With no kids in the RV—and perhaps feeling the residual effects of 19 beer samples the night before— we slept in! Sleep, glorious sleep!! The (rather elderly) people running the
Almond Tree RV Park recommended several breakfast joints. We ignored their suggestions and followed the wisdom of Yelp, which led us to
The Sin of Cortez. They had everything we needed:
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| Morning Essentials at The Sin of Cortez |
We didn't do quite as much singing on day two of our adventure because neither of us could really speak, let alone sing. Interstate 5 South was unbelievably uninteresting at this point. Perfectly straight with nothing but dust and fields. A scan of the radio stations turned up only two music genres: classic rock and a variety of Mexican music with awesome horn parts (but incomprehensible lyrics ). A couple of hours' worth of horns later, we stopped for gas (typically a $175 affair) and there it was...the
In-N-Out Burger. I had heard lots of stories about these places, but I'd never eaten at one. Neb spent about 30 minutes educating me on the finer points of ordering from the "secret" menu (how can there be a secret menu?) but before too long I was holding a double-double in one hand and fries ("well well; animal style") in the other. Yeah, I didn't NEED any of these extra calories, but it was worth it. Oh yeah, I also bought a t-shirt.
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| Well Well: My first time at In-N-Out Burger |
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| Animal Style |
A few more hours down California's least interesting road and we pulled into The
Tachi Palace Indian Casino, just outside of Fresno. Neb called up a couple of old friends who recently moved to Fresno and they met us for dinner and some gaming. I love playing blackjack, but the table wasn't friendly to me this night. After I had blown through $50, I moved over to a pai gow table with only one player and asked the dealer to teach me how to play. I had played the game once or twice a long time ago and it came back quickly. The most important thing is that you push (tie) most of the time, so you don't win a lot--but you don't lose a lot, either. After a while, Neb and his friends joined me. I won back my blackjack losses and finished even for the day. A pretty fun evening.
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| The Tachi Palace |
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So, the kind folks at the Tachi Palace told us that we were welcome to park our RV in their parking lot overnight. I mean, why would we spend $40 to stay in an RV campground overnight when we could stay right at the casino? OK, well now we know the answer: It's because the security lights in the parking lot are on (really brightly) all night long. It's because the trucks that park there keep their engines on all night. It's because you have to run the generator if you want to use the air conditioner—and it shuts itself off when the gas tank gets too low. It's because you become white instantly upon making the decision to camp out in a casino parking lot. Well, at least I can still say that I've never spent the night in a Walmart parking lot...
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| If you wake up in a casino parking lot...on a weekday morning...you might just be a redneck... |
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