Edit: I have been home for three days. Welp! I'm the same as I've ever been!
So let's recap. Day one was pretty breezy. We left right on time (hooray! My favorite time to leave!!), and Bri and I just chatted for the ten hour drive to Tucumcari, NM.
We stayed at a Super 8 in Tucumcari, didn't need to be fancy, just needed to be clean. This was taken the morning of Day two, before the long drive from Tucumcari to Las Vegas. It was another ten-ish hour day in the car, but this time we made a stop. Derek and I are very into rock hounding and cabachon making, rock fashioning, whatever you want to call it, so when Derek was still planning on going with me, we looked for rock and mineral shops to investigate. We figured that the southwest would be a boon for us, rock wise.
It was not. However, Vegas Trip Day Two Drea and Bri did not know that. So Vegas Trip Day Two Drea and Bri stopped at Mama's Minerals in Albuquerque, NM. Mama's Minerals advertised itself as a LARGE WOMAN OWNED STORE and Bri and I never did find out if Mama is a large woman, or if Mama's is a large store owned by a woman. Could also be a large store owned by a large woman. There was no photographic evidence of Mama to be seen inside.
I mean. It IS a large store. Large Mama not pictured.
I was a little disappointed at the variety of rough they had available. I have a little place about thirty minutes away from my house that has REALLY great off cuts, and I go there for rough and I always come away with amazing pieces at amazing prices. Mama let me down in that regard.
We have...had...such a great piece of dinosaur bone, but it had all of these mud cavities and I kept trying to get rid of them and I ended up whittling it down by about 25%. I wanted to get another piece for Derek, because he's depressed about it. The whale vertebrae was particularly cool and interesting, but I didn't end up getting it.
That chrysocolla was GORGEOUS, but even at my most extravagant, I would not pay 105 per pound for a rock. Even though...like...look at it. It's so pretty. And it was admittedly hard for me to put it back and not buy it. But I recently paid 140 dollars for two pounds of Bloody Basin agate, and I think that's as close to the stars as I'm gonna reach. For now, anyway.
Bri, inspecting more of the rough that I was ALSO disappointed with.
Except these peridot bombs! I loved them, Bri loved them, Derek loved the photo I sent to him. I would have bought one, except...I wandered around and then forgot to go grab one.
I'm not really interested in rock specimens...per se. I did buy Derek a few ammonites to cut open, and a knightia fossil, but otherwise the largeness of Mama's is...well...largely wasted on me. They also have dyed agates and that's a yuck from me.
It's a shame none of our corals have been this big or this beautiful.
Same with our agates and geodes. At least this massive slice isn't dyed!
I did not take photos of the other sections of Mama's, but it was such a good sized store. I almost wished I was a gems and mineral girly.
I wanted to buy these shrimps SO BAD, but they were WAY more expensive than the fish. That tiny slab of two shrimp was 105, and I hadn't even gotten to Vegas yet. I had 9 days of travel ahead of me, and I knew I needed to pace myself, so I left the shrimp behind.
We got back on the road for the last stretch of the trip....I think about 7 hours? It was long, but amazing. I filled Bri in on all of my life shenanigans because I'm a leo and when I am one on one, I'm as leo as they come. Star? That's me for sure. At least in my own mind. But I got to learn about Bri, too. We've been friends for a few years now, but haven't really gotten to dig in to each other. This road trip gave us that ability, which was wonderful.
It was so much just...road. The drive to Vegas doesn't get interesting until a few hours past Albuquerque, so really, aside from the odd billboard....see exhibits A through C:
....nobody has time for 24 hour pumps. Ten minute pumps at BEST, fifteen if I'm really feeling it. I've got other shit to do.
Take that, SCIENCE! Capitalism says it's the gender binary or bust, losers.
...there really wasn't much to gawk at. Bri took a lot of photos as the landscape got more southwest-y, but I am gonna not post them all up here. I think they are all lovely, so I wouldn't be able to pick and dwindle down to a reasonable number.
And then, after ten lovely hours, we were there. The strip was in the distance, and I was suddenly aware of being near Vegas. Like I knew this was my destination the entire time, but arriving in Vegas and knowing you're going to arrive in Vegas are two very different things.
Bri and I made it to The Lexi, and...I don't know how to describe this place other than "ugh".
That's actually very untrue. I know precisely how to describe this place. I have been telling everyone that this hotel was very obviously loved, once upon a time. I looked it up...the building was built in 1978 as The Las Vegas Inn and Casino. I'm unsure how or why, but it slipped from being the Las Vegas Inn and Casino into being a Travelodge, and in 2001 it was bought out and it became The Artisan. The Artisan did pretty well for itself, had a 4 million dollar face lift, and was, from what I can tell, loved dearly by both its creator and its patrons. See? You can feel that this place was a treasure at some point in its life, you really can. It was voted Best Of in Vegas for a few different things (Best Bar and Lounge was one in won more than once), but it filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to make a sweeter deal out of a potential merger, and it never really recovered. It became the Lexi in 2022, and I think it is about to fold under the weight of itself again, if the rumor I heard is any kind of truthful.
I inititally thought The Lexi looked old, but charming. The outside has this like...definitely older Vegas feel to it, but without looking dated. Vegas has a magic with that sort of thing, though....even dated things have a place in Vegas.
But this is really as good as it gets. Once you step inside of those doors, there is no going back. You can't unsee The Lexi.
That fountain didn't even fucking have water in it. Not running water, not stagnant water. It was bone dry.
What place in Vegas would be complete without ESCORT MAGAZINE on the check in desk? Or Vibes magazine, I'm sorry. This definitely made me laugh, it was the most Vegas thing I had seen all day, and I had just been staring at the strip.
They checked me in, told me the pool was European (which here means "top optional" or "toptional" which I was disappointed to see hadn't swept the hotel as it would if I were the manager) to which I replied, "well I'm a big fan of boobs, so that's fine." The guy at the desk didn't even crack a smile. I suppose he's not a fan of boobs. Or maybe not a fan of girls who are fans of boobs.
Bri and I unpacked the car and headed up to our room, which...
I thought it looked cheap on the website, but I wasn't terribly pressed about it, because I booked The Lexi for convenience. However, the effect in person was much worse than I could have imagined. Bri and I mentioned to each other that it looked....uh....poorly decorated. But we had been in the car for hours, we were too tired to complain harder (which is saying something, as I come from a long line of complainers and it's pretty much what I'm best at), but our beds were ALSO uncomfortable and the a/c didn't work, so it was also ALSO way too warm. Obviously Vegas was off to a great start.
I was upset to find out there wasn't a microwave in the room, that I had to travel all the way downstairs for my dinner, and I was almost too tired to do it. But I did it. Bri had her adult lunchable dinner, I had my meal prep from two nights prior, and then we pretty much hung out until bedtime. I think Bri went and got some super special Vegas only THC drinks, but I wanted to be out of the fucking car. So I stayed put. We had initially planned on going to the toptional pool, but I got too tired. So we are officially in Vegas now. The trip is on in earnest.
