The city of sin let us in! Although we don’t like gambling, we don’t go clubbing, I don’t drink and Jillian doesn’t like prostitutes. Las Vegas really isn’t our type of city, but we had to go see it. But before we end up there, let me tell you about some roadside art we found along our drive northeast towards Vegas.
Since 2000 a junk collector named Elmer, an old man with a long white beard, has been creating one of a kind lawn art. His front yard is covered with 10 foot tall bottle cacti. Welded to the top of these cacti are different pieces of junk he’s found and saved, including shotguns, typewriters, homemade pin wheels, car parts, bed frames, street signs and animal skulls. We got to talk with Elmer for a bit. When we showed up he was working on a piece. He complained that he hasn’t spent enough time out here working recently. People are bringing in junk and bottles faster then he can put it up. It was an awesome stop, well worth the 20 min detour.
Two days, two types of vegas.
We pulled into Vegas not really knowing what to do. That would be fine if you want to gamble or get shitfaced, just walk into any number of the flashy casinos. If you were looking to get laid then all you have to do is take a flyer from one of the hundreds of card flicking mexicans on the street corners and have a “girl to your room in 20 min.” But when you’re looking for good clean wholesome entertainment and you don’t have any shows booked or even a hotel room to set up shop in then your kinda fucked. You’re only option is to walk around aimlessly. So this is what we did for our first day. This was our poor homeless RV-er day. An uneventful day. We were pretty much living the life of the Vegas homeless, minus the begging. Parking was a pain in the ass since the van is over the parking garage height restriction. So we spent a good chunk of time navigating the confusing streets looking for parking. After we drove the strip we parked in the downtown area for a bite to eat at a place I’ve been dying to check out, Heart Attack Grill. It’s a restaurant themed around unhealthy food. If you’re over 350 pounds you eat for free. No joke. The burgers are massive, add bacon and get 5 slices. The french fries are fried in 100% lard. The milk shakes are made with butter fat cream and even garnished with a slice of butter. They sell all types of liquor and unfiltered cigarettes. It’s disgustingly amazing. When you enter the “nurses” (Waitresses, Vegas sluts in skimpy nurse costumes) make you wear a hospital gown. We both got only the single bypass burger with lard fries. They have burgers with 4 beef patties and 20 slices of bacon. I got a vanilla butter fat shake with my meal and Jillian got A 22 ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was super trashy and pretty tasty.
After that we walked the strip and dipped in and out of different casinos and watched people smoke and gamble. We saw the MGM lions. The sun went down and the strip lit up. Santa Anna was blasting really good and it made an already chilly night pretty brutal. So, we quickly hiked back to the Van, parked illegally in a lot in a sketchy part of town. Keeping in theme of the day we found a Walmart and slept for free. We didn’t spend a lot of money. The last purchase of the day was a redbox movie.
The following day went very differently. We woke up to some shitty weather. The winds from last night were still kicking and with them came rain. We slept in late, after getting some things taking care of we left our parking lot hotel for an upgrade, a penthouse suite at the Mirage. Yesterday we lived as poor travelers today we are ballers. Penthouse suite and Cirque du Soleil tickets. We got to the hotel early, its been a while since we showered so that was first on the list. After eating at the buffet of course. We pigged out bigtime. The buffet was a very classy one, if thats possible. I had my way with a lot of shrimp cocktail. After showers we laid around the crib in our mirage robes pretending to be fancy. The suite is intense, electric curtains, a 3 room bathroom, Big screen TV mounted at the foot of the bed, and a view of the strip. Jillian got sucked into a TV show about child killers. For some reason she loves to watch shows about rape and murder. Since we are ballers today we decided to get dressed in our finest clothes. All suited up we headed down to see Cirque du Soleil Love, the Beatles one. This is where I’ll end the story. I’ll just say we didn’t go to the show empty handed. We had a bit of cirque show enhancement. It was one of the most amazing thing we every seen, a musical dreamland. After the show the debauchery continued and we didn’t go to sleep till 6am. We’ll share the details amongst our close friends. It was very “Fear and Loathing.” An experience we’ll remember for ever.
I guess the old adage remains true “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
Sorry I’m fuckin up. I didn’t take any pictures of aside from our hotel room. I gotta get back to my roots.
Shitty Iphone pic of the Mirage and it’s Volcano
Hello December. By the end of the month our 4 month journey will be over and we’ll be looking for jobs. Its official, as of today we have a sublet waiting for us in San Francisco California. As the days on the road pile up we are getting more and more ready to start the next chapter. I can’t believe we hit the 15,000 mile mark!
-Ricky
Next Stop: Hoover Dam