Las
Vegas,
NV
April 4-8, 2002 |
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04/04/02
Thursday
Los Angeles, CA...drowning in smog...our first sites of the west
coast...lovely...thank God we stayed two hours away, in the crisp clean
air of Palm Desert, CA...we rented a bright yellow Ford Mustang for the
long weekend...
Please note that
these pics are NOT in chronological order; I just put them in the order
that they would look best ;) |
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The
lovely Melissa, after we arrived at our resort, calling Italian
restaurants in the area, trying to get some food in our stomachs after
the long journey...the airline food just wasn't cutting it...but to our
dismay, all of the restaurants in the area closed at 10 pm...only
friggin Pizza Hut was open...and a few select liquor stores (thank
God)... |
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10/13/02
Sunday
Melissa, posing
outside of our villa door, looking like Vanna White after turning around
the letter "L" in a puzzle, all ready to go to the pool...
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Here's
a shot from our balcony of the golf course that our resort
surrounded...this was hole number 8 I believe... |
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Another
shot from the balcony of the grounds...I honestly did not see anyone
playing golf the whole time we were there... |
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One
more pic of the grounds, then I have to go to the pool... |
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Lis,
who didn't want to wait around anymore for my photography session, on
her way to the pool with Bloody Mary drink and bottle in hand...these
last few pics were actually taken on our LAST day there, Sunday (pay
attention to the yellow captions, which are the dates that particular
picture was taken)... |
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10/10/02
Thursday
Ahh, here we are at
the Palmeras Pool, the main pool at the resort, complete with pool bar,
restaurant, three pools and a hot tub...oh, and a perty fountain in the
front...
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10/13/02
Sunday
The deserted 9 am pool
scene...if this was Vegas, the pool would be surrounded by scores of
drunken/hung over hotties...we shoulda went to Vegas...
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The
lap pool...which coincidentally is located right next to the pool
bar...if you look all the way in the back, to the right of the pool bar
cabana, you can see Melissa trying to find somewhere to sit amongst the
throngs of people... |
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10/10/02
Thursday
Hmmm...this idea of putting
the pictures together this way isn't quite coming together the way I
envisioned it...
Anyhows, here's
Lissa with her Bloody Mary purchased at the pool bar for $6.80 a
drink...the friggin bartender literally PACKED the cup with ice, didn't
shake the damn Bloody Mary mix (continued)... |
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and
put a dirty piece of celery in my friggin drink! I wanted to stick that
celery up that guy's ass (not in a gay way, although there's nothing
wrong with being gay...I should shut up now...I'm starting to sound
gay...) after that...
That night we
went to the store and got some Bloody Mary mix to make our own for the
rest of the weekend... |
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10/13/02
Sunday
Whoa, hey there stud boy! Posing in front of the hot tub waterfall... |
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Nice...another
waterfall pose... |
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Chillin'
in da' hot tub... |
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I
call this one, "A Palm Tree in the Clouds"...lol |
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Boy
Lis, you look like you had four martinis Saturday night... |
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10/10/02
Thursday
We went to check out some of
the area's casinos, all of which are owned by Indians...but as you can
no doubt tell by the name of this casino (Trump 29 Casino), the Don has
a considerable stake in this "Indian Owned" operation...we
made an $80 donation to the plight of the American Indians here...
For those
BlackJack players in the audience, they offer Single and Double deck
here, although I learned of this after we played at the 6 deck shoe
table...oh well, get 'em next time... |
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10/11/02
Friday
Friday we finally made use of
a Balloon Flight certificate my dear old dad got us as a Christmas
present two years ago; it was set to expire on November 1, 2002...so we
were cutting it close as usual...
The shuttle
picked us up at 5:50 am...TOO early for us but we were able to make
it... |
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Here's
the crew getting our balloon ready, "inflating" it with a
couple of fans... |
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Still
setting it up...that's the basket we'll be riding in on the left with
the pilot and one other couple... |
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NOW
we're getting somewhere...after getting the balloon spread out and a
little puffed up they filled it with hot air from a big-ass propane
burner... |
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Almost
there... |
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In
the basket, starting our ascent...when we first climbed in the basket,
the damn thing was tipping over and starting to drag a bit...we had to
hold on or bust our ass in the sand...I don't think they had it filled
enough when they told us to get in but what do I know about balloons...? |
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First
pic from up in the air... |
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Second
pic... |
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Third pic...
Melissa, with her
stylish hat on...the girl we confirmed over the phone with the night
before told us, "It would be helpful if you wore a
hat..."...Lis apparently thought it was for picture taking purposes
and didn't ask why it would be helpful... |
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I
found out quickly why it would be helpful...as you can tell by the
reflection of the burner's flame on my head...don't think I'll ever be
able to grow hair again...and it's not cause I'm already bald... |
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Another
shot of the same area above, a little higher and closer... |
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The
sunrise over some lake in the distance... |
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The
competition's balloon...their balloon had like 10 people in it...no
thanks... |
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The
sun rising over the mountains... |
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Reflection
of the sunrise on some mountains... |
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Check
this out...this is a little community built on a man made
"lake" (more of a pond if you ask me and the pilot), and the
funny thing is that the people who live on this "lake" have
boats! Where the hell are they going in a boat? You could walk from one
end of the lake to the other faster...rich people: who understands them?
hilarious... |
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A
picture of the lovely couple... |
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A
view of the mountains... |
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Crop
circles?!?! These look like the "aliens-in-training" brand of
circles...hey, that kinda looks like Tom Selleck... |
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The
balloon crew below, in those two vehicles, chasing the balloon
around...apparently, the way ballooning works is: you go up and you come
down...where ever! All the pilot was doing was looking for an empty
field to set down and the crew chases the balloon around and tries to
figure out where the heck he's gonna land...which is where ever there
isn't a house! |
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A
self-portrait of the lovely couple...just in case the one the other
couple took for us was crappy...Lis, with the teeth-clenching cheesy
smile...again! |
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Ewww...nothing
more unattractive than a flaccid balloon... |
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10/12/02
Saturday
Windmills: the supplementary
power source of choice for the desert valley community...there were
literally hundreds of these thing spinning and spinning and spinning and
spinning...sorry, we only took one picture of them... |
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As
the sign says, "Joshua Tree National Park", part of the Mojave
Desert...it took us about 2 hours to get here due to our resort having
outdated maps that were not to scale, even though the place is about 45
mins away... |
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This
is a Joshua tree...whoop-dee-friggin'-doo...I think the big deal behind
Joshua trees is that they are the only tree that grows in this
climate/altitude...yay... |
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Lis
insisted that I take a picture of this bush...even though I told her it
wouldn't quite come out right on screen...I think the name of this bush
is Ocotillo... |
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A
rock formation I found interesting and picturesque...more Windows
wallpaper material... |
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These
are Mohave Yucca trees/plants...nice pic, right...? |
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...and
this is the Ford mustang...not quite a desert denizen but it got us
through the park... |
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Ok...back
to the wildlife...the "Tree of Woe", or so I named it... |
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Hiding
behind the bushes...I was actually looking for some sidewinders up in
the rocks...turned a lot of rocks over too, but nothing... |
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...and
then we ran into this guy! He was just trotting along the
road...apparently he knows people in cars have food with them cause he
came right up to the car...and I did not feed him at all...but SOMEONE
else gave him three Cheez-Its...I'm not gonna say "who", just in case some Park
Rangers see this site... |
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This
mound of rock was probably just a pile of dinosaur doodie...makes for a
good picture though...I'm even using this one as desktop wallpaper... |
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Here's
another attempt at artistic expression...this flower was the only one we
saw in the desert, so I had to take a pic of it, even though it was a
banged up flower...personally, I prefer the palm tree pic... |
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After
our trip to the park, on the way back, we stopped at Agua
Caliente, another casino, where I was able to win $600 playin'
BlackJack... Later
that night, we went to Costa's, a club in the resort we were staying at,
which was actually pretty good...top 40's music with the censored
versions of the more hardcore tunes and expensive...some REALLY good
looking women there, we're talkin' model types...and, of course, there
were some scary ones... We
went to Bananaz for lunch on Thursday...the food was ok, but the place
was empty...we asked the bartender where to go on what night and he told
us Bananaz was good Thursday, Friday and Saturday...BUT, we drove by on Thursday
night, around 11:00 pm and the place looked like a morgue, so apparently
the guys bullshitted us and we didn't even bother going back to check
the scene out Friday or Saturday...wound up going to The Yard House, a
place where they had like 100 beers on tap...the place was a little more
happening than anywhere else we went that night...they closed at like
12:20 so we wound up going back to the room early...we had our balloon
trip the next night anyhows...
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