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Entries in Las Vegas (3)

Saturday
May022009

Eat. Shower. Canada.


LA to UtahLocation: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Oh no… my plans have changed a lot. No, that is not a mistake, I am in Salt Lake City, Utah. How I got here though, is somewhat of a blur.

Dan mailed me around 6 to ask if I wanted to grab dinner at King’s Head with him and a couple buddies from the hostel. I hadn’t eaten so of course I agreed and headed that way. By the time I got there, they had already eaten and were ready for beer, which was even more to my taste, so we left King’s Head and walked over to the Promenade to Barney’s Beanery (yup – my #2 spot to take surfers… I know, I’m boring). At this point, it was Dan (the Aussie), Mark (a guy in Dan’s room from Scotland who is in his 18th or so month of traveling after quitting his job and just leaving town) and Max (a German vegetarian who doesn’t drink – yes that does exist). The pool tables were occupied when we got there, so we headed for the shuffleboard – which none of them had played before. After losing miserably at shuffleboard (partnered with Dan – I’ll blame it on him) and then playing probably the worst game of pool I have ever played (again… Dan appears to be bad luck), we dropped off Max back at the hostel and I drove us over to Main Street to Finn McCool’s. So much for asleep by 9…

There was a great band playing at Finn’s. It was a cute little punky looking girl accompanied by a guitarist and a drummer/bongo-er who covered some really unique songs not usually sung by a girl or in an acoustic setting (love her style… oh wait, ya that’s what I like to do too). We had a couple beers (Corona for some reason) and started chatting about next steps. Dan was scheduled to leave at around 7:30 AM for Calgary out of LAX and we schemed about how he was going to get to the airport, and Mark decided he couldn’t take LA for much longer and needed to get to San Fran. Both boys were headed out in the morning.

Next thing I know, my hand is laying on top of Dan’s and Mark’s on the bar and someone is saying “alright, let’s make a pact… we’re actually going to do this… k?” Oh wait… that was me saying that. We pact and then throw our hands in the air in celebration before ordering another beer and contemplating the decision we just made.

After determining that Dan would have to catch the earliest bus possible to the airport and if he missed it he would be late for his flight and Mark casually asking if I would drive him to San Fran instead of having to take the wretched greyhound, It was suggested that Dan skip his flight and Mark and I drive him up to Panorama, Canada instead. Huh? How did that happen… “Do you have any friends that may want to come along as well?” Mark asked… actually… I thought… I do. I joke to Dan and show him the incredibly simple text message I’ve drafted… I guarantee this guy’s response will just be… Yes. So I texted Brian:

12:30 AM (Abbey): Hey, roadtrip to Canada tm? I’ll pick you up at 11… you in?
12:35 AM (Brian): Uhh… ok, sounds good. Seriously good timing.

So we swung by the hostel, grabbed their packs and headed back to the APT. We set our alarms for 7 and passed out. When I woke up at 7, I remember kind of wondering why I was getting up so early on a Thursday (generally a work from home day for me) and then realized that there were two men sleeping in my house. Oh wow… what am I doing? But I can’t back out now, Dan already missed his flight. Shower it is and pack. Once the boys woke up, I tasked them to pack as much of the heavy furniture as they could into my car. While they worked on that, I made a couple calls, got myself ready for the long trip ahead and packed up some weekend clothes.

We got on the road by about 8:45 and headed down to Long Beach. I dropped them and the furniture off at the new place in Belmont Heights and then we made a stop at the Port of Long Beach and Valero to do a little work and fill up the tank with some cheap gas. We still had to run back to SM to pick up the packs that we hadn’t loaded to cram as much furniture as we could into the car and so we decided to do a quick drive through Compton (I warned that it wasn’t going to be as exciting as what they were expecting, but we went anyway). “Alright guys,” I asked, “what’s the plan?”

Eat. Shower. Canada.

Simple enough. So we stopped on our first of many Macker’s trips (YES! Haven’t been around Aussie’s in too long… loving the déjà vu fast food abbreviations) and took quick showers back at the APT in SM. Naturally, it took us about 2 hours to get out of LA once we finally got on the road – traffic is something you can count on when you’re heading towards Vegas via the 15. And that’s just where we were headed.

We arrived in Vegas just before sunset and took a quick drive down the strip. Brian and I (who between the two of us average a trip to the Sin city every other week) point out the big sights, spit out some facts and then I drop the boys all off at the Bellagio to run in and play a quick game of Blackjack. We had a quiet (HA) dinner at the Hoffbrauhouse after this, which is a great off-strip German restaurant with somewhat reasonable prices and great beer. They also had a live band in Lederhosen with an accordion (love it!) and lots of drinking songs and “Prost!”-ing. Turns out our waitress is from central Arkansas and went to U of A so we had a nice long chat about life in the Ozarks and that was that. We were on the road again.

I was sad that we were going to be going through Zion in the dark because I really want to see this part of the world. Just when we crossed the Nevada/Arizona state line though, we realized the area was still going to be pretty amazing. We found ourselves driving down a road with huge walls jutting on either side of us. We pulled over to see what going on and found ourselves deep in a gorge. The perfect clear sky straight above with thousands of stars (can you find the Southern Cross… HA! I’m smarter than you think Mr. Kytic). We were dangerously parked right around a corner and Tay Tay bravely guarded us from massive semi’s rounding the corner just barely under tipping. We did a lot of yelling to hear our echoing voices and I think Mark attempted to take a couple pictures, but the beauty of this place was not in what you could see, which was minimal, but rather on how it felt. When there were no cars driving by, it was completely silent and the tranquility and emptiness of the moment was unrivaled. So much so, that my scardycat-ness set in quick and I felt this overwhelming need to get back in the car and lock the doors… *shiver*

On we went, stopping at the Utah border to take our 3rd state line picture. Utah was mostly dark so not a lot happened. The boys slept on and off for the next couple hours and we passed by quite a few Mormon temples and not much else. The sun started to rise as we passed downtown Salt Lake City and so we found a place on the lake where we could sit on the beach and watch the sun come up. The lake was beautiful and we did confirm that it is wide enough that you cannot see to the other side (just like the great lakes!). We sat on the edge and observed nature do it’s thing. I may have tasted the salt water to see how salty it is (not at all) and we stopped to get some more fuel (for Tay and ourselves).

According to our GPS, we have 27 hours left, but we only had 23 to start with so that can’t be right. The trusty iPhone says 14 hours… so we’ll go with that.

Long Beach, CA --> Salt Lake City, UT
Miles travelled: 789
Time travelled: 22 hours

XOXO

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Now playing: No Doubt - Don't Speak
via FoxyTunes

Monday
Feb232009

Dreaming with a broken heart...


Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA

Well... things have taken a turn for the worse. I'll finish up weekend narration and then I'll tell you the horrible news.

After lunch at BLT Burger yesterday, we were pretty spent. So Jennifer and Emily went back to the room to take a nap before we all headed to Stripper 101 at Planet Hollywood. Basically what it is, is a class/show you pay for and you go into this cute little dance studio with poles and chairs and you learn how to dance... exotically. It's a short class, they don't go into much detail, but it's all girls, everyone's drinking and the ex-stripper chicks are awesome. So we spin our stuff and wear ourselves out even more before heading back to change for dinner at koi which was AMAZING. Wonderful sushi, great lychee martinis and wonderful company (duh). After this, we headed back to the Mirage and spent the next 4 hours or so playing blackjack (and rocking, might I add). I ended the weekend up about $200, and I think Emily and Niffer both did much better than me.

Went to bed last night, woke up early, dropped off the girls at the airport and headed home. Unfortunately, I was pretty tired, and had to stop not once, not twice, but 3 TIMES to take a nap on the way home. The 3rd time wasn't entirely necessary but if I hadn't stopped, I just would have been stuck in traffic, and I figured that sleeping was a more efficient use of my time.

So... about the mess. So I get an e-mail yesterday at lunch telling me that my video application has been reveiwed and that it is too long and that I have to resubmit it. So, in a panic, I call Angie and force her to fix it so it's shorter by a half a second (took it to :59 on my player, figured that was safe) and she pulled through amazingly and had the file sent to me within like 5 minutes of me calling her. I ran upstairs, submitted the file, got multiple error messages but after much persistence and much panicking, I finally got it in.

Or so I thought.

I got an e-mail on today on the drive home (after all my naps) saying that due to some sort of technical difficulty, my video had been "removed" from their server and I needed to resubmit it (once again). The catch? It has to be done by midnight UTC. So I call the mom frantically asking what the F kind of time zone is UTC which come to find out... it was 12:08 AM UTC at that very moment. Literally just passed the time I had to have it re-re-submitted by.

So at this point, I'm pretty livid. I've cried for a couple hours, sent a couple hate mails, cried some more, yelled at the mom. You know.

I'm just a little heartbroken. I feel like I never got my chance. I had this. It was mine. But they'll never see it now.

:(

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Now playing: John Mayer - Dreaming With A Broken Heart
via FoxyTunes

Saturday
Feb212009

Sin city in style


Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA

Oh... Lord... Thank goodness it's Marti gras, or I would have no reason for such amazing behavior :)

Thursday night was pretty short lived. Since I arrived so late (sorry Niffer!!) I changed in the car in the valet garage and ran into Tao just before they closed their guest list line at 11:30. And you will never believe who I ran into there!! Ok... yes you will... Emily and Jennifer!! I was so excited to see them, you have no idea. I miss these cats like crazy... anyway. Tao was... well... pretty boring. Lots of 20 year olds in minidresses and we were just clearly not in the mood with our bourbon and beer. So we called it an early night (like 2 AM) and prepped for a long Friday ahead of us.

We started out early at Margaritaville. But after tapping out a 100 oz Margarita, we were pretty well into our day. Next on the itinerary? O'Shea's for beer pong tournament. Since there were three of us and naturally, we couldn't play alone, we scouted the cutest and most normal looking boys in the casino and recruited them. About 6 games of beer pong and two victorious winners later (yours truly - duh... and my partner... whose name escapes me - duh) we decided to sit down and play an hour or so worth of blackjack. Fortunately, I cashed out even (Emily won, yet again) and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

Gallagher's was amazing (go figure). We all got the surf and turf (me and Jennifer lobster and Emily crab) with a hefty side of beef and some other vegetable things that we clearly had no room for after the 10 lbs of fish and cow we just shoved in our mouths. Our waitor was awesome (naturally, Niffer made friends w/ him) and let us chill for quite some time after our meal was complete. Next... we headed to Chris Angel Believe Cirque du Soleil at the Luxor.

Wow... it was... just... wow. I'm not even sure I followed the story line... but I know it was crappy. The magic, was pretty much nonexistent. Chris Angel, was cool, but kind of a pansy in real life. Then there were these weird dancers that came out that I think were pretending to be Cirque people, but they were not very good. I'm not sure if the wine at dinner is blanking my memory or if that's my natural reflex, but it was not good, whatever it was.

Afterwards, I lamed out. Niffer and Emily went to play blackjack and I passed out. Turns out Emily ran into Wes and his bachelor party (crazy small world) who happen to be staying in our hotel this weekend so we're going to attempt to hunt them down and require toasts this evening.

For now, off to lunch at the amazing buffet downstairs and then who knows what next!

XOXO
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Now playing: Lady GaGa - Poker Face
via FoxyTunes