Fear And Loathing in Fillmore: Part Deaux.

The night in Fillmore was not good. Well not for me. Phil could sleep through a bombing of Dresdien and still get up at six in the morning totally refreshed.

The heater kept going out. It was a gas/electric thing on the wall that required you to light the pilot light, hold it down, then turn the dial to a number. One through five. I didn't want to heat us up too much, so I kept setting it to 1.

After about the third or fourth time I woke up cold, at about 3 am, I figured out that that the number was NOT a heat setting, but a TIME setting. I lit the thing up, and turned the fucker up to FIVE and slept well through the rest of the night. Someone without my extensive education might just have frozen to death that night! I felt like a really, tired, moron.

Phil slept through it all.

The next morning, Phil woke up way before dawn as he usually does. But still thinking the water was from Mexico, he didn't shower. Just brushed his teeth and washed his face and then woke me. It was around 0700 hours.

There were at least eight inches of snow ON the car. It was all I could do to get the trunk open to get the snow brush out, so I could brush the snow off and maybe, just maybe, drive it out of the parking lot. Which was up to my knees, WAY over my UGG boots, deep in snow. And still snowing.

I was able to back out of my parking place, and while, Phil took the key to the office, I drove up there. Were the Audi not a Quattro, All Wheel Drive, I would not have been able to. I was pushing snow with the bumper. Once, Phil got in, the snowplow's of Fillmore had cleared Main Street, but locked us in. The snow was at LEAST three feet high in front of the driveway of the motel. And thick, as they had been buy a couple of times over night.

Someone, coming or going, I don't know, in an obviously lifted truck with skinny tires, had left a mark in that snow wall. I just pointed the Audi at it, and stepped on the gas. The Audi didn't even spin tires, just jammed on through like it was nothing. Busting through the bumper high snow like it wasn't even there. We headed south on Main Street, hoping for a breakfast of something from the local gas station before heading south.

Yeah, right.

Just as we got in sight of the local gas station/Arby's/Convenience Store next to the freeway, the lights went out. And that is no analogy. All the LIGHTS, in the city, went OUT! No power, no breakfast. Shit.

We got on the freeway and headed south. Hungry, tired, wanting coffee and just not at all happy. Hoping the storm would end soon. And it didn't.

Most of the way to Beaver, we followed a big truck, at 40 miles an hour because the snow was blowing right into the windshield, and we couldn't see very well. So we figured we'd be better off behind him. When I finally got a chance to pass, and did, I had to stop in Beaver to take the ice off the wipers! This is now, officially, the worst trip I've ever made!

We get back on the freeway and it's not TOO bad. Phil is driving all the way to St. George because I can't take it anymore. And when we finally get there, still in the storm, but WAY out of the snow, it's a relief to pull of the freeway and go to the best restaurant in southern Utah, The Fairway Grill in St. George.

This place is great. Mostly old folks there, and the waitresses are not kids either. They do a great job, and the food is awesome. It's on St. George Blvd. It's my favorite restaurant in St. George. Great breakfast. But if you have the chance to have lunch there? Have the fries! they are AWESOME! Crispy steak fries. You will never have fried potato's this good, ever, anywhere.

We have breakfast and head south to Las Vegas. We get there, and it's about noon local time. So NOW what do we do? Can't check in until four o'clock.

We go to Planet Hollywood so Phil can get his daughter some jacket from some designer shop.

I've got an idea! Let's try to find the pawn shop from, "Pawn Stars"! I LOVE that show. I couldn't figure out, when it first started, why THIS was on the, History Channel. But when I'd watched a few shows, I learned a lot, and knew it was here for a reason.

Made a few wrong turns, but did find it. Pulled into the parking lot, and there is, I shit you not, a LINE, behind a velvet rope, to get IN! Really? There's a line to get into a PAWN SHOP!?

Have you seen the big, Black Man on the show that's at the door? He's working the, "rope" this morning. When he let's us in I ask him, "Is this normal?" He says, "Every day."

Wow.

Phil and I look around a little, since neither of us want anything out of a Pawn shop, I just wanted to see the place since I like the show. I buy some t-shirts for me and the kids. Deb doesn't wear tshirts. And I'm about to leave. But, "Big Hoss" comes out into the store. Oh, shit, he's a ROCK STAR to the guys checking out in front of me. So I have to stand there for a while, while they have him autograph their stuff. Bummer.

"BIG" Hoss is not THAT big. He's shorter than me, and not half as wide. So it goes.

I finally got close to a counter, jewelry, and ask the guy behind it, "I'm in the market for a .45 Auto. It's a gun I've always wanted and it would be cool to say I bought it from here. But I don't see any guns in here. Do you still sell them?" He said that, no they did not. They only sold historical guns. And most telling he also said, "We're now a t-shirt shop with a Pawn License". True story.

I still love the show. But I'm now smarter, and don't fall for it so much.

Next story? Why I can't get a lap dance in Las Vegas. Even when I tried, and had money with me.