2. Pregame

Jul 16, 2009 Uncategorized

With 9 weeks of vacation I couldn’t just shoot the whole load on one trip, so there were a few mini-vacations lined up before the actual bike trip.

The 4th of July was spent in beautiful Chelan, Washington – The heart of Washington’s wine country.  I had a wonderful stay that involved friends, water, wine, beer, and the sun.  We had a fantastic time over the weekend playing on the water.  We had a couple boats and a wave runner and tons of fun.  I walked away from the event with a sunburn that pretty much covered my entire upper body and the desire to return again for it next summer.  I also managed to avoid a bar fight twice with a rather dim individual.  Despite his size, there didn’t appear to be much going on inside his head.  I have to thank my friend Justin for doing his best to cool down the situation.

Las Vegas

The fun didn’t stop in Chelan.  We left Chelan on Sunday night and drove until we reached Las Vegas on Monday afternoon.  Two other friends from the 4th of July trip joined me for two nights in Las Vegas: Peter and Justin. We were supposedly there as a farewell for Peter who is moving to Ecuador for a year, but any reason is worth going to Vegas.  As usual Las Vegas was a city that provided many ups and down; however the downs always seemed to follow the ups.

My buddy Pete had a fantastic idea to go cougar hunting while in Vegas.  The idea here is not to hunt cats, but instead try to catch the eye of an older woman.  We’re only 23, but the goal was to meet women in their 30s and 40s.  It was a lofty plan, but this was probably the best city to try it in.

Here’s where the problems started.  For a mere $35 you can buy a jug of frozen liquored deliciousness.  I’ve since come to learn that alcohol and gambling is a dangerous cocktail.  Things were going well until I lost most of my money for the night playing blackjack.  There was a high note to my first night in Vegas though, I met a girl named Karen.  This wasn’t just any Karen though, this Karen was a cougar!

Despite how much I may or may not have drank, I still found a way to dazzle this Karen.  She mentioned she was going skydiving in the morning.  I told her I had always wanted to skydive.  She invited me to join her in the morning, and we exchanged numbers.  We went our separate ways, and my friends and I all miraculously found our way back to our rooms. 

I awoke in my bed recalling the events from the previous night.  As a veteran of the game, the first thing I checked was my phone.  2 Missed Calls and 2 new Voicemails.  Surprised to see this, I figured it was just my dad or a friend.  But no no no, it was a unknown number.  The first voicemail was Karen at 6am reminding me about skydiving (I think it was like 10 am when I woke up, so I missed the chance to fight the skies).  The second voicemail was also from Karen.  This one wasn’t quite as brief as the first one.  She was actually singing a song to me about skydiving.  Well shit, 2 call backs and sing-songy voicemail makes me think Karen was actually into me.  I called her back, left a voicemail, and proceeded on with my day.

After everyone doing their morning rituals we started the day at the Flamingo’s Go-Go pool.  That classy name is the cover for the $10 topless pool.  We were childish and immature enough to pay that spot a visit.  What a let down.  The only topless people there were in their 50s.  It was a lot less crowded though, so that was nice, and the beers were only $3 (which is a steal compared to typical Vegas prices).  We spent part of the day there, and I managed to make my sunburn from Chelan even worse.

That night Pete and I were once again on the prowl.  We were actually heading back to the room to meet up with some friends when a guy on the street offered us a free game of beer pong.  That was an offer too good to pass up, so we waltzed right in to the establishment.  The bar was relatively dead, but we were paired up with a brother and sister team from Texas.  They were in town for a teaching conference.

The brother and sister were pretty cool, so we played a few games with them.  My memory isn’t quite accurate to how we managed to meet these girls, but I believe the brother just walked up and started talking to them.  It’s crazy how such a simple concept worked so well.  Whatever he did was a tremendous success because suddenly Pete and I were knee deep in hot chicks at the bar.  We talked to them and played beer pong with them too.  It turned out we stumbled upon a goldmine…

Two of the chicks were sisters, one was a friend, and one was the mother of the two sisters.  Since they were with the mother, she was the key.  If we could have fun with the mom, then there shouldn’t be a problem befriending the daughters/friends.  I spoke to the mom for a bit and suggested dancing on the bar with her.  She didn’t rule the idea out, but she didn’t ask for a boost up either.  She wanted some time to think about it.  Anything other than no meant yes, so that let us know that the mother was pretty cool.

The two daughters I previously mentioned were actually twins - identical twins. Hot identical twins!  So here I am playing beer pong with my buddy Pete. We’re each teamed up with the twin that we thought was hotter too (they had different hair styles).  It really couldn’t get much better than this.  We even had bottle service which was a steal for $30 a bottle.  The girls liked the rum we had and did a round of shots with us and with their mother too! 

Things were really going well.  The only real problem here was the time.  It was only like 7 or 8 at night.  Our drinking was on a pace more suited for midnight.  The only flaw of that bar was they didn’t have a bathroom.  So I exited to take a piss and came back to a bar with everyone gone.  WTF?!? I rushed out front to find Pete, the twins, and the brother from earlier in the day playing beer pong.  Whew, all was relatively well.  Then this asshole Pete decides to leave.  Neither of us know why he left, but Pete had consumed his fair share of alcohol up until that point.  So now I was left with a tough choice – The twins or Pete.  Looking back on it I keep choosing the twins.  Tragically for my sex life, I chose Pete.  I spent the rest of the night trying to track him down.  He toyed with me over the phone, and I swore I would kick his ass as soon as I found him. 

Fortunately for everyone, Pete and I never saw each other again that night.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one looking for him that night because he said he had a run-in with the valet that lead to the cops or security looking for him while he snuck through a parking structure.  Oh well.  I struck out in Vegas going 0/2.  We overslept and packed all of our bags while in the check out grace period.  Pete and others were heading to Arizona later in the day, but I had to fly back to Washington.  We all lost money to that city, but I only lost what I brought to lose.  Then, as I was walking to the car to head for the airport my phone rang.  Unknown number, huh?  Oh yay, it was Karen.  We had some lovely small talk about skydiving for about a minute.  Then she transitioned into what my plans for the day were.  I told her I was heading to the airport and see said Seeyalater.  0/3 Fuck you, Las Vegas.  My wounds didn’t need your salt.

 

Alaska

After getting to Washington I had 1 day to move out of my house and put my stuff in storage.  I accomplished that and spent a very relaxing week visiting friends and family in Alaska. 

July 16th

Today I’m flying back to Washington to start the bike trip.  Now the madness can really begin

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