Wednesday, December 20, 2006

"On The Road Again..."




Well, actually... just got back.
(photos at the end of this post.)
More about in a bit... let's catch up a little.

How've ya been my cheeky wee monkeys?
It's been awhile... again, since our last get together.
Since moving down here to da "Peach State", we got the new house in order after the move, the kids bought new living room furniture,
I got my license, and I also bought my very first car in like 20 something years!
A Dodge Shadow in unbelievable condition for what I paid for it!
Clean inside and out.
Only things wrong with it were no spare tire and a droopy ceiling fabric.
Both of which I fixed with a can of spray adhesive and a trip to the junkyard.
Been going out buying little do-dads for it like new floor mats, etc.
I LOVE my lil "hoopdee".
Been gettin' real comfortable with going from city boy to country bumpkin.
A bit slower paced down here... but it's cool.

Been traveling around a bit lately.
I just got back from Las Vegas a few days ago.
First we went to Nashville Tennessee to my son-in-law DJ's
family's house for Thanksgiving.
A humongously HUGE & beautiful house with 5 plus bedrooms and a shitload of land with creeks, lakes, and mountains behind it.
His dad even made a makeshift golf course on it.
Went out and hit/shot/putzed (?) a few after Thanksgiving dinner.
(wuddo I know about golf...?)
Had a great time there.
Met a lot of his family, who came in for the holiday.
So we had a real old time, big Thanksgiving and an early Christmas.
(we exchanged gifts around the Christmas tree early cuz we were all together.)

They live just outside of Nashville.
The countryside is just fantastic there!
Rocky forrested hills with cool mountain roads.
It was an interesting drive there.
Dunno why... but Tennessee sems to have LOT'S of fireworks stores.
Whole SUPERMARKETS... for ALL your incediary needs!

We also went into Nashville and to the Grand Ol Opry.
The Opry is actually a big complex now, with a large mall, hotels, etc. around it.
The whole family went to a holiday exhibit there called "Ice!"
It's a big refrigerated space where you put on parkas, and view amazing ice sculptures.
Pretty cool.
(oops... did I just say that...?)

And just recently, Kelly & DJ got special duty in Las Vegas.
So they asked me to come along to make it a family vacation,
and to help look after Kadee while they worked.
We were there for 10 days, and they worked for 4.
Nice job... huh?
We stayed on Nellis Air Force Base in a military apartment/housing thingy, surrounded by dessert mountains, with all sorts of cool stuff flying overhead!
It's home to the "Thunderbirds" show plane squadron, and a special exercise detail called "Red Flag", where different squads do simulated combat with each other.
I watched few dogfights & chases overhead while there.

Vegas was phenomenal!
No longer "Sin City"... it's now a resort with lots of stuff for the whole family.
Well... certain parts of it are still pretty sinful, should ya want that sorta thang.
[looking at da ceiling, whistling...]
Hey...! Wut happens in Vegas... well... yanno...

Most big casinos had luxurious & large shopping malls inside,
with everything form F.A.O. Schwartz toys to Armani couture.
Dancing fountains, and volcanos that erupt every hour on the hour,
bright lights and neon, MAGIC SHOWS EVERYWHERE...
I wuz in "hoggy heaven" as my buddy Morty says.

We took a ride out to Hoover Dam & Lake Mead and did the tour which was really cool.
And we also went to this resort some miles away from Vegas called Montelago Village on another man made, "Lake Las Vegas".
It's fairly new, and modeled after a lake town near Florence Italy.
A beautiful and pretty "ritzy" joint, with hotels, shops, casinos,
restaurants and golf courses.

But not being much of a gambler, and not rich enuff for the malls, etc... I enjoyed myself more on my solo excursions into the dessert.
I got a few great pictures of it, especially at sundown and at night.
It was like the sky caught fire, and then burned out into complete darkness.

My forays into the dessert were captivating.
I couldn't get over the amazingly hypnotic solitude of it!
It was like being on another planet!
I wanted to drive forever.
Ya can get to a place where there's only another car every 5-10 minutes or so.
Nothing around, no cell phone reception...
just you, da road, rocks like carved concrete, da mountains and sand.

"Cityboy" made da BIG mistake of going out one time...
and not caculating his gas gauge properly.
Mesmerized by the drive and not thinking about the 1/4 tank I had left, I kept going a bit further, till I realized...
"Shit... I may not make it BACK...!!!"
Thank God I DID.
Dat woulda been one HELL of a pain in the ass!

There were even a couple a families camping out there.
(and a few strange lookin' people hitchiking into the city from the dessert from whence, I know not... and don't really CARE to know...!)

One night, we stayed in and watched "The Hills Have Eyes" DVD on our laptop.
It was about mutant people living in the dessert after H-bomb testing in the 60's, who terrorize a stranded family in a camper broke down in the dessert.
It frightened the balls outta Kelly.
And truthfully... a few times I was out in the dessert at night alone...
I kinda got a little case of the "willies" meself!
The dessert is even weirder out there at night... lemme tell yaz!

So all in all... I've been having some AMAZING adventures since leaving Joisey.
The way things are startin' to shape up...
it looks like the New Year is gonna be the start of even more!

Click below for a gallery of pix of Nashville & Vegas.
Having to size them down for the gallery don't do them justice.
But you'll get the idea.

Holiday Vacation!

Well... datz about it for now kids.
Looking forward to see what 2007 brings!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

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