Saturday, June 14, 2008

Checking In From Vegas


I just arrived in Vegas and it's just the same as the last time I left it. We rented a PT Cruiser and I decided I would never buy one. I'm way too short for it to be a comfortable drive. My parents drove separately, and I had my sister, God-sister, and niece in the car. This meant many stops and a longer than usual drive. Fortunately it has a CD player and aux plugin for the iPod, so we had a good soundtrack for the 6+ hour drive. It was a good opportunity to listen to CDs in full:


Driving soundtrack:

Augustana- I still had the CD in my purse when I picked up the car, so this was finishing up when we started on the road. After seeing them on Thursday, I'm really enjoying this album. A lot.

The Ting Tings- Everyone was excited to get on the road, so this was the pump us up album

What Made Milwaukee Famous- They quickly lost momentum, but I needed something great to sing along to

Justin Timberlake- A friend at the label just sent me a bunch of CDs. Some great ones, some that I would never otherwise buy, so we gave this one a chance. Unfortunately JT is still not for me, so we got through only about two songs.

Nada Surf (Lucky)- I realized I haven't listened to this one in a while so it was nice.

Switched to iPod

Kent (Hagnesta Hill)- This one made me miss friends at home.

By this point, everyone in the car was sleeping. We'd made 4 stops (food, bathroom, gas, bathroom) and we finally hit the home stretch to Vegas. Pulled out my Rocky Votolato playlist that shuffles every album. It was super sing along time for me.

We hit the 30 mile final stretch, and it was time for my "recently added", shuffling Swim Party, Pacific Ocean Drive, and a couple others. All winners.

There's no wi-fi in the room, but there is a cafe in the lobby of the hotel, so that's where I am now. I went exactly 23 hours without the internet today (though I did send a couple tweets via phone) and it was a challenge. Just found out about Tim Russert passing. Really, really sad.

I'm gonna do my best to update while I'm here, but I assumed that all Vegas rooms would have free wi-fi and apparently that is not the case. We're switching hotels from Main Street Station to the Flamingo Hilton on Sunday and I hear there's no free internet there at all. In the meantime, I've recruited a few friends to write about what I'm missing out on in San Diego over the course of the week, so give Abraham and Jacob some love when they post. I'm looking forward to Abraham's "What Would Rosey Do?" post about his experience selling merch tonight at the Casbah.

I will post the remaining Independence Jam photos, as well as some stuff I did on Thursday- Troy Johnson's book reading, Augustana at House of Blues, and Crystal Castles at the Casbah.
Until then, hope everyone has a great weekend at home.

1 comment:

Natalie said...

23 hours without internet - wow.

I'm worried about that part of the Alaska trip - I think I'll have limited access on the boat, so I should at least be able to check my email once in awhile.

But the one week land tour up north of the Arctic Circle? I'm not holding out any hope. Maybe it'll be good for me...