According to Chris, the coffee at the Motel 6 we stayed at in Salt Lake City was far better than it should have been. The beds were shockingly un-long, though; I can’t remember the last time my feet hung off the end of a mattress. We were somewhat well-rested nevertheless, and ready for the obscenely spectacular drive to Vegas (excluding the part where you actually go through Salt Lake City).
Suffice it to say that the scenery on I-15 as it passes through Utah, Arizona and Nevada makes you feel like donning a wing-suit. Had we not already committed to a show that night in Vegas we would have most likely taken a detour to explore the canyons. We almost drove through Zion National Park, but Matt’s scheduling prudence (and desire to go someplace where we could ditch the van) kept us on track and in Sin City by 4pm.
After a quick drive down the Strip for the benefit of Matt and Chris (who had never been to Vegas before) we arrived at the home of Jim and Jan Seagrave, our most gracious hosts, for the evening. Jan showed us to our rooms (one for each of us!) and we prettied ourselves up for the show. She then proceeded to make us a fantastic multi-course dinner – truly above and beyond! Afterwards we wobbled to the van and attempted to not crash it on our way to the venue as we shook off the food coma.
Ah yes, the venue. It is called The Freakin’ Frog, and they have the most fantastic popcorn machine, ever. Ask the owner about it if you ever go there, which you should do because they have a great beer selection. And of course they book awesome bands. Like us. And Sofa City Sweetheart, who killed it (in the good way!) as our opening act, before lending us their lead guitarist and singer to play bass for our set. He did a stellar job, with exactly no rehearsal. A pro! Check out his stuff, it is really catchy.
Highlights of the show: attempting to engage the UNLV crowd by working their mascot (the ‘rebels’) into my witty stage banter – that one’s for you, Richard Simmons – and helping out a table of Scrabble players by letting them know “qi” is a legitimate game word. They used it! Lowlights: college kids who refused to buy a CD because they said they’d just steal it and a grumpy bar patron who refused a free glow-in-the-dark button by pushing it back at me and saying “I’m good, dude.” I must respectfully disagree with you, dude. You are not good. You have no button.
Again Chris proved his mastery of all games videographic by taking out Axis aircraft in a rousing game of 1942. But we had to pull him away, because it was my sworn duty to show off my mad Vegas tour-guiding skillz. Matt’s friend Julianne (another killer singer-songwriter) helped us drop off the van and then drove us to the Strip, where I dragged my compatriots to my favorite casinos, such as NYNY, the Bellagio and the Venetian. We officially love that you can walk down the Strip with a foot-long margarita in your hand. We officially do not love Carrot Top.
This morning gave way to a tour first: I was awake before anyone else. The endorphine rush didn’t last long, though, because it was too late to go to the breakfast buffet at the Orleans. So after another home-cooked meal from Jan (thank you! thank you! thank you!), we were on the road and headed for San Diego. We made a quick dinner stop at Mega Tom’s Char-Broiled Burgers in Barstow, where Matt ate his deep-fried fish like some sort of brown, breaded crab. That pretty much catches us up to right now as we hurl along the 15, our odometer clocking in at 2,500 miles driven and our souls appreciating in retrospect just how nice a lack of city lights and other cars can be. On the bright side, we don’t smell any cow farts.
Yarg!
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