We left San Francisco Thursday night and drove south towards LA, staying in some random hotel that night. Cheap hotels are the best. Will there be hard water? Probably. Do all the lights work? Kind of. Let’s take that top cover off the bed, ok? Is that old guy at the ice machine making eyes at me? 2 star hotels are a part of traveling I’ve come to find oddly comforting. Those just-passing-through joints with the shady characters. Right on.
The next day we drove East towards Vegas and stopped along the way at some old abandoned houses and other stuff people had randomly left in the desert. Then we went through a stretch of desolation in the Mojave desert until what seemed like a mirage on the horizon came forth. Big buildings, bright lights, Vegas. We met up with Wes and the others at Caesar’s Palace and he showed us around the crazy big suite the sixteen of us would be living in for the weekend. It was a good time. I won’t dive into too many details of our raucousness, but there was dancing, drinking, hanging out at the pool, drinking, hanging out at the bar, eating, drinking, laughing, and drinking.
One memory I won’t forget was on the last night when the birthday boy Wes passed out early with his shades on and we all tried to Weekend at Bernie’s him downstairs for his birthday dinner. I haven’t laughed like that in a while. Also when a member of our party got lost, was found in a gutter, and wheel chaired back to the hotel.
I thought I was going to hate Vegas. Kind of like those frat parties I’d get dragged to by girlfriends in college that I’d hate my life at. It was always the same routine- stand in a corner with a pabst I had brought in my purse while quietly surveying the room like a mars rover looking for any signs of intelligent life. Nope, nothing here. But here’s the thing, I actually liked Vegas. Mostly because of the people I was with. You can go just about anywhere with friends and good people and have a great time. You don’t go to Vegas to have good conversations, but I kept finding myself immersed in them with some pretty rad people and it was nice.
On the last night I remember laying on the floor buzzed in the middle of the suite at 4am watching basketball highlights and laughing with some new friends I made. And it was happy. And that’s all you can ask for really, isn’t it?