viegas pismo vroom

Who needs Vegas when you've got Viejas? Gambled a bit for the first time last week and was immediately crippled in my first Hold 'Em tourney by James and Jon - then threw away a bunch more on some slots like I'm not waiting for that first unemployment check to come in. Fun stuff for the most part, but probably not again anytime soon.

Pismo (or Oceano or whatever) was a lot closer than I thought. Also just a tad more breezy - the wind effectively flattened our tent as soon as we'd erected it (no, that's not a thinly veiled sexual innuendo). A few things to bring for next time though:

• wood (they killed us on the $5 bundles)
• planks to block the wind
• fencing, caution tape, maybe some tiki torches (assholes on wheels constantly buzzed within stones throws of our campsite)
• a new sleeping bag (my feet froze solid overnight)
• some girls (to watch camp while the boys take 4x4s and make them go sideways)

We rented ATVs and it was wild - the things that (white) people do in the sand with wheels and motors amazed me all day long.

I think it's the daredevil within that keeps your thumb on the throttle, screaming towards a 50ft. wall of sand where you'll make an almost vertical climb towards big air (if you want it) at the crest. That daredevil has you doing wheelies and donuts at the top before you face a drop further down than your established limits of personal safety, and when you fall, that daredevil pops you right back up again because - for some reason - you want more. First jump I took, I forgot that you have to stay on the vehicle when it lands and went flying into the dirt while my ATV went puttering off into the dunes; Alan was doing wheelies within the first fifteen minutes and kept at it until our time was up. Afterwards we had some chowda with the locals and headed home. Fun stuff, definitely sometime again relatively soon.