We left Portland on the 4th at around 9 PM. Way late, of course. I drove the entire 650 mile stretch by myself, from sunset to sunrise for 11 hours. This marathon drive was brought to me in part by Adderall and the fabulously productive time vortex it comes equipped with.
Finally made it to Mike and Lindsey's place in San Francisco just as Lindsey was leaving for work and Mike was leaving for tour. Had every intention of going out for Cinco de Mayo but we were exhausted. We did at least make it out to Lindsey's sailboat for a drink.
Left in the morning for Huntington Beach and 8 hours later met up with Get Dead and Compton SF at Jen and Deans. Alison took off with the car to go visit her family in Riverside. I walked to the beach and bought some liquor. Finally met up with Joe down the street, then managed to puke in the middle of the road as we all walked to the show later. (Hey, after 6 weeks of sobriety I did NOT expect a graceful transition back to the land of drinking.) Lost the most valuable item in my purse at the bar without realizing it and had it gloriously returned by a stranger after I had already left. Drunk stagger back to the house, couple hours of sleep, then off to Vegas for Punk Rock Bowling 2010.
Everyone managed to leave on time in the morning except us, which was the last thing I expected. Alison arrived back from Riverside shortly after everybody else had departed, so we got some Mexican food for the road and then duly hauled ass to Nevada. Four hours later we swooped up Jon up at the Vegas airport, drove to and then checked into the hotel just long enough to turn around and drive back to the airport to pick up Andrew and Dylan. Before returning to the hotel we swung by the store to pick up 2 cases of beer to go with the 2 bottles of Jameson which were already in the car. Incidentally- all of these items were gone by Saturday morning, except the whiskey I stuck in my own bottle and forgot about, but was delighted to discover later.
Sunset Station is technically in Henderson and not off the strip in Vegas- and as one facility, contains a hotel, casino, pool, bowling alley, amphitheater, a million bars and restaurants, and a million places to get into trouble. The good news is that because it was off the strip, everybody was in the same general location. The bad news is that because it was so huge, we could never keep tabs on anybody so it didn't matter anyway. Even text messages were getting sucked into limbo where they'd arrive hours later and became mostly useless for finding people. Most of our group didn't get their Sunset Station reservations made in time before they sold out, so everybody was a little bit scattered around different smaller hotels next door, which totally amplified our difficulty in finding anybody at any given time.
When we first arrived, there was a HUGE line of people, wrapped all the way down the sidewalk and around the building. It was the Will Call line for everybody to pick up their show tickets for the weekend. Alison managed to jump the entire line of like 200 people in the sweltering heat and score ours in less than 2 minutes. Amazing.
Later on that night, Alison was so smashed we decided it would be a good idea to write our hotel name and room number on her arm in sharpie, to assure she'd make it back. I think she had the best time, and how the hell she didn't get into any serious trouble is beyond me, but totally rad. We lost her for a while in the casino and when Andrew saved the day and found her, I just held onto her fanny pack like a leash as we walked around. I think the highlight was her laying on the casino floor singing "I can't be faded! I'm a honkey from the motherfuckin SUBURBS!" I've got video of this stuff but I don't know that she'll allow me to put it on the Internet.
Joe and I discovered the beer supply for the ENTIRE CASINO & HOTEL at the end of an unmarked and unguarded stairwell near our door. Open refrigerators the size of dumpsters, lined down the hallway, filled to capacity. No shit. For real. I wish I could get the security footage for me quickly loading my purse up with Miller Lite only to stop, realize there was Guiness, unload my purse and re-stock it with the other cans. For the next three days I had an endless beer supply as I walked around. It was glorious.
Get Dead played at Hooters inside the hotel, and between the show and the other hours spent running around in various stages of drunk, I woke up Saturday morning in a lot of back pain. Alison scored a wheel chair and Joe cruised me around the casino, then to a restaurant where we got breakfast. We won a steak and a pie, then ditched the wheel chair and went to the pool. For reasons unknown and unacceptable, the pool was closed at 3 PM every day. So while I had been dreaming of laying by the pool all weekend, I actually only clocked like 2 hours.
The hotel rooms didn't include refrigerators BUT Lindsey gave me the hot tip a few days prior that if you called the hotel and told them you had medication that required refrigeration, they'd bring you one. So we had a fridge full of beer for 3 days. Yesssssss.
On that note, Joe and I decided it would be a good idea to drive to the store to re-stock the beer supply in our room since the ones I was swiping from storage weren't totally fulfilling our inventory needs. I still had a pina colada in my hand so he said he'd drive. I put the keys into the ignition from the passenger seat after I'd set down my drink and closed the door, but they fell out of the ignition and then disappeared. We tore the car apart trying to find them. All the doors open, the floor mats pulled up, sticking our heads under the seat, getting heat stroke in the parking lot and being totally baffled by their apparent disappearance into thin air. Eventually I reached back in the car to grab my drink, and as I went to set it back on the roof I noticed that there was something in the bottom of the cup.
It was the keys. Best thing I've ever had in a drink, right there.
Despite the money and bullshit we all put into acquiring amphitheater tickets for all three days, we didn't really make it a point to be anywhere at any particular time, with the exception of seeing Against Me! and The Dickies and a couple other bands play. There was all kinds of security lined up for the show and they were searching people and being dicks to everyone on the way in. We noticed that the re-entry line was moving faster and nobody was being hassled, and I was then further delighted to see that all we needed for re-entry was our ticket stub and a sharpie mark on our hand. So we just skipped the bullshit hassle line and breezed through the other way with a bag full of beer. This whole weekend was really just one example after another of lax security.
Saturday night was THE show we were stoked about- at the Double Down, not too far away from the hotel. But we got smashed during the day, passed out at 10 PM and COMPLETELY missed the entire thing. I'm still really bummed out that we all simultaneously managed to blow that one. Really. Like, if you're in Vegas for the weekend to party, the one time period of all that you should NOT sleep through and miss is generally between like, 10 PM and 3 AM on Saturday. Go figure.
Sunday was Mother's Day and all the girls got free champagne all over the casino. Then I just started buying the bottles of champagne and carrying them in my purse. Therefore I don't remember much other than meeting up with a bunch of people for lunch, running into Naomi outside, stumbling across Stacey and watching her bowl a champagne bottle between slot machines, and then getting lost in the casino by myself later when I was hammered and announced to my friends that I was going to bed. I made it as far as the bathroom to puke, then ran into Mike and Lindsey and made my way back to the central bar 45 minutes later. I don't remember going to bed.
I was supposed to take Alison to the airport at 5 AM that morning. I anticipated the possibility that I wouldn't be able to make it though, so I managed to find another person who was flying out the same time as her and coordinated the sharing of a cab ride. Thank god.
Joe and I packed up for a late check-out. Had lunch. Then as we were walking out of the casino, this chick and her boyfriend who were sitting with all their luggage at a slot machine stopped us. "Are you guys driving or flying?" I was going to blow her off because I assumed what was about to follow was a request for transportation, but when I said "Driving" I was rewarded with THREE BOTTLES OF ALCOHOL, for free. They were like "We can't fly with these and we can't drink them and we don't want to throw them out, so you should take them." One full bottle of whiskey, a mostly-full bottle of vodka and another half-full bottle of tequilla. So after not winning ANY money during our 3 day stay, we scored this delicious treat as we walked out the door.
From there we cruised back to the pool to lay in the sunbeams for a while before hitting the road. Had 1.5 drinks. Joe is rad and drove pretty much the whole way back to Huntington and I got to sleep in the car which is a totally foreign concept to me on road trips. I'm always driving. Dropped him off in HB, then another hour and a half drive down to San Diego, to my aunt Stacy's house.
I suppose it's kind of good that I don't remember everything about this weekend, because that means I had fun.
Now, to Albuquerque this weekend.
