Tigers Love Pepper...They Hate Cinnamon

Well it's Tuesday evening, 7:29 PM to be exact, so that must mean I'm finally in California. The past two days have definitely been eventful as we cruised from Denver to Carlsbad, CA.

Denver was absolutely awesome, and only reinforced the idea I love that place. Driving through the Rockies was pretty unbelievable, and I had no idea what awaited me on the other side. All of the lush greenery and snow patches were replaced by an arid, desert-like place, brown with the soil color and shrubbery. I had always imagined Colorado as one, big, green state. Apparently I was wrong, but don't go spreading that around.

From there we went on to Utah. I was in Utah for the first time ever this past winter to go skiing up in Salt Lake City. This time though, we stayed to the south and it was more of the same, arid, desert conditions. It was really awesome to see the eroded rock faces, and the multiple layers of rock jutting a 100+ feet into the air. It was the exact scene I had painted in my mind when we decided to make this trip. It was a hard drive through it all though, climbing and descending hills the whole time. Lucille had trouble and didn't do too well on gas, and we were still trying to survive without a/c in 90+ heat. I was driving and needless to say after a couple hours I became pretty irritable with the sun beating down on me all afternoon. While the first hour of looking at the rocks was fun, the three hours after weren't quite as interesting.

We strayed from Utah into Arizona for all of about 40 miles to cut into Nevada, so nothing too interesting happened there, except we wanted the thermometer climb. The only plus to come out of here was after my drive, we decided "the hell with it, we're putting on the air conditioning!"

I finished off the driving for the day rolling into Las Vegas for the evening, which was pretty cool. Driving through the desert the car temperature gauge said it was 107 at one point. Thank god we put on the a/c. We got in just before sunset and checked into our hotel, Excalibur. It was a pretty family-oriented place, with a sponge-bob show, a Medieval Times-like dinner theater, and to top it off a male stripper show, which is something apparently the whole family can enjoy. After showering and my dad pounding a Monster energy drink, we headed out for some fun on the town.

We quickly lost $100 at a blackjack table where our cards continuously sucked and it seemed like the dealer caught every break imaginable. So we wandered around, checking out New York, New York, Luxor, and finally heading to the MGM Grand. It was incredible how empty the casinos were, and how many tables were empty, even without dealers. We settled at a table called "Blackjack Switchback", which turned out to be a pretty cool game. It's basically the same rules as blackjack, except you play two hands at a time ($10 each) and you can switch the top two cards on either. So if you have a 10 over a 7 on one side, 3 over an Ace on the other, you can switch the 7 and 3, and have a guaranteed winner on one side with the 10 and Ace. We sat down with $100 in chips, and walked away two hours later with $205, so we didn't do too bad. It was a blast and we didn't get to sleep until about 12:30 AM local time, which was now West Coast Time.

Today was crunch time.

We tried to get up and out early, managing a 10:30 departure from Vegas after eating at a buffet breakfast and winning $40 at a slot machine. The drive today was cake comparetively speaking, only lasting about 4.5 hours. I started behind the wheel, and hoped into a pretty good amount of cars leaving Vegas for Cali, not to mention being on the receiving end of a pretty serious stare down from a Nevada State Trooper as I drove by his parked car. We decided to test the limits and put the a/c on again. It did start leaking with about an hour left, but without it we would have been toast. When you're going through the Mojave Desert, you don't have too many options.

The rest of the drive for the day was relatively painless, and we arrived in Carlsbad, CA at just about 3 PM. Since then, we've just been hanging around, got some food, and finally shaved after not having so since Wednesday.

I'm going to try to post some pics of the sites we've seen so far, so check back for more on that. Tomorrow is San Diego and seeing the girlfriend for the first time in over two months. Needless to say, I can't wait.

PHEW...Well, I doubt many have even read down this far, and if you have, kudos. I can hear my dad sleeping in the other room and the couch is looking pretty inviting right about now. I may be in Cali now, but there is still plenty of adventures to come, not to mention the return trip to New York!

Lots more to come!