I went to Vegas for game 5 of  the western conference finals. Now of course, a man like myself who finds Hunter S. Thompson to be perhaps America’s best long-form writer ever would not turn down the thrill of a fear and-loathing style hockey trip. In and out over two days, with a consigliere (to be left unnamed through most of this) a journey to America’s sin city in the heat of late May. Don’t worry dad, less elicit drug use than Thompson’s semi-fictionalized trip for sure. That said, I still needed to take notes throughout the trip as at points it was hazy. With that, let’s begin our journey.

The Journey

Departure

We started our trip in Provo. A stop at Aubergine, some new aged salad restaurant. At first I was hesitant, but my consigliere has held my hand through moments like this and showed me, yes it is ok to eat the occasional salad.

I am partial to the sweet potato bites that are quite delicious. So with a bag full of cheese bread and a box of sweet potato bites we hit the road after making a quick stop off at Swig.

Swig is one of the true cultural touchpoints of Utah. I’m not sure it could survive anywhere else. While Coloradans turned to weed and Nevadans turned to gambling, Utahns turned to soda.

Soda infused with even more sugar. Perhaps the alcoholism rates here are lower than your national average, but obesity rates have to be sky-high.

I am hooked on soda, and while I try to avoid the place like the plague every dope addict needs their fix from time to time.

I joke, at least it isn’t heroine. Just as addictive though, but it will kill you slower.

So with health food in one hand, a bag of mixed jerkeys for myself in the back, some candy and some swig drinks we set out on the open road in our maroon Chevy Malibu.

I hit the curb as we pulled out of Swig, to set the tone for the trip, anyone who knows me knows I am a semi-terrible driver and that is exacerbated in parking lots and strip malls.

My doting consigliere let out a shallow gasp as I fumbled this maneuver and I reassured her, it’s fine I only hit parked cars. We were off to Vegas.

Thoughts on a long drive

As I roam the Western United States and its ranging freeways I look for road signs. Usually for small towns populated by single gas stations and county utility sites filled with rusting trucks and snowplows.

The purpose of collecting these names is for poems. I find myself fascinated with writing about the American West, the kind untouched by cities and fast-moving neon lights. I found three good names on this drive.

Holden

Mills

And Dog Valley

All of which are helpful geographical touch points to keep in the back of one’s mind when writing poetry about the still vast and untamed West that remains even in the modern day.

A Good Cruise Control, I Want A Car With A Good Cruise Control.

In 24 years of life, I had heard of yet never fully experienced the true beauty of cruise control. Somewhere outside of Mills, there are about 490 miles of open road between my gas pedal foot and Vegas.

When you find those long straight stretches, where the traffic thins and the long haulers pull away from the pack there is a sweet spot in which you get in the right lane, take your foot off the gas, set the cruise and simply relax.

This Chevy Malibu cruise control system was nuts though, a press of a button not like the convoluted set up of the mid-10s 4Runner I typically drive. This was simple, and beautiful and changed the way I think about road trips. With this tool, they are ultra doable.

Did I just spend 150 words on the beauty of cruise control? Absolutely, it deserves its day in the sun as an ingenious invention in the automotive world. It served me well on my journey to Vegas.

Chick Fil A, take the wheel!

We arrived in Saint George and I was dead tired. About 200 miles of road under my belt and here we are right after nightfall.

Hungry, sweet potato bites will only take you so far in this life, so in the dying moments, we pull into a Chick Fil A. I get the last order in the restaurant in, 8 piece chicken nuggets with a large Arnold Palmer (Chick Fil A easily has the best Arnold Palmer, as a connoisseur of the drink, it is as well balanced and beautiful as anything offered anywhere else on the market.)

Did I feel slightly guilty scarfing down chicken nuggets in a vegetarian’s car? Yes, but that is the risk you run when you surround yourself with vegetarians. Just don’t find a militant vegetarian, those people are the worst.

The ones that push vegetarianism on everyone they come across, those people can’t be reasoned with. A step above that of course are your Vegans, who are inherently militant. The key to co-existing with a vegetarian, make small sacrifices, make sure that there are always options for them, and understanding why they make the decision to live that lifestyle.

You may also have to make concessions, I have come to the realization that if I became a vegetarian I would almost certainly automatically lose 15-20 pounds. I realize I contribute to factory farming every time I cut into a delicious ribeye.

I may have hell to pay if the cows truly are our gods, but for now, I pay the price the devil asks.

It is a miracle what protein will do for the system. After scarfing down some Nugs and fries I felt more alert than ever. I caught a second wind and we went to set onto the open road again.

The Drive To Vegas Becomes Perilous Through The Beaver Damn Mountains At Night

As we cross the border into Arizona things get a bit treacherous. Through the winding Beaver Damn Mountains carved by the Virgin river.

The road is just a series of serious curves, that loop and whorl around jagged rock that off shoots into the middle of the road nearly. Driving that stretch of road, for the first time, at 10:3o at night was quite the experience.

On the one hand you have semis barely crawling up the pass at a snail’s pace, blinker lights at full throat. On the other you have the sharks making their weekend jaunt to the casinos in Mesquite zooming through the curves at 70-80 miles per hour. I hid in the right lane, frightened that if I lept into the left I would be run off the road or worse yet not handle the speed of the turns well.

In what was rather a splendid trip, this was the most terrifying moment. In the future, I would not want to do that drive deep in the night again. I think I would rather, if I started later and had the funds, have spent the night in St. George somewhere rather than blazing through the treacherous mountain pass.

I would also want to avoid that drive at all costs in the dead of winter when a storm would likely make the trip near impossible. Driving through during the day on the way back was fine, it was just doing it in the dead of night for the first time that put terror in me.

In Mesquite, I stopped in a gas station, remembered I was no longer in Utah, picked up some crown royal Washington apples and switched up driving with my consigliere as we tackled the last leg of the desert and arrived in Vegas.

Vegas: The Suburbs

They Paved A Desert

When we arrived at our Air BNB/ one room hostel with a bathroom attached, I simply couldn’t sleep. I have bouts with insomnia from time to time, the medicine usually helps, but in new places and on hot nights it becomes especially grading to find the respite of sleep.

Eventually though, I faded away to dream land.

10 AM, up with the day. On our way to some diner with a varied Vegan menu, as soon as you step outside you feel it. Even at 1o AM.

This heat, it is oppressive. The first thoughts are of course, god damn man it is hot as hell out here and then you remember something.

They paved a desert, the American commercial boom of the 1940s and 50s said, hey man let’s just say screw it and put asphalt and cement and black top all over this desert. Of course it’s hotter than hell, what kind of freak decided to build a vacation paradise in the middle of a freaking desert?

The only way to survive in Las Vegas is with a pool, without one you’re toast. This is one of the hottest god damn climates in North America and we just decided, let’s make it that much hotter by paving the damn thing and lining it with oppressive concrete structures.

We enjoyed our breakfast and headed back to the only logical respite from the heat, the pool.

An Inground Pool: What Wealth Means To Me

My friends are populated with people whose sole goal in this life is to strike it rich. Run to the bank, grab a couple bil and relax on a private beach somewhere while the rest of us toil away at the companies they build.

I have no such aspirations, something about what’s needed to accomplish that goal I simply do not have, but I’ve been challenged by several close friends to find out what wealth means to me.

I think I have discovered the answer. I want to be able to afford an inground pool. I am a simple man, I just want to be able to pay rent, pay for a car, and pay for the streaming services to watch my sports on. Past that though, perhaps a goal for my mid-thirties, I want to own a pool.

Part of that of course would be owning a house, and with the way the market looks right now I am genuinely convinced I’ll never be a homeowner unless I’m gifted it by a dying relative. However, that is a dream, to make enough money in my life time to afford a house with an in-ground pool. That’s what wealth means to me, living in a home with an in-ground pool.

So many advantages to owning a pool, you become the go to party spot, you always have somewhere to chill in the summer, you can put a TV by a pool, just so many reasons why having a pool would be great.

As a part-time desk jockey I am nowhere near affording a pool, but it is something to aspire to. I have aspirations of owning a pool.

The Game

Hockey, but it’s in the club

That’s what these games are. Make no mistake about it. Hockey is secondary in Vegas, the Golden Knights are an exclusive club.

From the thumping EDM music at breaks to the fact that the arena becomes a club in intermissions as they turn off all the lights and replace them with blaring strobes and loud dance music.

The only way to go to a Golden Knights game is slightly inebriated beforehand, I don’t think my sober mind could have handled the flashing sound and throbbing light that made the building legitimately bounce.

Hockey in Vegas is a different animal, a different sport. These fans are loud, they are on top of you, and they are absolutely relentless in the noise they make.

I would argue this game was a top 3 atmosphere I have ever experienced at a sporting event. The people in Vegas are fucking nuts and they let you know it as soon as you walk in the building.

Even in a loss the building thumped and flashed for three straight periods of what can only be described as hockey but if hockey took molly and enjoyed raving.

In a word, awesome.

It Is Hard To Win A Stanley Cup: Understanding That

There is perhaps no bigger grind in sports. No bigger mountain to summit, no greater valley road to traverse than the road to the Stanley Cup.

About mid-way through the second period tied at two, the gentleman next to me noticed my Avs hat and began to make conversation. In that moment I told him a truth, it is hard to win the Stanley Cup.

It takes years of patience and dedication just to build a roster that can compete in the deepest league in North American sports. Then you have to survive a two month marathon where you play every other day. It is difficult to win the Stanley Cup.

Knights fans have been there before in year one of the franchise’s existence, but that experience jaded them, and in that moment they ran into an all time player on an all time run in Alex Ovechkin. Now years later, after this franchise has basically known nothing but playoff berths the fans in that stadium are starting to realize it is difficult to win lord Stanley’s cup.

That realization crept in throughout the game, but rang through in silence after the Stars 4-2 dagger put the Knights on the road for game 6.

Max Domi Is A Pest

No other way to put it. And this will be a short aside, Max Domi is a pest, he is at every lose puck, he finishes his checks, and he gets to the high danger areas. Max Domi is an extremely good hockey player that anyone who thinks they are competing for a cup should chase after.

Bros Love Skittles

My game snacks of choice were simple in Vegas, Red Vines, a Coke and some Skittles. While eating the Skittles I had a realization. Bros do just be out here loving Skittles. They are a delicious and tasty treat that just have a nice chewy mouth feel.

I’ve long said, forget chocolate, I want me some candy that is made in a lab with lots of chemicals and that is exactly what Skittles are. Cavities and obesity be damned, it’s why I keep going back to the gym, so I can eat candy. I bet NFL players eat a shit ton of candy, they are forced to work out all the time so in the end it doesn’t really matter for them. I’m not lifting for gains I’m lifting for the joy of eating Skittles, sorry haters but that’s just what’s up.

Understanding You Are A Super Hero As An Athlete

It must be nuts to come to a realization between the ages of 17-22 that you are a super human. That’s what these hockey players and really all pro athletes are.

Even the worst of the worst, the bummiest of bums, are on a different level as human beings than us mere mortals. Think of the body balance, the core strength, the hand eye coordination and the undying discipline it takes to become a pro athlete.

I’ve got nothing but respect for those folks they are super humans, built out of different stuff than us average every day joes. I think it is part of why I love sports, how am I, a slightly over weight, unbalanced and clumsy mess the same spieces as Jack Eichel is?

How does Aidin Hill move in ways that I could just never possibly imagine. By the way a sub heading here, for the majority of the game I watched and really for most of the past two series Aidin Hill has been the best goalie in these playoffs and is a large reason I am taking Vegas to lift the Stanley Cup.

From a nobody to the most impressive and clutch goalie in the NHL. The goaltending in the game I watched was spectacular and remains my favorite part of hockey. I think the Finals present a wonderful matchup between Hill and Sergei Bobrovsky, who is playing at a level we haven’t seen him play at in 3-4 years. It should be a tremendous series.

Vegas Is A Hockey Market

Make no mistake about it. The Raiders are nice, but they are not Las Vegas’s team. The amount of Vegas Golden Knights, merch, flags, and bumper stickers I saw throughout this trip was mind boggling.

This is a market like Toronto, like Chicago, like Minnesota and like Boston, hockey comes first here, even though it’s a desert. This is the new wave of the NHL, in 10-12 years we will see a massive amount of high end prospects coming out of this part of the country.

The NHL’s grand experiment worked, it is a nation wide sport now, from sea to shining sea. It will never run out of fans either, it may not have the same out reach, but with hockey you are born into it. I was born into it, my children will be born into it, and their children will be born into it. Hockey is a bloodsport, and it now has a grasp on the whole of the United States.

The Journey Home

What Wealth Means To Me: When $1,500 is Nothing To You

Vegas is a place that cannot fully be enjoyed without a full time salary. The Casinos and results are built for 30 somethings looking to rekindle their last dying moments of the embers of youth before they are extinguished.

For people in their mid 20’s the club is more alluring, I enjoy gambling and I am a gambler, but a responsible one. I lost about $40 at a virtual roulette table and called it a night. I wouldn’t be opposed to staying longer and going again, but you need a salary to truly enjoy the allure of Vegas.

So that’s what wealth means to me, having enough that losing 1,500 dollars on a random weekend or two every six months is not a financial death blow. When blowing 1,500 is an option and I can still be financially secure, that is when I will know I have made it. That is when I will go to Vegas.

The Principle Of National Parks

A stop in Zion on the way home, and a quick note about that. National parks are assetts, they truly are. The fact that we have preserved swaths of land in the American West that must remain untouched by development are truly important.

We will continue to grow as a nation, we will continue to expand, but at some point we will need to build vertically instead of horizontally, we will need to build up until we need to get innovative and build down, but we cannot continue to build out.

Our country must protect what makes this place unique, that the majesty of God decided to touch this piece of oxegynized space rock and make it unique and beautiful. We will ruin this planet within the next 20 years, we can’t go back at this point. So go out and see it now, because it may not be here in 30 years when you feel you have time.

The Prinicple Of Hiking, and Why I May Enjoy Hiking

I am an Eagle Scout. The part of camping trips I enjoyed the least as a scout were the hikes. However after the past few months in the gym, and with a realization that if you pack light it likely isnt that bad, I do belive I am swayed to hiking.

I would like to go on some hikes this summer, it would be a nice change of pace. Get out and hike once a week, that would be nice. I would like to do some hiking indeed.

Write A Love Poem

The trip was fantastic. I had a great time. Somewhere in the middle of the third period a thought crept into my head, write a love poem.

They are the hardest poems to write, but now for the first time in my life I have some experience with the subject. I may not have that forever, I don’t entirely know how it works when things and people move on and you are left with blank spaces.

So while I am happy, I will write a love poem. I encourage you dear reader, to do the same. Everyone who has felt the sensation, who knows the joy, should write a love poem.

Not for vast media consumption, but for quiet moments alone. Everyone should write a love poem.

Until next time travelers, best wishes from the sports desk.