Vegas and Segment 3 in NV

Day 24 – 4/5 – Easter on the Strip, the Sphere, and Wendy’s finish line – (Las Vegas, NV) – We woke up and got on the road pretty quickly with Wendy so she could start her run for the day. The sunrise was nice and it was Easter so it was kind of weird to be not right on the Vegas Strip as we got towards Vegas. Sign to take a picture. Wendy and then we started driving through Vegas and trying to show her where the turns were. Although it was hard to stop, Vegas was almost exactly like I expected. It was very strange the amount of like opulence and all the different things around like the pyramid and stuff like that as we were driving through trying to keep track of Wendy. At one of the crew stops, Gabby really had to go to the bathroom but she was having a hard time finding one and once Wendy, Caroline and her friend Caitlin got there, we realized that we had a lot of time to get to finish line. So we decided to kill time by going to a Mexican place across the road there and it was best food that we’ve had eating out on this trip. After we had that for lunch we made our way to the finish line and took a little bit to figure out where we were going to set up the arch. The Ms Run the US speed project team joined us at the finish line for Wendy. The speed project is a race that is kind of secret that goes from LA to Las Vegas and they do it in like 44 hours or something like that. And so the speed project team that MS run the US sent had just finished the night before and so they came to to the finish line for Wendy. It was a pretty exciting moment once she rounded the corner into the park because there were a lot of people there that were there to cheer her on and it was a pretty special moment for her and everyone else. After all the celebrations, me and Gabby and Caroline wrapped everything up and put everything in the car and we brought Carolina Wendy back to their hotel and then me and Gabby went back to the RV to chill for a little bit and then go to the Sphere. We parked in the Venetian parking to get to the sphere and we walked through the hotel and casino and that was our first time really being in one of the big casinos in Vegas and it was insane on how expensive everything seemed and I felt kind of like out of place is very strange as we were walking through there to get to this year. Once we got to our seats the size of the screen in there is pretty insane. I thought it was cool how they adapted The wizard of Oz for the sphere. They seemed to have almost completely recreated the scenes at themselves in VFX and then put the old footage from the actors over that and that was a pretty cool effect. There was some points where you could kind of tell that they were placed in there but it worked really well for what that screen can do. There was also a lot of like 4D elements like wind and the seats shaking and apples falling from the sky and leaves and and stuff like that. Me and Gabby had a lot of fun being able to go to something like that together and is definitely something I’ll remember. After the show we joined some of the speed project people for dinner at speakeasy type of place and it was cool to get to know them a little bit, although the food wasn’t the greatest. Gabby and I went to an ice cream place after that which was pretty chill. It was a unique type of ice cream. I think it might have been Korean or something like that, but there were these like fish-shaped wafer cone things that were really good and they were stuffed with whatever creamy thing we wanted. Gabby got Nutella and I got custard and then we got ice cream with that as well. She got ube ice cream and I got ube and cookies and cream swirl. After we were done with our ice cream we went back to the RV and hung out for a little bit and then went to bed.

Day 25 – 4/6 – Red Rocks and walking around Vegas – (Las Vegas, NV) – We got up later and had breakfast together and did a few things around the RV, and then we got in the car to go to Red Rocks. We picked up Caroline because she didn’t have anything to do before her flight that day. We drove out there and it was once again a very beautiful area and it wasn’t very far from Vegas. I found a hike for us to do which was super pretty as we went through all the crazy rock formations. We had lunch on the top of a cool rock and then kept going. The hike was really cool because we got to go through this little canyon with many different types of rocks and even trees around. It was nice to see some trees again after being in the desert for so long. At the end of the hike there was a pretty big open space over looking Vegas which was pretty awesome. We hung out there for a little while and then went back down the trail. We drove around red rocks for a little while and then went back to the city where we dropped off Caroline and went back to the RV park for a little while. That night we wanted to see what Vegas was like at night, although we were both pretty sure we wouldn’t be the biggest fans, but it was at least cool to walk around. We got dinner with Caroline and then went to a speakeasy place where this guy was using a loop pedal to play mashups of different songs all by himself. We had a fun time there, it was definitely a unique thing to experience as we were going in especially. We also went to see the Bellagio fountain show thing and the gardens that were inside the lobby of the hotel. The gardens were pretty impressive and we had fun looking around at the different flowers and sculpture type things that looked like different birds. We went back to the parking garage and went back to the RV to go to bed.

Day 26 – 4/7 – Getting ready for the next runner and Krispy Kreme – (Las Vegas, NV) – We got up late because we were out relatively late. We just had to get the RV ready for the next runner that day so we hung out for a little bit and then worked on that. The next runner, Lindsay, and her husband JD came to the RV to drop some stuff off at 6, and we talked with them for a little while. They had a lot of groceries so we figured out places for all that stuff which was a little chaotic. After they went back to their hotel for the night Gabby and I went to Walmart to pick up the order for the week and we got Krispy Kreme after that. I hadn’t had Krispy Kreme before and Gabby wanted to change that, I thought they were pretty good. I went to target to get some new shorts because somehow two of my pairs got new holes in the same week and I didnt notice until I was doing laundry that day. I forgot that target is kind of expensive so I spent $50 for two pairs of shorts.

Day 27 – 4/8 – Moving the RV to the desert and Valley of Fire State Park – (Las Vegas – Coyote Springs NV) – I got up after Gabby left to meet Lindsay to start the run and packed up the RV and went to Walmart to get a few extra things before going into the desert to find a dry camping spot. The drive to the area we wanted to stay at was very nice landscape wise. I found a spot to camp at pretty quickly and set stuff up and got some lunch stuff ready. Lindsay got 24 miles for the day because of a few delays and the heat and stuff. Both Lindsay and her husband are vegan so they weren’t really eating the same things as us. So Gabby and I had lunch, did the Instagram post and then went to the valley of fire state park. It was a very beautiful area with all sorts of colorful rocks, and we did a hike through a part of it that was very pretty. We saw a lizard called a chuckwalla, the same type from the Amboy crater, but this time it was hanging out for awhile so I got some good photos of it. We hiked through a little canyon and it was golden hour on the way back so the rocks were very pretty. We were driving back and we saw a fair in the distance so we drove towards it and tried to go in but it was kind of expensive to get in so we decided to come back the next night. We got back, ate some dinner, and went to bed. 

Day 28 – 4/9 – Lindsay run day 2 and going to the fair – (Coyote Springs, NV) – We started the run morning with a pretty awesome sunrise and got Lindsay going for the day. We went to the Love’s down the road so I could go to the bathroom and I saw Lindsay’s husband JD in there which was a funny coincidence. He was going back towards Vegas in his rental car so he could go to the gym. Crewing Lindsay was going pretty well until quite a bit into the day when her knee wasn’t feeling well. She had injured it somehow, but it wasn’t bad enough for her to stop so she kept going. Eventually it was too much and Gabby ended up running the last 2.5 miles of the day. But Lindsay still did 25 miles that day. We got back to the RV and turned everything on and started getting lunch stuff together, but after 15 minutes all the power stopped working, although the generator was still running. It wasn’t like before where there was a breaker flipped, it just all shut off. Not even the slide outs would move, although the water pump was still working. So we opened the windows and stuff and then drove to find service so we could call Ashley and try and figure it out. We were able to figure out a few things that it could be, the main one being that there might be a breaker on the generator itself that might have flipped. Thankfully there was a breaker on the generator and we were able to flip it and everything worked again. Gabby and I ate lunch and made sure that Lindsay was all good and finished the social media stuff. We talked with Lindsay about how she was struggling with her knee and how she wasn’t sure about continuing with the miles, but that she would see in the morning when she started. After all that was done we went to the fair/rodeo that we had seen the night before. It was a lot bigger then we thought, we walked around for a little while watching a few things and then we got food and watched this show where this guy was juggling a bunch of different stuff, with his finale being juggling chainsaws. It was a pretty funny and amazing little show. After that was done we got some cookies and went to the rodeo. It was a fun time, the rodeo clown guy was funny, and of course all the rodeo athletes were pretty awesome. We saw bronco bucking, wrangling calfs, and a few other things. We didn’t want to stay too long so we left before it was over but I’m glad we got to go, it was a pretty spontaneous and random thing which was fun. We pretty much went to bed right after we got back.

Day 29 – 4/10 – Lindsay and JD leaving and Gabby running a marathon – (Coyote Springs, NV) – We got up and got out the door to get to the start line, and as Lindsay walked over to the other side of the road to get started she was already limping a little bit which was not good. Gabby and I went back to the RV to get her stuff in case she had to run that day and as we were headed back towards Lindsay we saw their rental car coming towards us and they flashed their lights to tell us to come back to the RV. Once we got there Lindsay said that she didn’t think she would be able to continue. She talked to Gabby about it for a little bit but she decided that she had gone over her limit. They decided that they would leave right then so they packed up and we made sure they had what they wanted from the groceries that they brought. They got in their car and left and then Gabby and I went to start her running for the day. We texted Ashley about what happened and she called us and said we should go back and get an interview with Lindsay. She called Lindsay and asked her to go back so we could do an interview. I didn’t think about getting it when they were leaving because it was so sudden that they were leaving. Lindsay was obviously upset that she couldn’t continue so we talked about that and about her trying and the 50 miles she ran in 2 days which is still a lot and that she should be proud of that. After that we said goodbye again and then Gabby and I went to start her run for the day. It was very beautiful outside and once she got on this one dirt road it was an especially beautiful landscape. I ran 1 mile by running back to her and we also walked a mile at the end, but I was just crewing her most of the time. We went back to the RV and had lunch and chilled and then we went for a short hike to see a canyon area that was near the RV. It was a pretty cool area and we saw a rainbow from the little bit of rain that was coming down. We went back to the RV and didn’t do much the rest of the night.