Family Breakfast/Sin City

Day #6 Miles: 424

Day #6 States: 2 (Arizona, Nevada)

Mileage Total: 2553

The fun part about this tail end of my trip is that I get to stay with people that I know. Staying alone in hotels is kind of awkward and stressful. The environment is so bland, so dull, so lifeless. There’s not a touch of me to anything there, so feeling comfortable doesn’t come easily. But following my delightful evening of surprising the crap out of my brother, I finally had the option of sleeping at a home. And not just anyone’s home, but my brother and Wesley’s home. And let me tell you, their couch is comfy. I slept like a rock. 

We rose in the morning, got dressed, repacked the car, and did as Jewish families typically do: we went to go eat. Eating’s a big thing in Jewish culture, if you hadn’t noticed. It’s a major way in which we express our affection for one another, by giving one another the things needed to be comfortable and satisfied. If you enter a Jewish house, we show respect and caring towards our guests by feeding them. And since my parents are in Ithaca, my brother is in Arizona, and I’m headed out towards San Jose, we won’t get the opportunity to eat together for a while. 

 The Gold Goat

As a crew, we headed towards the less-respectable ‘hood in Tucson for a place called Mariscos Chihuahua for some Mexican-style seafood. 

The interior was the most tacky thing I’d ever seen. It’s a seafood restaurant decorated like under-the-sea, including stucco waves painted shades of frothy blue, and plastic fish adhered to the walls. Somewhere between a theme-park and an aquarium gone horribly awry. 

Things ordered included oysters, fresh ceviche (made with chunks of shrimp, tomato, onion, fresh cilantro, and topped with avocado), and one of their entrees, Camarones Rancheros. 

I knew that ‘camarones’ meant shrimp, but I didn’t quite know what ‘rancheros’ meant. Turns out, it referred to the shrimp being boiled in a slightly-spicy tomato broth with green peppers and onions. Tasty, but nothing too inspiring. It was served alongside some iceberg, some deeply depressing French fries, and some rice that was cooked rather unusually. It tasted like it was cooked like a really traditional Thai coconut-sticky rice, but instead of using coconut as a boiling liquid, it tasted like they used chicken broth. It was tasty. And corn tortillas on the side, which provided some pretty delightful shrimp tacos.

Tucson, Arizona isn’t really for those that can’t get down and dirty with their Mexican food. Their kind of ‘down home dirty’ local specialty is the Sonoran Hot Dog, which is a hot dog wrapped in bacon and topped with beans, grilled onion, fresh onion, tomato, mayo, mustard, and salsa, and I’ve had a few bites, and it is pretty delicious stuff. It’s referential to the Cleveland style polish boy that we love so much. A chunk of meat done up in a way that’s pleasing to the public. That’s usually what local specialties are about. It’s food that isn’t fancy, it isn’t anything you’d want to eat on a date… or usually wearing anything outside of jeans/sweats. But these dishes refer to food traditions that influence the soul of a city, and for this, getting the opportunity to taste so many local specialties has let me take in the soul of a few very special cities. I’m getting to know America, the real America, one bite at a time.

But all fun meals must come to an end, and after a slightly silly family photo shoot outside the restaurant, I had to hit the road to my end location for the day: Las Vegas, Nevada.

Once again, it was another long day of boring dessert driving that got more and more mountainous the further north I ventured. I’ll spare you the details, it’s nothing interesting. 

This Saguaro cactus looked like it was flicking off the world.

I took a quick coffee break in Phoenix, which, as a city, on the outside seemed pretty lovely and immaculately groomed. 

I took a second fuel break in some tiny BFE town in north Arizona, and I decided to take a quick walk and check out the antique shack next door.

 I thought it looked like the absolute perfect place to find the taxidermied armadillo that I’m so desperate to decorate my house with, but I found something inside that I liked just fine. The woman that owned the shop was there, along with her husband. They’ve lived in the town for ages and made a great living selling western-wear and antiques to tourists making the drive from Flagstaff to Phoenix. I was obviously no different. After looking around this place for a while (turned out to be more upscale than anticipated), I noticed a piece on the wall that I really thought was neat: it was a sign that said ‘Welcome’ in cursive, bent out of very old, rusted barbed wire. The husband noticed that I was admiring it and said it was about $40. I said that I liked it, that the concept was cool and I loved the look, but I didn’t quite like the word ‘welcome’ and I didn’t want to pay more than $20. He nodded and told me to follow. He took me to a far workroom in the corner of the store and pulled out a big spool of this same rusty, old barbed wire and he pulled out a pair of working gloves. He smiled and asked what word I would want. I thought about it for a second and decided on the word, “yahoo”. He looked at me like I was bonkers. But I wanted something road-trippy, and the word “Yahoo” reminds me of my dad, and how when I was little, every time I was in the car with him and he would speed over a bump (er… sorry Mom, I mean… safely navigate the roads…), he would get excited and shout “Yahoo!”. And because this was my big road adventure, the would “yahoo” would be quite fitting. 

And then he began molding and bending and curving that old barbed wire into the word ‘Yahoo’, and while he did it, he told me about where the barbed wire came from: apparently, years and years ago, there was an old correctional facility some 30 miles or so out of town that wasn’t getting enough inmates. So as the budget fell into crisis, the place fell into disrepair, and some of the building blocks of the facility were sold for parts, and he came across this barbed wire after no one had bought it and it was going to the trash. I like having things with stories, as mentioned before, hotel rooms are difficult in their blandness, and knowing the history of an object is the deepest means of familiarity. So now, I have this. 

I made it into Las Vegas safely, and got a little bit lost trying to find the building that my friends live in, but it turns out it’s right next to the major Vegas strip, and it’s right behind my favorite casino and hotel. Being in the company of people I have known for so long is comforting, and Allison and Dave are pretty much the best people you could know in Vegas. They’re local, so they know the area, they work here, so they’re well-connected, and they’re collectively the smartest couple I’ve ever met, with collectively the worst case of ADHD. So to top it off, they’ve got loads of energy. It was a really great place to spend a night.

So after a quick tour of the apartment and a quick lesson on how I’m expected to dress if we’re going out (things that are short, things that are tight, things that are low-cut, and high high heels… which, as the evening progressed, I noticed that some women pulled this off a lot better than others), we went out. Dinner was at Lemongrass, a Thai place in the Aria Hotel and Casino, and because Dave’s a high-roller, dinner was comped. After, we settled on drinks, which took place at the Bellagio’s Baccarat Bar, which had some pretty delicious cocktails. Then was a quick stop at Gold Lounge, which was a fairly crowded Vegas club before heading home and calling it a night. 

 The Chinese New Year garden display at the Bellagio was stunning!

 The Dale Chihuly in the entry of the Bellagio

 

 Vegas, the one place where no one bats an eyelash at a guy wearing a snakeskin blazer.

 This might have been one of the best cocktails I've ever had...Knob Creek, fresh white peach puree, lime, house ginger syrup. Fantastic.

 

Also delicious... with the added bonus of a cinnamon-sugar rum. 

 

I got to sleep around 6am Ohio time, and I was zonked. I need to start thinking in terms of California time and adjusting to the fact that all of my friends are three hours ahead of me. I was slightly drunk and texting a friend in Ohio that was just waking up. Weird shit. I can’t deal. Luckily, I have this trio to help me out!