Road Trip!

So my sister is going to California for a summer internship, and some of her friends and I are accompanying her for the trip from Texas to San Francisco.

Road Trip!

Here’s the plan:

Day 1:

Austin, TX to Carlsbad Caverns in NM (475mi)

Day 2:

White Sands in NM to Las Vegas, NV (700mi)

Day 3:

Play in Las Vegas, NV

Day 4:

Vegas to San Francisco, CA (570mi)

Day 5:

Play in San Francisco

Day 6:

(everybody except my sister) fly back to TX

In the above pic you can see our mascot: Black Belt Domo-kun.

Black Belt Domo-kun

Sharp-eyed readers will note that some of the pictures (like above) look decidedly better than others. That’s because I stole used some pictures that my photography-buff friend took.

Driving is kinda… boring. There’s not really much to say about it other than bugs really like to hurl themselves upon the windshield.

When we got to Carlsbad Caverns on the 1st day, they seemed to be resurfacing all the roads. Which means they had in place a stop and go system because only one lane was open.

Domo-kun glaring at Stop Sign Guy

Actually getting to the caverns took a while.

Carlsbad Caverns

We went to Carlsbad because it’s a huge underground complex of caves and tunnels. It’s kinda like that obligatory huge-ass underground dungeon in RPGs except the monsters are replaced with tourists, the scenery has more than 5 textures, and you get to explore it IRL.

In short, it’s actually pretty cool.

Descending into Carlsbad Caverns

There’s two ways down: you can take the elevators 750ft down to the bottom, or you can be like us and walk your way from the top down. As the signs say a few times, the walk is fairly strenuous.

Hiking Warning

Well, it’s actually just kinda long, slippery, and steep, so it’s not too bad. But I could see how it might be pretty tough for those with weaker knees.

There’s a whole lot of rock formations and stalagmites and stalactites and the like in the caverns. Unfortunately, I don’t really have any pictures that do them justice. Instead, here’s a shot of a gift shop that’s 750ft underground.

Deep Underground Gift Shop

We hit up the White Sands National Park the next morning. As the name implies, there are dunes and dunes of pure-white sand.

White Sands

Kinda like snow except all the coldness and wetness is replaced with heat. Still gets in your shoes all the same though.

We climbed up one of the dunes with the intent of sliding down it on a piece of cardboard. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out too well since the cardboard was too flimsy. We probably should’ve tried renting a sled from the visitor center… but, hey. Instead we ended up rolling down the hill Princess Bride-style.

Up on a Dune

On our way to Vegas, we got stopped by a New Mexico border checkpoint.

NM Border Checkpoint

Apparently, I look suspicious or something since they kept asking if I was a US citizen (which I am, btw, like I said the other 3 times, officer). Not too happy about that.

After some serious driving, we finally got to Las Vegas just in time to catch Cirque du Soleli: Zumanity at the New York-New York Hotel.

Unfortunately, photos weren’t allowed so I didn’t get any pics of the show. It’s a whole lot different than other Cirque du Soleli shows, but, I really enjoyed how risque and off-the-wall the show was.

Spoiler: there’s lots of really long nipples.

Vegas at Night

We stayed 2 nights in Vegas, so we had another day and night to play around.

Vegas at Day

Personally, I spent a good portion of my day at a local Melty Blood tournament at a video game store called Game Over. Since Evo’s coming up, I wanted the chance to play with different people. (Also, I figured I could explore the Strip some more during Evo).

At the Melty Tournament

It was really fun meeting the Vegas Melty players. Also learned quite a bit about matchups, since they pretty much all used characters that I haven’t played against before.

At night, we went to a Flight of the Conchords show at the Planet Hollywood Hotel.

Flight of the Conchords Show

FoTC Drumset

Bret and Jermaine

As you can tell, they allowed photos at this show.

As much as I like their recorded stuff, they’re soo much funnier live. Lots of little (and not-so-little) variations in their songs, so even if you’re a fan and know all the songs by heart, the show will surprise you.

Some of my favorite parts were Bret randomly doing some Korean karaoke…

Bret Performs Korean Karaoke

…and the duo going off the stage and doing stuff like Jermaine teabagging the security guard and Bret stealing a camera and photographing crotches during “Sugalumps”.

Sugalumps

Sharp-eyed readers will note that we had really kick-ass seats. I think this show was fairly last-minute, as some seats were empty. We bought our tickets fairly last-minute as well, but we got a hold of some Golden Circle tickets right in front of the stage.

Besides the shows, at night we went to the various casinos to… well… gamble.

In classic Vegas-style, I made about $120 the first night and lost $100 the second night playing blackjack. Looking back, I’m not sure I’m too happy about blowing my beginner’s luck like that.

There’s this one casino that had pole dancers. That is all.

Pole Dancers

On my way back to the hotel, I saw this guy getting escorted by police officers with a camera guy and a mic guy following them. Oh snap, taping of Cops!

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha' Gonna Do?

The best part was all the people passing by going “Bad boys, Bad boys, whatcha’ gonna do? Whatcha’ gonna do when they come for you?”

Next day we drove the last leg of our road trip to get to San Francisco. Not much to say, except that there was another border check to get into Cali. Thankfully, this one was hassle-free since they only seemed to care about plants and the life.

San Francisco was surprisingly cold, especially near the bay.

Off San Francisco Bay

We unfortunately couldn’t really see the Golden Gate Bridge since it was so foggy.The park nearby was really nice and green though with all its trees and families running about all wholesome-like.

Park near the Golden Gate Bridge

Really though, we spent a good amount of our time in San Francisco eating, but that’s a topic for another time.

And with that, our road trip was over and most of us flew out the next day.