)

It's nice to be at the farm.  Steve was already here when I got here, and although Mom wasn't going to come down until tomorrow, she couldn't wait so she came down tonight.  Steve brought his dog (named States' Rights).  She and Daisy get along well, once again mostly by avoiding each other.  We took them to the creek, which isn't as low as it normally is in July but is still too dry to really be continuous.  Saw a box turtle... Daisy didn't care but States went nuts after it.  Also saw a snapping turtle that was probably 15" around.  It was at the bottom of a knee-deep pool, motionless among some rocks, so I felt fortunate that I saw it before I stepped on it.  Caught a tiny long-ear sunfish with my little 6' fly rod.  We ate fried catfish that Steve and Dad caught a couple weeks ago, and stargazed til about 1am.

Bug notes:  I just realized that Oregon didn't have wasps... I had totally forgotten about them.  Also, tonight there were about 8 huge sphinx moths around the porch light.  Impressive, and comforting.


Daisy is defiinitely not used to the muggy weather in the South.  She stays inside in the air-conditioning whenever she can.  Hopefully she'll get used to it soon.

Tonig

Day 10 - Little Rock

We spent today in Little Rock with Rachel's brother Titus, his wife Nancy, and his daughter Katie.  Also, they have a Schnauzer named Sean.  Daisy and Sean got along for a while, mostly by avoiding each other, but every once in a while Sean would get between Daisy and someone she wanted to be near and she'd attack him.  One time they really got into it and Sean got sent to his crate even though the fight was totally Daisy's fault.   I felt bad for him, but because I am a guest here I let it go.

Titus is in the Air Force, as a C-130 mechanic.  He took us to the base, and was able to get us onto the tarmac where all the planes were parked.  About 80 big cargo planes parked out there... impressive.  We walked up to the first one and he opened the door and let us get inside it.  It was about 105 on the tarmac, but that plane had been parked and closed up all day, so it was about 120 in the cockpit... toasty, but so impressive that I didn't mind being in there for a few minutes.  I should've taken the chance to sit in the pilot's seat, but i didn't.  After checking the plane out, we walked back out onto the 105 degree tarmac and man, it felt nice and cool compared to that dang plane!  I bought a mocha frappuccino and an Air Force knife sharpener at the BX, then we went home.  We watched Bolt and got in some much-needed relaxation.

Note:  called ABF to inquire about where our stuff is.  Turns out it has already arrived in Chattanooga, and is ready to be picked up.  Right on time, I suppose, but I'm not sure how long it's been there.  They were supposed to call me when it was a couple days out, but they didn't.   Oh well, no big deal.

Day 9 - Interstate 40

Today we drove over 750 miles on one road.  Glorious I-40, which runs (almost) from Sea (almost) to Shining Sea. Blasted through NM, across the Texas Panhandle, got gas just before we got into Oklahoma, and would've crossed OK entirely without stopping except that about 5 miles in I saw a sign for the Roger Miller Museum in Erick, OK, and I had to stop.  We got there around noon, and it was about 105 degF.  The town looked dead (see picture).  The door to the museum was locked, with a post-it attached that said the lady would be back ASAP.  We waited in the heat for about 10 minutes, then she arrived and I went in.  Admission was $3, but she only charged me $2, maybe because I said yes when she asked if I was a fan.  "How much time do you have?" she asked, and when I told her that my wife and dog were waiting outside she said she wouldn't make me watch the standard hour-long video before showing me around (whew!).  Since I was the only person there I got a personal guided tour of the place.  You guessed it... very impressive.  I really wanted to get a commemorative can koozie, but I didn't have any cash so I'll have to try to order one online or something.  Meanwhile, Rachel and Daisy got to sit around the streets of Erick, OK for about a half hour.  Needless to say, both were ready to hit the road when I got back to the truck.

 Downtown Erick, OK.

A state-and-a-half later, we made it to Titus' apartment in Little Rock.  For the first time, I'm starting to feel like I'm back in the South (because it's hot and humid and there's lots of bugs).

Day 8 -- Mesa Verde

[Blogger's note:  Today is Sunday, July 31.  This means that I am 9 days behind in updating the blog.  Also, we arrived at our destination almost a week ago.  Please forgive me, and allow me to pretend that I'm writing this as it happened.]

Today we had planned a half-day trip to Mesa Verde NP, which is in southwest Colorado, about 15 minutes down the road from Cortez (where we spent the night).  You can't really experience this one without hiking, and since dogs aren't allowed the first thing we did was drop off Daisy at a kennel in Cortez.  A note to anyone thinking of building a dog kennel... be sure to build real, opaque walls.  We've taken Daisy to three kennels now: the one in Eugene, the one in Vegas (fortunately only for an hour or so), and this one in Cortez.  This one and the Vegas kennel were a bunch of cages made with chain-link fence, so all the dogs could see everything.  Because of this, they all went crazy anytime a new dog showed up or another left.  Very loud, and I imagine very unnerving to a dog who is not used to the place.  The Eugene kennel wasn't like this... it was made of actual rooms built out of cinder blocks.  There was very little activity when bringing a dog in or out.  But the Cortez kennel had its good side, too... each pen had a little door in the back that led out to the yard, so the dogs could spend more time outside.

Off to Mesa Verde... this park was probably the one that I expected the least of, or at least, it has ended up exceeding my expectations more than any other.  It wins the award for Most Improved (In My Mind).  A little background:  The Anasazi Indians lived in the four corners area for over a thousand years, roughly from 0 AD/BC to about 1300 AD.  For about the first half of that time, they were nomadic.  Then they settled down in villages with, I don't know, houses I guess.  Then around 1200 AD, they moved into the cliffs and built these really cool cities: 

 Spruce Tree House.  This is the most well-preserved, and the one we walked around.

Cliff Palace.  This is the biggest one, but you have to sign up for a guided tour of it, so we just saw it from afar.

Then, around 100 years later, they abandoned these places.  Very strange.  I don't think we're sure why they decided to move here (although it was nice and shady and cool under those cliffs even on a pretty hot day), or why they decided to leave, so I will leave this topic and talk about what I saw.

The rooms were tiny, about the size of a walk-in closet.  Supposedly an entire (small?) family lived in each one.

The main feature besides all the living rooms were the kivas, which were little round underground rooms, about 10 feet in diameter.  These were always built in a certain way (roof with a hole in the middle for a ladder, fire pit, ventilation system, tiny other hole in the floor, and six little cubbies in the wall for little sacred trinkets), and were supposedly used for rituals.  But there were jillions of them, so I don't understand why they needed so many.  They must've served some more practical purpose, maybe in addition to rituals.  Or maybe the 13th-century Anasazi were over-religious zealots who spent too much time building churches and not enough time farming?

While I was looking at Spruce Tree House, I noticed a girl whose face looked familiar.  We walked past each other a few times and I noticed that she looked at me kinda funny, then finally she walked up to me and asked me where I was from.  I told her Oregon, and then she looked even more puzzled.  "Did you go to Franklin High School?" she asked.  "Yes..."  "Were you in marching band?" "Yes!"  Turns out it was Hannah, who was a year behind me in school and in the band (and Goober's little sister).  My Oregon answer had confused her because she also lives in Oregon now (Portland).  We talked a while.  I didn't expect to see anybody I knew in the middle of nowhere in Colorado. Small world?

We left Mesa Verde around 2pm, picked up the dog, stopped for lunch at Sonic (which was next to an empty lot with a bunch of prairie dogs in it, so we watched them while we ate), then headed east.  Made it to Durango, which is a pretty cool (but touristy) town.  I hadn't gotten to fish at all yet, so I stopped at a fly shop, bought a few flies and inquired about the Animas River.  The store man told me about a good spot at the edge of town, just off the highway and behind the Wal-Mart, but as we drove down there I decided I could find a spot further away from town.  I was wrong.  Soon the highway went up away from the river and onto an Indian Reservation which extended to the New Mexico border.  I tried to salvage the day by looking for a place to fish on the San Juan (home of the famous San Juan Worm fly pattern), but had no luck and just wasted time driving around some pretty sorry-looking country for about an hour).  Drove hard, took a left turn at AlbUquerque, and began heading east on good ole' I-40.

There's something about Interstate 40.  It has a feel to it.  I imagine it has something to do with the east-west direction and the mostly-consistent latitude, but driving down I-40 in New Mexico felt a lot like driving down I-40 in TN.  Or maybe it was just the knowledge that if I drove far enough down this road, it would get me home.

Tomorrow is our first big driving-only day.  I-40 all the way to Little Rock to We managed to make it a couple hours east of Albuquerque before getting tired, and stayed in Santa Rosa, NM.  Tomorrow will be a big day... have to end up at Rachel's brother's place in Little Rock, so we drove a couple hours extra on I-40 tonight and made it to Santa Rosa, NM.

Day 7 -- Arches and Canyonlands

It’s hard to do these Utah parks with a dog.  Hardly any hiking trails allow dogs, so it really limits you to things you can see from your car.  There are good reasons for this:  dogs can be nuisances to wildlife, other guests, etc., but evidently the more important reason is that dogs can easily run away, fall down cliffs, get lost, etc.  When this happens, their owners run off trying to find them, and get themselves lost or hurt.  This has not been much of a problem for the parks we’ve been to so far, but Arches has lots of, well, arches, that you can’t see unless you hike to them.  Because of this and Comfort Inn’s 11am checkout time, we left out at 7am, and left Daisy in the hotel room.

Getting to Arches so early had its advantages – primarily because we beat both the crowds and the heat, but also its disadvantages – with the sun so low a lot of the views were backlit and we couldn’t get good pictures of them.  We saw Balancing Rock (it looks just like it did in the Wile E. Coyote cartoons) and Delicate Arch, and hiked to Landscape Arch, which definitely wins the prize for best arch.  Saw a bunch more arches (and a couple rabbits), then made it back to the hotel just in time for check-out.

After picking up the dog we went back to Canyonlands North.  Canyonlands NP is a bit weird because there are two sets of roads:  a northern set called “Island In the Sky”, and a southern set called “The Needles”.  Both sets are dead-ends and don’t meet each other, and the entrances are about 60 miles apart, and on opposite sides of the Arches NP entrance.  The northern roads, where we had been turned back yesterday by the thunderstorm, run along the rim of the canyon, and have mighty impressive views.  Our original plans for this trip included the Grand Canyon, but we decided to cut that out early in the planning because it was too out of the way. The views here may have made up for that.  Also, I saw what I’m pretty sure was a peregrine falcon diving after some prey.  Very cool.

Canyonlands South was a different story.  First of all, the entrance is about 30 miles off the highway, although the road itself snakes through a gorgeously scenic canyon.  Second, the canyon rim here is not nearly as tall as on the north part, even though this is downstream from that.  Thirdly, and most importantly, although this area is called “The Needles”, and is named after a really cool rock formation that we really wanted to see, you cannot actually see “The Needles” without a significant hike.  So this place was kind of a bust.  But if this is our biggest disappointment of the trip (which it has been so far), we’re doing pretty good.

I haven’t been wearing sunscreen.  Strangely, even though I’ve been either outside or driving for the past week, today was the first time I got a little red.  Not burnt really, just red.     

We left Utah, and rolled into Cortez, CO about 7pm.  Got a room at the Econolodge, which seems nice except for paper-thin walls.  Tomorrow we go to our last national park, Mesa Verde.  That’s another hike-in park, so we’re planning on boarding Daisy for the day here in Cortez.  Then if we have time left in the day, I’m going to try to find a place to do some fishing, before we head to our planned destination, Albuquerque.  We’re planning on being at Rachel’s brother’s house in Little Rock by Thursday night, which is 14 hours from Albuquerque, so maybe we’ll try to get a little farther tomorrow.

We left Vegas around 10am, headed for the southern Utah National Parks.  First one on the list was Zion, about 3 hours northeast.  JC had told us that we should hike up the canyon, but when we got there, MAN was it crowded!  There was essentially no parking at the visitor’s center or trailhead, so we just drove on through.  Very nice scenery, though.

 The only place we've seen Orthodox Jews is Zion NP... coincidence???

Next stop was Bryce Canyon NP, a couple hours (through some gorgeous country) from Zion.  Besides the still-gorgeous scenery Bryce was a big contrast to Zion.  Not crowded, and very comfortable.  We got there around 6, found a campsite pretty easily, and did some laundry.  Bryce wins the award for most laid-back national park (so far, at least)… they even gave me a second hot dog at the general store for free!

A rain shower passed through as we got back to the campsite, so we had to sit in the truck for a while.  Then we cooked dinner (bacon, eggs, potatoes, and onions… it took way too long on the camp stove) and went to bed.  There was more rain that night and a bit right at daylight (Day 6, by the way) but I got out of the tent after it left and the weather was gorgeous… partly cloudy, breezy, and about 65 degrees.  It felt like deer hunting weather.  We took down the camp, went to the general store to start some more laundry, then went sightseeing.

Bryce is a car-friendly park, but not drive-through like Zion is.  It’s basically a bunch of viewpoints connected by an 18-mile-long dead-end road.  Our strategy was to drive to the end of the road, then sightsee our way back.  This worked pretty well, except that it made our last stop Inspiration Point.  The cool thing about Bryce Canyon is all the hoodoos --  little towers of rock that have been eroded away -- and Inspiration Point has about ten times the hoodoos as any other viewpoint.  If you go to Bryce (and if, like us, you can’t hike), don’t worry about the rest of the viewpoints… just go see Inspiration Point.  Very impressive.

 

 We also saw pronghorns very close to the road.

We left Bryce Canyon around 2pm, very surprised that we had spent about 20 hours at that one park.  Drove up to Capitol Reef NP, which was another gorgeous drive.  Somebody once told me that they should just make all of southern Utah one big national park… I can see why.  

Capitol Reef NP was (and still is) the park I knew the least about.  For instance, I’m still not sure why it’s called Capitol Reef.  It has basically two roads: one that runs through the north edge of the park and another that runs down into the park and dead-ends.  The dead-end road was under construction, and because of that and a lack of time, we decided to just drive through.  Saw some spectacular stuff just doing that… makes me wonder what was down that road.  

See that sunlit rock in the background?  That's Capitol Reef (I think).

Probably the most interesting was the wall paintings... mostly done by the Indians, but with a few modern (and ugly) additions.  The only dates I could read on them were 1929 and 1937, though, which were both before the place was federally protected.

  

We had planned to camp that night at or near Arches NP, which we still had plenty of time to get to.  We hit I-15 (first interstate driving since Day 2), which runs through a big expansive sagebrush prairie with a really long view.  Up ahead we saw scattered rainstorms, with occasional lightning.  We decided to try camping in Canyonlands NP (north side) instead, because it wasn’t so far east, but after we had turned off the highway and were driving westward to it, we noticed a huge storm to the southwest that had snuck up behind us.  So we decided that camping wasn’t in the cards, and we’d just find a hotel in Moab instead.  

Moab reminds me of a tiny version of Bend, Oregon.  High, dry, and very outdoor-oriented and touristy.  It’s only 3 miles south of the entrance to Arches, NP, so I guess that’s where you stay if Arches is your destination.  We tried a few hotels before finding one that was pet-friendly and had a vacancy, and ended up with a nice room at the Comfort Inn.  Dropped off Daisy, had some good authentic Mexican food (and margaritas) at Miguel’s Baja Grill, watched some lightning off in the distance, then called it a night.

Vegas Baby!

Rolled into Las Vegas around noon on Saturday.  Here’s what we did:

• 12 noon:  Stopped at McDonald’s to use their wi-fi.  Booked a hotel, tickets to Cirque Du Soleil’s Ka show, and a kennel for Daisy.
• 12:30:  Dropped Daisy off at the kennel.
• 1:00:  Went to the hotel to find out when we could check in.  They had a room ready, so we went ahead and checked in.  Across the hall a little yappy dog was constantly barking, so we re-thought kenneling Daisy.
• Vegas Lesson #1:  Dog-friendly hotels (at least the La Quinta) are perfectly OK with you leaving your dog in your hotel room while you’re out gambling.
• 1:30:  Picked up Daisy from the kennel and brought her back to the hotel.
• 2-4:  Rest time (aka enjoying the air conditioning – it was 112 degrees by now).  Rachel took a nap and I updated the blog. 
• 4pm:  Walked (about 2 miles) to the MGM Grand to pick up our Ka tickets.  Dinner at Wolfgang Puck (delicious).
• 6pm:  walked up and down the Vegas strip until my feet hurt.  Saw the water fountains at the Bellagio ( worth it) and the gondolas at the Venetian (not worth it).  Got blisters.
• Vegas Lesson #2:  The Mall of America is NOT the biggest mall in the U.S.  The Las Vegas strip is the biggest.  Everywhere that is not a gaming floor is a series of high-end (and sometimes low-end) shops.  Also, every sightseeing destination (ex: the canals at the Venetian) is really just part of a giant mall.
• Vegas Lesson #3:  If you want to see the entire strip, buy a monorail ticket.  $5 one-way, or $12 for 24 hours of riding.  This is for two reasons:
• You will be walking multiple miles in 110-degree heat.
• Every block has about a dozen (*not exaggerating) illegal immigrants trying to hand you prostitute trading cards.  They smack them in their hands, then shove them at you at waist level.  I think the idea is that it gives you an opportunity to slyly take the hand-off so your wife doesn’t notice.  I had to try taking the hand-off, but as soon as I did the novelty completely wore off.
• 9pm:  back to the MGM Grand to see Ka.  They have concession stands there similar to at a movie theater, except here they serve alcohol.  Rachel and I each got a 32-ounce cocktail… a whiskey coke for me and a daiquiri for Rachel.  Our Ka seats were in the 7^th row on the very left of the theater, which meant that there were people FLYING ABOVE OUR HEADS during the show!  Very impressive, although I didn’t follow the plot of the show very well at all.  Then again, I was pretty drunk by the end.  

 The sides of the stage at Ka.

• 11pm:  Played penny slots.  At one point I had tripled my money (to $6), then I slowly lost it all.
• 12am: It’s hard to find a cheap blackjack table on the Vegas Strip.  We ended up finding one at Bill’s Gambling Hall (next to the Flamingo), right next to the front entrance (which means right in front of the dancing girls).  Seriously, it was the ONLY available $5 table.  Rachel didn’t want to play at first, but since nobody else was at the table, I gave her some chips and she tried it. She took to it very quickly.  We played with $160, and had lost nearly half of it by 3am when we finally got too tired to keep playing.  We tried so hard to keep going until we lost it all, but we were just too good.  

 

The only two other pictures we took of Vegas.