The Road... continued

This is where my tour started feeling more like a vacation...So after my Sunday gig in Flagstaff, AZ I drove up to Las Vegas to spend a few days visiting a college roommate/bestest bud of mine. Tony teaches photography at a Las Vegas high school, and is loving the city and scene. Pictured above is one of the nicer Casinos on the Strip, the Bellagio. I didn't have any shows in Vegas, but it was a good way to spend a Sunday through Tuesday, generally days when you will find mediocre gigs anyways. Though, I probably could've picked a cheaper place to lay low, Vegas bleeds you dry. This was my first time to the city, and I actually swore I'd never go until Tony moved there. I can no longer sing the line in Ryan Adams' song, "never been to Vegas, but I've gambled all my life" with sincerity, drat.

After Vegas it was time to head to Los Angeles, another city I had never been to. My brother Cody recently moved here to try his hand at the film industry. Here Cody is pointing to his Kingdom, in North Hollywood.

While I did play some gigs in L.A. and Long Beach, this was definitely vacation mode. My parents flew out from Wisconsin because they had not yet visited Cody, and that weekend Tony drove down from Vegas so we could all hang out. Above is my mom trying her luck with a penny in Chinatown.

The Griffith Park Observatory, located up in the hills above Hollywood and Los Angeles. It has been featured prominently in many films, most famously in "Rebel Without A Cause" with James Dean. It has some really neat exhibits inside, and provides an amazing lookout over the city. Definitely worth a visit.

The Hollywood sign off in the distance. It was pretty hazy that day, not sure if it was fog or the smog, but probably both.