Las Vegas: Indio Outio

Day Two (08.24.09) As we hit the Vegas city limits I was both excited and stressed out. Half of the interstate seemed to be under construction and the traffic was fairly chaotic. I was still driving, and I have to say that even after being to Las Vegas twice before this, the experience of driving myself around was still nerve-racking. However, it also broadened my view of the place as I hoped it would.

Dave was actually shooting footage as we drove down the strip while I was busy trying to navigate our way to the entrance of Harrah's. I had both my HDV and mini cam with me on this trip, which is why throughout many of the videos you'll notice a transition between widescreen and a smaller fullscreen image - I emphasized the difference for effect and because the quality isn't nearly as high. You'll also notice that the footage for each location is often a mixture of what I captured both coming and going, the Indio sign on the dash is often a giveaway. Anyway . . .

There was nothing about Las Vegas that was really surprising after having fully explored it before, but that's not to say it wasn't awesome to be there again. That night we had some drinks, went to Beatles Love (purchasing the tickets was the first thing I did to confirm with Dave that we were actually going to Indio) and then had some more drinks as we tried our luck.

Our stop was brief, but memorable, and my night ended with me laying drunk in the bathtub of our room just to use the little TV in the bathroom.

To complete the stay we picked up a few souvenirs, and this was the moment that created a new running joke for the trip. Telling me about someone who he forgot to get a birthday gift for, Dave picked up a Chihuahua-sitting-in-a-birthday-cake ornament sculpture thing - it was pretty ridiculous, but a funny gag gift anyway. Well the gag gift had no price tag and actually ended up costing $20, which was fairly ridiculous when it looked like something from the dollar store. Dave still got it. For the rest of the trip if we happened to be looking at the things we had picked up we'd have to comment on that stupid dog.

"Do we have our map?", "Yup". "Do we have our money?", "Yup". "Do we have a Chihuahua dog with a party hat coming out a birthday cake sculpture that cost $20?" (groan) "Yup".

Before leaving the next day we explored the Forum Shops, toured our hotel once more, and walked around Caesar's and the Bellagio to get in a bit of last minute gambling. It was fun, it was quick, and then it was on to California.