Viva Las Vegas

Ok so Robert came and we flew over to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is definitely the craziest city I've been to, and I loved and hated it. It was all so overwhelming – the casinos, the hotels, the noises, the lights, the money flow so extreme that you can practically see millions flying by. We were supposed to stay for three nights, but left after two. The first night we met Steinar, Håvard (people from elementary school) and Joar (their buddy), and hung out with them the whole time. We had a buffet meal a couple of times a day and spent a whole day hanging out by the pool. We went along with them after two nights for a short roadtrip through Death Valley and Yosemite and then back home.

Well, Death Valley was awesome – very dry, very big and very hot. We stayed the night in a tiny place called Bishop and the day after we drove on towards Yosemite. The roads were closed due to snow so we couldn’t get in to the park. After a while we realised that we might as well join the others and go to Berkeley for a couple of days, and so we did. I got to check out a lecture with professor John Searle (I’m a fan), and we also got to spend a day in San Francisco.

I think that’s that. Now we’re back to normal again, doing our daily nothings and just enjoying life as it should be. Only a month and a half left – I’m not ready to leave yet!

PICTURES!!

Buffet, The Strip & Death Valley

Texas

We left for Texas on a Friday, not really deliberately, we didn’t really know what day it was. So driving south past LA wasn’t really tons of fun. Traffic was bad, our pit-stops were dodgy and it was pretty hot. We didn’t make it out of California but stayed over at a Motel 6 in Indio, just outside Palm Springs (and just around the corner from Coachella). From there we continued on Interstate 10 (I-10) through Arizona (the Grand Canyon state), saw a lot of cool desert stuff, and over to New Mexico. We spent the night in Las Cruces, at a pretty expensive Best Western (all the motels were full), and the next day we drove all the way to Tor Erik’s grandma in Wimberly. Wimberly is a small town between San Antonio and Austin. A couple of hours before we got there we drove right into a storm. Thunder, lightning and a helluva lot of rain. It was pitch black and pretty scary. Not scary-scary, more like fun-scary. Apparently there was a tornado watch going on that night, and we might have driven under a tornado which didn’t touch down.

Anyway, we stayed in Wimberly for maybe 10 days or so. Some days we spent in Austin, at the SXSW. We saw these three concerts: Sissy Wish, Jefferson Starship and Public Enemy. Yes, that’s right. We also went in to San Antonio (cool city) and saw a Spurs-game. That was really awesome! We saw the Alamo and the Riverwalk and all that.

On our way back we planned on driving through New Mexico north to I-40, parts of it also known as Route 66. First we had to drive these dinky little highways from Carlsbad, where we spent the first night and checked out some caverns, to I-40 just east of Albuquerque and that’s where it all started. We got to Route 66 in one piece, no problemo at all. Before getting on the interstate we stopped at a gas station, stopped the engine and, as I was about to step out of the car, I noticed a puddle of brown liquid flowing out of the engine (it's supposed to be green, check out the picture). It was the coolant. It was leaking. The people at the gas station couldn’t help us, but told us to go 10 miles down the road to a mechanic. We did, but the mechanic couldn’t help. So, we had to stop in Albuquerque for one night to get our car fixed. Albuquerque was a cool city, we liked it there. From there we were going to drive up to Mesa Verde in Colorado, back south to Flagstaff for the night, then see the Grand Canyon, then finish the trip in Reno. Well, since we had the whole afternoon in Albuquerque we checked some weather conditions and found out that the roads to Mesa Verde were icy and that there was snow. So, we left after our car was fixed for Flagstaff, spent the night there (ate some lousy Italian) and drove up to the Grand Canyon the day after. On our way to the canyon it started to snow. We stopped a mile from the park entrance, at the visitor’s centre, and found out that the visibility was limited and more snow was expected. So, the canyon was out. We also found out that Reno was out of the question, since we would have to drive through the Tahoe mountains on our way back home. So, we figured that Las Vegas would be a good way to go. BUT! It was a Friday night, we didn’t have any reservations and all hotels were either full or waaaay too expensive. So, from Flagstaff we drove home, all bummed out. The last drive lasted for 14 hours. The longest stop was probably for 10 minutes, when we stopped for Subway’s we ate in the car, while driving. We arrived in Capitola around midnight, pretty damn pissed, and of course we brought the bad weather with us. Andrew, who didn’t come along, that fool, had had sunshine the whole time we were gone (exactly two weeks by the way), and now it started to rain. (the sun came out again pretty fast, of course)

Anyway, that was the trip. It was really amazing, even with the spell of bad luck we had on our way back. We saw a lot of cool stuff.

Mari’s here now, she arrived the day after we came back. On Saturday we drove south to Morro Bay to spend a night with Andrew’s aunt, uncle and cuz. We came back last night. Tomorrow we’re going to San Francisco to hang out. We’ll be back again on Thursday. Robert’s arriving on Friday. On Sunday Robert and I are leaving for three nights in Las Vegas. We’re staying at the Sahara. On Monday we’ll be enjoying an Elvis show and I can’t wait. The add says that I won’t believe my eyes and ears! What’s not to like? Anyway, after Robert leaves we’ll probably be taking a new road trip, this time to Oregon and Utah (maybe Canada? I’m not sure). So we’re pretty busy these days, or that is, we’re doing nothing all kinds of places!

Ok, too much already. Yeahyeahyeah. You never lose in Santa Cruz. It’s all good.