On Saturday, we drove into the centre of Santa Barbara to watch the summer solstice procession, a Beltane-type affair with the town’s loons and samba dancers watched by the sane inhabitants. We watched, ate a last burrito (tinged with both sadness and blessed relief), and left for Los Angeles. California is perhaps the only state [...]
July 4th, 2005
June 28th, 2005
Vegas Two Times.
First thing the next morning (okay, 11 am) we had a blackjack lesson, supplied free of charge by the casino. The croupier was entertaining, although by the end of it I was more bemused than I was at the beginning: blackjack is entirely a game of predictable chance, and I couldn’t quite grasp why anyone [...]
June 27th, 2005
Vegas: 1st attempt.
Settled into our unprecedented two hotel rooms (no roll-away bed or flea-infested mattress for one of us tonight, no sir. Tonight we was kickin’ it floral-print style), we put on our least crumpled T-shirts and ventured out into downtown Vegas. The centre of downtown was Fremont Street, covered by a canopy running its full length, [...]
June 24th, 2005
Welcome to Fabulous (Downtown) Las Vegas!
I demanded that we stop at the Hoover Dam on the way to Vegas, inspired mainly by a song on my iPod called, yes, Hoover Dam. We stepped out of the car into a vast natural hairdryer. I can’t even begin to guess what the temperature was – 40°C, maybe? It’s probably the hottest place [...]