I was determined to get out of town this weekend. I had even written on our calendar next to the front door: “Out of Town”. So, Adolfo made all this noise about taking me out for dinner, but I thought it would be better to get out of town Friday instead of Saturday…

I wanted to go camping. It’s still ficking HOT in this damn, god-forsaken city so I figured camping this late in the season was not such a bad idea. Mt Charleston is said to be 30 degrees cooler there than here at any given time.

I would a web site discussing camping locations and I picked the furthest one, which looked to be within 2 hours travel time:

Friday:

Packed car about 6pm. During this process almost every neighbor we ever met stopped us to talk. I think there was this plot to delay our trip…

On the road with nearly a full tank of gas, Adolfo inthe passenger seat, and Tom in the back of the truck. We still needed dinner so we were looking for a place on the way. So we decided to go to Sante Fe Station because they have a cheap buffet… right?

(Station Casinos have been advirtising special ‘locals’ rate for buffett and they are typically not bad)

Annnnnnnnyway, we go to Sante Fe Station and are met and come into contact with soooooo many rude people, ruching people, pushy people. Then, I discover there is no buffett. We go to another cafe in the casino and there is an hour wait to be seated. ergh! nothing decent can be found so we go to Quiznos … neither of us got what we ordered. They were too overwhelmed to complain and we just ate and left.

In the parking lot… I have a flat. I have oversized tires (I’m told) and I am looking at this truck like it was a space ship… changing a tire huh? It was sickeningly comedic watching me change a tire. It took nearly two hours. This was like something I never saw before. The replacement tire was normal sized and I saw very quickly we had to trop home and get the tire fixed in the morning.

So, from the north-east edge of the city I trotted home at no more than 35 miles per hour.

Saturday

Woke up and took the truck over to get the tire fixed. Cost me $113. and while it was being fixed we had breakfast with Kieth, sister Karen, and daughter/niece Shikara. This was a good thing.

We headed out immediately, delayed by neighbor chat again.

Drove two hours to themiddle of no where. Found the site and it was nothing like I expected. It was not technically a campground. It was a camp site at the base of the mountain and had a couple of great hiking trails. Took advantage of one.

The site said charcoal fires could not be used so we decided to venture on. This iste was off of nevada Highway 156. We connected to 158 and found a good campgound but it was closed. I was getting totally irritated.

We drove on and I saw a sign for a ranger station. So I turned onto 157 to go to it where I spoted another campground that was also closed, BUT there was a lot of people out there camping.

I had enough and we took a space and set up.

Now, we have a new tent we bought and never put together before. I felt like such a fag. I finally did get that tent up, but it was shaky.

I forgot plates and salt, so when I cooked dinner on the grill I was wondering how it would tast. I had a whole chicken, halved, and seasoned plus potatoes, and fresh french bread. I put the potatoes onthe charcoal grill, then the chicken and ti tasted SOOOOOOOOO good. It grilled perfectly!

However, the night up there was FREEEEEEEEZING. We cuddled all night long and I had some odd dream with Jennifer Anniston and Phoebe (from Friends)… we were lawyers and not much other detail… odd huh?

We frogot breakfast, so we drove into Vegas (less than an hour away) and raided Mccy D and Starbucks before returning to the site for another hike.

All in all, we had a good getaway. It was expensive… so much for the choices made. We were on the fence for visiting my mom v. going camping. We chose the caping ption to save money… uhm yeah.