Vegas baby

The good ol' Farmer's Market

Welcome to the online journal documentary of our cross-country journey! (This is not a bl**.) There will be pictures, words and, for those of you that are following along on a map, I will list our traveled highways and major US cities/destinations at the end of each entry.

It has been a few days since we left but we’ve been so busy I haven’t had a second to write! I will catch up…

May 10th:
We left from the shire (my mom’s in Nevada City) Monday morning and were officially on the road in the early afternoon. Our plan was to go through Reno and then take 395 through Death Valley, all the way to Vegas. After Reno, however, we took a… very scenic route around Lake Tahoe and then had to make a new route. We eventually got to 95 and took that alllll the way through the beautiful desolate deserts of Nevada and arrived in Las Vegas around 2am.

Vegas is like nothing else I’ve ever seen! I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to see but it dwarfed the picture in my head in every way. Driving in on the The Strip is astounding enough but especially after one has been driving for hours through the dark desert with the only big bright light coming from the almost-full moon rising over a modest plateau. Suddenly I felt like Alice after the “Drink Me” bottle. Colin has been before but I think he got a kick out of hearing me say “wow” so many times.

We stayed at the MGM Grand (screaming online deal) and the next day enjoyed the pool and the constant bombardment of hustlers. That night we met up with Colin’s good friend Ted and hung out local style at a great Tapas place, Firefly. Later Colin and I set out on foot and explored the entire strip (including Greg Stone’s suggested “Walk of Fame.”) Our last night in Vegas was very appropriate to the occasion.

May 13th:
On our way out on Wednesday we stopped in to what is considered by many to be the best Thai food outside of Thailand – a totally unassuming spot in a sweltering strip mall on Sahara Ave, called Lotus of Siam. The food was really excellent and somehow also really inexpensive and the hundreds of photos of celebrity clientele made up the perfect décor.

And then onward to Arizona...

Route: Hwy 49 - Hwy 20 - I 80 - Hwy 395 - um, detour... - back on Hwy 95
Major places: Reno, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas