Full album of entire vacation

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/Vacation/679755

SUCCESS!!!!.

Saturday afternoon Steve and I left for Vegas with our bicycle’s packed in luggage, not oversized.

This was the trial fit:

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/photos/435296175_awuYJ-L.jpg

It’s a 25″x27″x10″ double wall cardboard box my buddy had made for me (max luggage size is 62 linear inches), bike fits real easy in there. Disassembly is about 15 minutes, assembly the same. I’m stunned how easy mountain bikes come apart and goes back together.

Well the trip was pretty easy. We checked in our luggage but had to drop them at the oversized booth, even though they weren’t oversized. Not sure what that’s about. Carry on was uneventful too. I had taken all my shifting and brakes on my carry on along with my lights and pedals. The guy asked what it was after seeing the shoes in the x-ray but didn’t even open the bag. Then he said some lady tried to take a case full of raw chicken legs on a flight once, ha. Flight was fine, anxiety waiting as our luggage came out into the carousel. It came, and we made our way to the rental.

National car is AWESOME as an emerald member. Walked right out into the lot and selected whatever car it is I wanted. There was a mustang there but we made the wise choice of the kia micro minivan thingy. We loaded up all our crap into our car, showed the lady at the exit my info and drove off. Cheapest rates I could find too out of everyone. Super awesome.

We checked into our motel room at the Wild Wild West. It sucked balls. Small room, unattractive, and NO INTERNET. We called our booking agent the next morning (cheaptickets.com) and they arranged a refund for the remaining days. One night was fine there. We spent a few hours the next day trying to figure out wher eto stay. We settled on the Best Western Mardi Gras. We drove pas the other Best Western locations only to find them in the most ghetto ghetto’s on earth. Seriously ther were a hundred homeless people just laying in the street! These were up near old Vegas.

We got some lunch at Bonita’s and it was great! I got a taco/tamale/enchilada platter. Everything ruled.

Wechecked into our hotel and started unboxing and assembling the bikes.

Layed out with my creative padding.

All the parts

Assembly

Looks like a bike again

It’s taking extra long to do this since I decided to remove all the controls and take them on the plane with me. I wanted to minimize the value of my luggage just in case.

Almost done

Done!

After test riding the bikes, we headed out to old Vegas since we never saw that before.

The covered street was damn cool. The hourly movie shoe things on the roof was awesome.

There is a collection/museum of the famous neon signs down there too. Really cool

We headed back for bed after this. I have some possible cool HDR images to add to the post if they come out well, I’m still processing the images from today first though.

highlights:

together we fly out of newark on friday night the 13th, uneventful and we make it to SLC utah around midnight that night. we go to get our car from fox’s rental car where we have a reservation and after waiting and calling can waiting and calling it turns out they close at midnight and didn’t wait for us. they had our flight number, fuck them in the ass.

after figuring this out we go back into the airport and talk to the friendly people at national/alamo (guess they are partnered somehow after midnight) and we get set up with a nice deal on a nissan rouge. i even had a national car discount card and we got the upgraded car for free and got a nice discount. sweet.

we pile all our shit into our new awd rouge and get out of town and crash for the night at a best western. we wake up and see utah for the first time during the day. holy shit, its taco time!

we drive for a few more hours, taking the scenic route and stop for some pictures.

me and satanpez steve:

at one of the scenic overlooks we find a guy with a 100 year old six shooter on his hip, driving one of these! holy shit

we wind up on a closed road (hehe) due to “snow” (its 100deg out)

there were some tight spots:

but we saw people from time to time so whatever, we pressed on until we hit this:

we were stuck there for over an hour. the guys said i hit it too slow but i think if i went faster the same result would have happened but slower. i needed to hit it at like 65mph to plow through it all.

nissan rouge awd = the suck.

1 wheel spinning <> awd

eventually a nice family came out to help us (get us the hell out of the way so they could get through in their actual 4wd vehicle.)

they eventually just pushed us out with the truck, it was scary but it didn’t damage the rental at all.

after getting out we had to turn around and waste like an hour driving around that pitiful snow covering.

but we stopped at another lookout and found these cool trees.

then we stopped and got some mexican food at la hacienda

it was WET, the guys hated it. my tamale was really good though.

we got to the 2nd best western and checked in, and went for a trail hike up mount nebo.

here are the guys in front of me hiking up the narrow trail

we hiked up to the meadow about half way up and took some pics

by this time my feet were bleeding from blisters. it was already a longer climb than any mountain in jersey

all the hiking and lens changing got shit all in my camera and lenses, i know all about it stevevr4!

then we hiked back down and that gave me blisters on my toes. awesome.

we stopped by the walmart and i tried to find stuff to take care of my feet. everything i tried sucked.

day 2

today we tried to hike up to the top of mount nebo. it was surprisingly easier than the first time to get up to the meadow.

and to the top of the hill behind the meadow

and then, it started getting difficult

we got past that snow fine, but the next one was a lot harder

we eventually had to ditch the path because it was too snowed in and we started just bushwhacking our way towards the summit.

we got to 9970ft and decided to call it quits. the summit right RIGHT in our sight but too much snow, too much loose rock, and running short on time. it still takes like 3 hours to get to the bottom. we decide to get up the last 30 feet to break 10000 but i swear it took like 15 minutes. there is NO air up there, its soooo hard to move.

i had a portable gps with me to track our moves, and mark locations so here’s what it looks like in topo and on google earth

more pics from the top:

then we started our decent, rene i think ran down the mountain after getting woozy from the cliffs and heights.

you can see where our trail disappeared.

god i look fat

i had a camera fag bag holding my d80 with my zoom lens, and the fisheye. i left nate’s expensive lens at the hotel for obvious reasons. i also had a tripod with me. holy shit did that get tiring to carry all that crap.

we stopped back at the meadow to take more pictures

we finally got back to the car, went back to the hotel and fell into coma’s until the next day.

okay the 3rd day we woke up and drove into moab. it was a few hours of remarkable scenery but that just never comes out right taking pictures out of a car. so here’s just one.

we went to the brewery in moab and got some nacho’s

they were great, so was my chicken sandwich.

moab is a strange town. its kinda like a jersey shore town or cali town with window shopping, everyone walking around, hot girls driving 60’s bronco’s, bicycles EVERYWHERE, and awesome cool shops at ever single inch of the place. really cool town, but i’m an idiot and didn’t take any pictures of the town. we went and talked to a bunch of bike shops about the local trails, bought a moab trail book, and rented our bikes and somehow we managed to fit them in the rouge. we went and checked into our hote/cabin thing which was like 15 miles outside of town right on the colorodo river. here is a view right outside of our cabin, i’m a moron again and didn’t turn around to take a picture of the cabin, or the river 10 feet behind it.

the next morning we woke up and went bike riding on klondike trail and baby steps.

rene has the only pictures of us bike riding, he had the small camera.

here are his pictures and commentary:

Steve and Luke in front of Devil’s Garden (cute helmets guys!):

Steve and Luke trying to find shade in the desert:

And gratuitous butt shot of me on the 29er:

okay back to me…

here is a map of the trails we took again.

steve fell early on and cut up his arm, and bent his bike, wheel, and wookie.

on the way down rene really took a spill. the slickrock has parts where it joins and they are usually in valleys where the huge rocks meet. he hit a valley at a slight angle and it basically TORE the wheel out of his hands and pivoted him right over the bars HARD. i though he knocked all his teeth out and broke his arm. turns out he just banged himself really bad but didn’t break anything. he did grow a 3rd knee which i stupidly didn’t take a picture of. while he was writhing in pain he refused to give me his camera to take a picture of the fall

check back later to see if rene gives up his pictures of us riding.

that night we went to archs national park

IIRC this is balanced rock

here’s the famous utah “delicate” arch

its a LOT bigger than you would think

it was about a mile or two hike to the arch, it was really really cool

steve

me

walking away from the arch. notice “death on the right”

utah is full of places where you can easily die if you aren’t paying attention

here is us inside one arch with the delicate arch behind us

we stopped and saw some ancient petroglyphs

on the way back we caught a sunset of balanced rock

we went back and passed out at the cabin

the guys decided they were too hurt and tired to ride bikes again the next day, so they dropped me off at the famous slickrock trail. i did the practice loop of the trail which is about 2 miles and decided it would take me way too long to do all 12 miles of the real trail, and that alone i was just too scared to try. when you are riding there is serious threats of being seriously hurt, and you are very very alone most of the time. i didn’t want to die so i just did the practice trail forwards and backwards, and rode back to town a few miles.

so we drove over to canyonlands state park

you can so easily die everywhere

cool road

your brain can not comprehend how big this hole in the ground is. that stuff is seriously a mile deep

then we went to another arch, i can’t for the life of me remember the name of this one but it was really really cool. you could walk right up to it and jump on it and run across it, except that there is a mile deep cliff on the one side which is certain death, and possible death on the other side if you don’t catch the ledge. it was about 5 feet wide but it was still scary as hell and none of us wanted to even touch the arch

some raven on the way out

we went back to our cabin and had dinner. we all got some sort of steak. it was a great time.

the view:

then we went to the museum in the hotel to see all the famous stuff that was done in moab. it was pretty cool. basically every western you have ever seen, or anything that has a western scene in it.

jersey baby!

back to the future, indiana jones… cool museum

then we went to bed

some tools for rich’s garage

bunch of other stuff i won’t bore you with.

then we went out into the moab desert where you can see some dinosaur bones where they were found. pretty damn cool. you can check the album for more if you like but here is just one sample of a legbone still in the rock.

then we drove back up to salt lake, and i didn’t take pictures because rene refused to get out of the car because there were people who believed in god that lived in the town or something.

we got on our flight and came home.

after taking the redeye flight back home hardly getting any sleep at all, i repacked my crap and loaded up my car with camping equipment and i went on more vacation to hershey park where we stayed for 3 more days.

we stopped at what we though was our stop, it was our street name. we didn’t do much planning ahead of time so yeah… we came out of the subway and jumped in a cab and $6 later we were at our BALLER hotel.

we dropped off our crap and went to get some food. we found some decent bar down the street and were shocked to see how early everything closes in chicago.
crappy pic

we passed out, and woke up to find this view out of our hotel room

then we went downstairs and found the most amazing breakfast. pancakes with blueberries rolled up in them, all kinds of food. it was awesome. we stuffed our face.

then we went swimming on the 19th floor, it was AWESOME. panoramic view of the city and swimming by ourselves in this pool. the view was awesome.
nws ladies

here are some shots from our hotel room
plasma ftw

then we went to check out the navy pier, it was cool.

then we went and found some lunch, we found gino’s east to try some authentic chicago deep dish pizza

it was good, a little sloppy but good to eat. cool place, it was 2 levels and had a lot of character. our waiter was awesome, he was insanely quick with my diet cokes and answered and researched all our tourist questions.

some scenery

then we found this, its the most amazing thing in the world. some kind of art, it was fucking awesome.

then we came across some skateboarders, this guy had some balls

more of the city

married with children fountain

L-train

shit taco

then we went on a boat tour, it was really cool, got to see the city from the water

this building is so big its breathtaking. it held the record for a while, i think the only other larger building in the world is the pentegon

blurry, but i’m on a boat, deal with it

then then we took the red line train all the way north to the last stop in some uber ghetto that resembled east orange. i didn’t take my camera out for obvious reasons.
my friend myles came and picked us up, and took us to a burger joint out in a suburb to check out the car scene.
met up with another galant guy doug (oldhairybastard) and another galant guy chris and some other galant guy with black one whome i don’t know.
chris drove us back to chicago in style, following chris.
it was really really cool to do this, in style, at full bore

whacker underground, around the lake, under the city

blurry, out of white balance, deal with it

then we passed out, and woke up early the next morning with like 4 hours of sleep. walked into the breakfast room and the marathon was on tv. oh cool, the chicago marathon… whats that sound? looked out the window haha

we caught it JUST in time to see the 1st place guys run by but my camera wasn’t out so i missed them.

had killer breakfast again, and went outside

then we took the red line train all the way to the south to the industry museum. we got there too early so we walked around a bit first.
we got passes to the star wars exibit, it was pretty cool.

then we went for a helicopter tour…
j/k

then we checked out the U505 sub exibit, it was bad ass

enigma

boat
we got a tour in the boat but i wasn’t alowed to take pictures
bastards

then we went and got some more pizza at lour minoti’s (we pronounced it illuminati’s)

then we went to the john hancock building and i took this from the observatory though the glass

steve decided to wash the windows or something

we passed out back at the hotel, and had to wake up at like the ass crack of dawn and we called a car service to take us to the motorola factory because it was out or reach of the transit system. we get downstairs, and a stretch limo is there. wtf?
we hop in and the driver is like (thick russian accent)
ONLY IN AMERICA CAN YOU CALL FOR A RIDE TO WORK AND TURN INTO A ROCKSTAR EH????!?!
it was awesome, we went from our baller hotel room to the plant like pure rockstars

the rest of the week was training. what i learned was that you should sell your stock i motorolla if you have any
but really we learned about radio plc’s, and that next year we are probably going to las vegas and telaviv
awesome
what a trip, it was fuckin fantastic

highlights:

taking off over newark/elizabeth

geek row on the airplane

somehow i arrived back in ny/nj?

strip

rene in the garden at the bellagio

pretty colors in the garden

uhh

volcano at the mirage

best god damn food ever. stuff your face omg i’m going to die good food in margarita’s at the frontier

generators at the hoover dam

absolutely massive

absolutely amazing, looks like a model

lake mead

we actually stayed at the NY NY, really cool place

fountains at the bellagio
you can’t tell from the pics, but these fountains are shooting up well over 100ft, its insane

more stuff on the strip
there isn’t perspective, but this tower is HUGE

bellagio
those windows aren’t floors, thats like 4 floors, this building is massive and stunning

my maria at the aquarium at the mandalay bay hotel aquarium

uhh
luxor

circus circus god god dammit dammit

stratosphere

top of the stratosphere, tallest building west of the mississippi
un fucking real view. seriously breathtaking.
i was too busy shitting my pants to get a clear picture. i needed a tripod, and i think the structure was swaying anyway and i needed a 5 second exposure or something to make it clear and bright. deal with this

and then at the top of the god damn thing there is this ride, a freefall style ride that shoots you up 100 something feet at 4g’s and drops you a few times.
seriously, you are on top of the tallest building in the west, and shot up outside on this aerial on the top. its on my top 5 list of coolest fucking things i’ve ever done. we were facing the strip and everything. simply amazing. maria freaked out standing on the top of this building on the top ledge where you get on and didn’t ride the ride.
it was pretty nerve racking stepping outside with the high winds and cooler temperatures you are dangling so high in the air. and THEN get on a scarey ass ride. its god damn crazy. only in vegas

going home