coming into laughlin

When I saw Hunter Thompson many years ago give a lecture at the University of Kansas, he was not impressed with the crowd, expecting us to be more boisterous than we were. He said, “ I remember when the only way to come into Lawrence was to blow in on a motorcycle.”

Well, the only correct way to come into Laughlin, Nevada, is to blow in on a jet. But since Laughlin has no airport, the only way to blow in is to fly into Bullhead City, Arizona, and limp into Laughlin on a bus, which is what we did last weekend. When we got off the plane at Bullhead City, my girlfriend asked me whether it was always as hot here as it was. I said, yes. It was only later I found out they were having a record string of days in the 120s (Fahrenheit, for those of you on the Pacific rim, who might have been asking at that point, “Wouldn’t temperatures like that cause the Colorado River to boil?”) I told my girlfriend it was a dry heat, but that wasn’t true, either. It was very humid. For those meteorology fans in the group, you are aware that humidity doesn’t allow the air to heat up as much as it can without humidity, so I didn’t know that it was possible to be 120 degrees and humid. It was a good excuse to stay inside. The comfort index was suitable to cook a frozen pizza in about 15 minutes.

Anyway, if you were wondering why you hadn’t heard anything from me the last few days, we were having fun in the sun in Laughlin. Jimbo’s girlfriend spent a lot of time at the pool and now she is brown as a nut. Of course some people would say that spending time out of doors in 120-degree weather would qualify one as a nut, but my girlfriend was careful to stay out of the afternoon sun.

I spent a lot of time at the roulette tables and had a good time. I played a poker tournament and finished in sixth place (but only the top four places paid). I had a good time but made no money.

Sometimes in life one has to get away from the ordinary and do things that are different. It was good to be on vacation, and it’s good to be back.

At least that’s the way we feel in Jimbo’s world.