I always thought it would be cool to be one of those traveling gypsy-type models, so when one of my photographer friends invited me to come shoot with him this summer up in Seattle, I decided to plan a whole modeling road trip around it. I posted a casting call on Model Mayhem, and before you know it I had six or seven shoots lined up, mostly in the Seattle area, but a few in the Bay Area and Reno as well. My plan is to leave Vegas around July 12th, then make my way up to the Bay Area, spend some time with my family there, and then continue up the coast to Portland and Seattle before heading back down toward Tahoe for a family reunion with my grandma and extended family on the 25th.

My sis agreed to come along with me, so we plan to make it a fun adventure, like we did on our Salton Sea foray last month. But in order for it to be REALLY fun, I decided I need to get my finances in order before I go: if I earn enough money to pay all my July bills up front, before I leave…then I won’t be under as much pressure to make money while I’m traveling, and can use my modeling earnings on the trip itself, for meals and hotels and whatnot…instead of living off Alpo and couch-surfing, like other traveling models.

Since I’m already super-anal about my finances, and have long figured out it costs me $70/day to live, I know exactly how much cash I need to earn before July 1st. If I earn enough, I can even go up there a few days earlier, and spend more time with my family — and if I really bust my hump, I can even make enough to cover August as well…which would be awesome, since I’m not sure yet if I’ll be going back to work Sturgis again this year. I certainly want to, but I have to confirm with the manager of the saloon where I worked last year…and he was kinda hard to read. My plan is to hit him up in early May, and see if he wants me back…in which case I’ll do like I did last year, and spend the first half of August spanking drunken bikers, and the second half running around naked at Burning Man 🙂

So anyhoo, in preparation for my summer adventures, I’ve been busting my ass, hustling for a buck left and right, socking it away. And as always, no job is too small…or too freaky!!!

Not all my gigs were freaky, though — I actually did a few normal, “nice-girl”-type jobs recently, just to keep my nice-girl skills from rusting. One night I worked a charity fundraiser wine-pouring event for this smoking hot French winemaker, who used to be a rugby star but retired to open a winery in the south of France. Must be nice!!! Anyway, he only showed up for photos at the beginning of the event, and then delegated the job to his assistant, this adorable little French hottie who took a shine to me. I offered to give him a ride back to his hotel after the event, because there were no taxis at the venue, and to thank me for my help he hooked me up with two cases of bad-ass hi-class French wine! SCORE! I normally drink Two Buck Chuck or worse, so this shit is a real treat.

Meanwhile, I was kinda nervous about pouring hi-class wine for all these cork-sniffers — this was a huge charity event they hold every year, and all the Botoxed society Frankenmatrons of Vegas come out to show off their new lips and tits and whatnot and talk fancy-talk about wine, while their husbands perv on all the model servers. But I needn’t have worried — everyone was so fucking wasted it was embarrassing. These dumb-ass poseur chippies would stumble up to my table with their wineglasses held out for a pour, and the French hottie would start blathering about the terroir and notes of oak and shit, and you could see these dumb-ass bitches had zero idea what he was talking about — nor did they care, they just wanted to get fucked up for free. It was amazing! I don’t know why I’m always so self-conscious at these events — despite the fact that I am a foul-mouthed plebian, I have more class and brains in one hair on my big toe than most of these idiots have in their entire collagen-plumped bodies.

Aaaanyhoo, aside from pouring wine to the wealthy, I also put in a few days at a tradeshow, which I always loathe, but this one wasn’t so bad because I was working with a pretty good girlfriend of mine who makes things fun. NOTE to prospective tradeshow clients: if you are looking to hire a booth model, consider hiring two! I find that two models are waaaay more effective than one, because they can tag-team these poor shlub conventioneers and hustle them into signing up for your iPad drawing or whatever-the-fuck hustle you have going to generate leads. MUCH more effective!

The best part about working tradeshows is the corporate gobbledygook they have you parrot, to reel in prospective leads: at this show, they told us to say that “we” (and by “we,” I mean the client, not “me”) are a cloud-based project management solutions platform. Now, you tell me….what the fuck is a “cloud-based project management solutions platform?!?!?!” 

What’s really interesting is, you’d think that booth models who actually understand what they’re saying would be the most effective — but you’d be WRONG!!! It doesn’t matter one bit if the model understands the first thing about cloud-based project management solutions platforms (hereafter to referred to as “CBPMSPs”) — as long as she’s attractive, and personable, and calls the guy by his name (as seen on his nametag)…she can pretty much talk him into signing up for anything. I’ve seen this firsthand with the chick I was working with — she’s beautiful, flirty and aggressive, but has such a thick accent that I’m gonna say 95% of the guys she hustled in had no idea what was going on….they just did what she wanted, because she’s hot and was persistent. She could have been signing them up for chemical castration, for all they knew! But anyhow, I really like working with this chick because she’s one of the best I’ve ever personally witnessed, and she makes it fun and easy to rope in leads. Although I must admit, I’ve already forgotten what a CBPMSP is, and moreover…I don’t care!

Anyway, like I said I don’t really love tradeshow gigs, but they do pay well and can be kinda interesting, here and there. But I have a hard time getting those gigs, because when it comes time to apply, I have very few “decent” photos I can submit, like headshots! I have hundreds and hundreds of photos, but in most of them I’m naked or wearing a Viking helmet or something, so I can’t use them to get “straight” work. With that in mind, I set up a few photo shoots recently to get “square” shots…but gawd, it’s so boring!!!!! I shot with my one of my favorite photographer/friends Michael Maze the other night specifically for the purpose of getting a boring-ass headshot, but things devolved quickly until the next thing you know, I was wrassling on the floor in a Lucha Libre mask and my electric vagina :-/ I just can’t seem to get it together and be normal!!! Arrrrrgh!

The easiest solution to this quandary is just to not do any “normal” gigs — which of course I have no problem with, as I’ve certainly done my fair share of unorthodox gigs lately. The freakiest and most fun were these two fetish sites I shot for: first I did a shoot for DecorativeGirls.com, where you strip naked and pretend to be a piece of furniture, like a plant stand or a nightstand or something (?!?!?!). This was one of the WEIRDEST shoots I’ve done — two-minute videos, no talking or anything, just sitting there naked holding a plant. Bizarre!

But even more bizarre, and  quite possibly the most amazing, freakiest, funnest gig I have EVER DONE, was for TaylorMadeClips.com the other week. Taylor shoots a lot of inflation fetish, where a girl gets fatter and fatter until she explodes or whatever — and one of her most popular sub-genres is the blueberry fetish, where a girl turns into a giant blueberry, a la Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I guess a lot of guys popped their first woody during that scene, so it remains a hot-button for them for the rest of their lives). Well, I finally made a lifelong dream of mine come true last week when I was blown up into a giant blueberry!!!!!!!!!!

OMG, it was amazing — in the video, I play a Monsanto scientist, working on a genetically mutated blueberry big enough to feed the entire world. But when I go to add the special super-sizing agent to the blueberry DNA, it froths over and accidentally spills on my hand…causing me to turn blue, and swell up into a giant blueberry!!!!!! Oh, no!!!!! I get bigger and bigger, and more and more terrified…until finally I just give in and realize how good it feels to be a giant blueberry swollen with delicious blueberry juice — mmmmm! The feel of all that blueberry juice sloshing around against my taut skin feels so good that I end up just moaning and groaning and finally disappearing into the blueberry altogether….until finally, I grow so big that I EXPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG, if you’re into the blueberry fetish you will bust your fucking nut in no time watching this amazing masterpiece!!!!

While I was there, I also filmed another clip of dirty blueberry talk. I’ve been chewing magic Wonka gum, so I’m already swollen up and blue like a blueberry: “Would you like to join me? Here, chew this gum! Do you taste the roast beef and tomato soup? So yummy!! Now do you taste the baked potato?? Mmmmmmm!!!! Uh-oh, now it’s time for dessert — here comes the blueberry pie!!!! Do you taste it?? Doesn’t it taste good??? Oh no, look! You’re starting to turn blue and swell up too! Your fingers are turning blue, your arms are swelling up and turning blue….oh my, now even your dick and balls are turning blue and swelling up!! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!” 

In summary, I can’t fucking believe I got paid to something this fucking fun!!! It was amazing!!!! The only downside was, I had blueberry juice in my ears and toenails for like a week afterward. But that was OK, since I also put in another night of mud-rasslin’ at Gilley’s….and that messed me up pretty bad, too.

You may recall that last time I mud-rassled, I accidentally ingested some of the chocolate pudding “mud,” and was afflicted with terrible diarrhea afterward. Well, this time I knew better, so made sure to keep my lips shut, and to shower off thoroughly afterward. This rassling experience was better all-around than my last time, which you might recall was slightly scarring since I only got a $40 bid to be my towel boy — well, this time, some poor drunk guy bid $60 on me, and paid up….but was so wasted that they had to escort him out of the bar before he had a chance to get in the ring with me. So they auctioned me off a second time, and this awesome British dude bid another $60 on me — and he was cool. He helped me defeat my first opponent, Kombat Kitty…but then I faced off against Betty Rage, and she beat my ass 🙁 Oh well, you can’t win ’em all!!

Then before you know it, it was April 20th again — a/k/a 420, the national pot-smokers’ holiday! Last year, I had just finished making my marijuana showgirl costume in time for this momentous occasion, but you may recall that I went out busking with my friend Jay Joint in his giant joint costume, and they made us leave Fremont Street because his costume was “inappropriate.” Well, this year I decided to go out alone, since a) I didn’t want to get kicked out again, and b) I wanted to go out earlier, and Jay Joint never goes out til after 10pm.

So this year I headed downtown to the Fremont Street Experience pedestrian mall around 7pm, and went to town. It was great!! I made about $200 in three hours, and could have stayed longer if I hadn’t been bummed the fuck out by the oppressive police-state vibe down there. See, Fremont Street is technically a public thoroughfare, but they blocked it off to vehicle traffic and put in this cheesy light show canopy thingy overhead, so now it’s run by a gang of buzzkilling thugs known as the Fremont Street Experience, LLC, which I guess all the casinos down there pay into. Because it’s still technically a public thoroughfare, they can’t ban buskers (street performers) outright — but they can and do make it next to impossible for us to work our shtick!!

I hadn’t been down there more than 5 minutes when a security guard came up to me: “You’re new here, aren’t you? Well, you can’t stand within 200 feet of a performance stage when there’s a performance going on.”

“Oh, OK! I’m sorry!”  I moved down the street, 200 feet-ish away, but I couldn’t stand there, either: “You can’t stand within 20 feet of a crosswalk, it’s a hazard.”

“Oh, my bad, I’m sorry! Where can I stand?!”

“Over here, by these trash cans. But don’t get closer than 10 feet to any of the kiosks, or 20 feet from any casino entrance!!!” “YES, SIR!!!”

So I basically glued my feet to this one tiny little spot where he’d said it was OK to stand, and meanwhile there were about 50 other buskers working the same patch of ground, since it was basically one of the only free zones on the entire fuckin’ street. I mean, Captain America, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Elvis, Michael Jackson and three sets of showgirls were all crammed into this little bitty shitty spot, and it was nuts! 

Still, things were going pretty well for me until these two beat-up old stripper-looking showgirls showed up in raggedy-ass bedraggled costumes. They might not have looked like much — but every time someone posed for a photo with them, they would each raise one leg up in the air so that their ankle was behind their neck, basically flashing their sequined twats at the camera!!! Forget about it — my business was over! I tried to walk down Fremont Street to another spot, but it was so fucking tricky trying to figure out what was 200 feet from this and 20 feet from that, while still maintaining a distance of 10 feet from the other, that I kept fucking up and getting yelled at. Finally this one snaggle-toothed redneck kid security guard screamed at me to get out and go home, because I wasn’t listening to him!!!

I was like, “Hey man, I’m really making a sincere effort to abide by your regulations, but I find them baffling! I don’t have a tape measure on me!” At this he relented a bit, and showed me exactly where I could stand: “You see that sign in front of the ABC Store? You can stand anywhere on the far side of the “B” in “ABC.” Are you fuckin’ serious?!?!?!?!?

Look, I know what’s going on: these fucking casinos downtown are pissed off that tourists should spend a few bucks outside their gambling tables, god forbid. They’d rather see people piss their money away on craps, blackjack and plastic footballs full of sugary alcohol slush!!! It’s so fucked up I don’t even know where to begin…but that’s the way it’s gonna be, and mark my fucking words, they will not rest until they’ve regulated every fucking inch of space down there to the point where there’s no room to busk whatsoever. Fuckin’ Vegas, man!!! I wish that all the hundreds of Vegas street performers and buskers would all band together and stage a fuckin’ protest march down there — how awesome would that be?!?! Can you imagine — a throng of a thousand Elmos, Elvises and SpongeBobs???? They’d never be able to stop all of us!!!!

By that time, I was so disheartened that I gave up and started walking back to my car…but on the way, my headdress inadvertently got in the background of some big fat saggy-titted hag in a slutty pirate costume’s photo, and she snarled at me to get the fuck out: “GIT OFF’N MY LAND!” basically. JEEZ! The atmosphere down there is so toxic and miserable, I don’t know when I’ll have the balls to go back down there. I mean, it was good cash money, but….at what price?!?

One final wacky gig I did lately was act as concierge for this group of rowdy drunken Canadian guys who come out every year to play golf and cat around: I caddied for them last year, and they were so taken with me that this year they hired me to arrange everything. The first day, I set up a nude photo shoot with me and my fellow Goddess Collective members up at Red Rock Canyon — we drove the guys out there and posed for softcore lesbo photos for a couple hours, and a great time was had by all. Then the next day, we all met up at a local golf course and proceeded to booze our way around the course, taking all manner of salacious photos and engaging in all kinds of naughty shenanigans involving strategically-placed golf tees and lots of puns involving the word “balls.” The final day, we were all supposed to get a cabana at one of the big pool parties, but the weather had turned shitty so we ended up just getting wasted at their hotel Jacuzzi, then going to the nightclub and getting fucked up til all hours of the night.

Now, I haven’t set foot in a nightclub since the days when I was working at The Act…and guess what, it was just as abhorrent an experience as I recalled! This particular place, HAZE, was especially lame and unremarkable — they actually had the gall to hire that tired-ass moron from Jersey Shore, Pauly D, as DJ!!! Even worse, all the star-struck, fat-assed farm girls in the crowd were absolutely stoked, holding up their cell phones to capture footage of this momentous occasion. JEEEZ!!!!

Still, I’m not sure what happened but I ended up having a fantastic time — I was dressed really sloppily, in leggings and flip-flops (remember, we were boozing at the pool all day), but something happened and I went bat shit dancing, burning about 1,000,000 calories and having a really good time, despite the horrible DJ and lame-ass environment…so I guess it wasn’t all bad! The only downside was, after all that I felt like I’d been hit by a giant alcoholic Canuck bus — I mean, I was exhausted when those guys left! I don’t know how they did it.

Now that I think about it, I was probably tired not only because of the Canadian guys…but because of all the other crazy shit I’ve been up to lately! I mean, not only the shit I’ve already covered in this blog — that was all just work!! Don’t forget, I also had plenty of PLAY the past few weeks!!

The best party I went to lately was this amazing Burning-Man-themed bicycle pub crawl organized by one of my neighbors, called Blinking Man. Twice a year, about 300-400 wackos in costumes ride bikes covered in blinking lights all over downtown Vegas, stopping at four or five bars along the way for drinks and fun. This one group carts around a full DJ setup, and we basically have raves in all the parking lots we stop at along the way –

– it’s a RIOT! I went with some of my neighbors and friends, and even my roommate made an appearance, Rollerblading around half-naked in an Indian headdress and a G-string. NICE! All in all I was out til about 2am, pedaling furiously about the streets of downtown Vegas, dancing and drinking and getting merry like Christmas. NO FUCKING WONDER I’M TIRED — that was my day off!!!

Then another night, I went over to the annual Viva Las Vegas rockabilly festival at the Orleans Hotel. I used to go over there every year to scope out all the crazy hardcore rockabilly kids from L.A. and all over the world, but I hadn’t been for a couple years, since it kinda gets old after awhile. But this year, I went with my friend the Baroness, and it was pretty cool! We sneaked into one of the lounges and partied late into the night to the rabble-rousing strains of a fabulous rockin’ Western Swing band — good times! The only bummer was, I had to drive…so I couldn’t get royally wasted, like the Baroness, who ended up baby-talking to two cops like the shameless hussy that she is!!!

Now, after all that city dwelling, you know I had to

get out into the desert and have some fun in the fresh air and sunshine, too!! One night, some hippie pals and I kayaked out on the Colorado River and had a bonfire on one of the beaches to watch the Blood Moon eclipse. Remember that? When the moon turned all orange and weird that one night? It was fabulous!! We had a big ol’ fire, and listened to Rush on my friend’s boom box, smoking some reefer and partying like it was 1981. Good fucking times!!!

The only downside was, the eclipse didn’t even start until like 11pm, and it dragged on until like 2am….and we couldn’t leave until the whole eclipse was over, since there wasn’t enough ambient light out to kayak by until the moon came back!! But let me tell you, when the moon finally did come back out, it was fantastic: gliding down the silent river in the dark of night, with just the gentle splashing of the kayak paddles in the moonlit water. Magical!!! I didn’t end up getting to bed til like 5am, but…hey, YOLO, man!!!

Now finally, the most traumatic adventure I had lately was this overnight campout I did on the top of Mount Potosi, with my ol’ buddy Alex. You remember Alex — the guy I went on that bickering snowbound campout in Mammoth Lakes with? He and I don’t really get along too well, but for some reason I thought it would be fun to hike up to the top of Mt. Potosi with him — it’s been on my bucket list for eons, and he brought it up so I agreed to go, and camp out overnight at the top, overlooking the lights of Vegas.

Also, there’s the wreckage of this historical plane crash up there — back in the ’40s, the actress Carole Lombard died in a fiery crash on one of the mountain slopes, and to this day no one has ever recovered her wedding ring. She was married to the actor Clark Gable at the time, but she heard a rumor he was messing around with up-and-coming-starlet Lana Turner, so despite the advice of the air traffic controller, she insisted on flying back to L.A. that night to keep tabs on him — in the middle of a terrible storm!! The plane ended up crashing and everyone aboard died, and Clark Gable spent three days at the nearby Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, waiting for word from the search party…but it was of no use. The area where the plan crashed is super rugged, and they had a hard time getting up there to look for survivors, even if there were any. Anyhoo, like I said the wreckage is still up there, and Carole Lombard’s wedding ring is supposedly up there somewhere, too…just begging to be found by an intrepid Hussy!!!

So when my buddy Alex invited me to go, I was stoked…despite the fact that our Arizona hotsprings adventure ended badly. I packed up my tent and sleeping bag and stuff, and rigged up a backpack to carry it all, then headed out to pick up Alex at his parents’ house. The trouble started there: he wanted to bring a pair of bolt-cutters, so we could cut the lock on the gate at the bottom of the road and drive up to the top of the mountain. He kept telling me it was too hard to hike the whole way — like, it was straight vertical uphill, harder than the Grand Canyon!

However, I insisted that I would not be party to his cutting a lock, and that we would hike the whole way like real men. So already, he was peeved with me. He kept arguing with me that “no one has the right” to put up a lock, that “no one can own land,” etc. etc. etc. (He’s obsessed with that whole bullshit Cliven Bundy debacle up in Mesquite…you know, the redneck rancher who’s refusing to pay his grazing fees?)

Still, we didn’t bicker too much on the way up. He kept saying things to goad me, but I was pretty relaxed and let it all slide — he kept mocking my makeshift backpack, and questioning the legitimacy of my work as a model, etc. etc. etc. Some people are just like that, and if you want to hang with them, you have to deal with it. Anyway, we both made it to the top of the mountain a little after dark, and it was actually really cool — we set up camp, had a big bonfire, and sat there looking out over the lights of Vegas. That is an AMAZINGLY beautiful spot to camp — what a view!

Alex had forgotten to bring much food, but he refused my offer to share my falafel, so he sat there while I ate, and he drank his only beer and I drank some wine. He kept bitching at me for not bringing mushrooms — he’d asked me to via text message the day before, and secretly I had brought some, but decided it was a bad idea to eat them up there with him, so kept mum. As it was, we ended up having a pretty nice, peaceful night with little arguing and some pretty good conversation. I smoked him out, although he did make fun of me for being cheap with my weed, and not changing the bowl out after every hit — that’s the kind of person he is. I drove us out there, I offered to share my food, I shared my weed — and all he does is bitch me out for being miserly and not bringing mushrooms. You just can’t win with some people.

Anyway, he fell asleep by the fire, so I shoveled dirt on it and went to bed myself. It was really windy up there, so I didn’t get much sleep, with my tent flapping around and stuff — but I was super stoked to get up the next morning and hike down to that plane crash site! So in the morning, Alex made coffee and eggs (I’ll give him credit for that, he shared his breakfast with me but still refused to share my Clif bars with me, even though I had an extra one for him — he’s so weird like that) and then we packed up camp and headed back down the mountain.

The plane crash site is off the side of the mountain near the top, down a really rugged slope on a totally unmarked trail. Alex’s idea was to hike down to the crash site, then continue hiking overland to the bottom of the mountain and back out to the road that way. Well, I was uncomfortable hiking on that steep slope with all that gear strapped to my back — I felt top-heavy, and preferred to leave my gear up at the top, hiking down a different way to the crash site, then back up to get my gear and back down the way we’d come up yesterday. Sure it was a longer route, but it seemed easier to me.

Well, Alex just wouldn’t let up about how stupid it was, and how I “never” take his advice and how his way was so much easier. Despite his anger, he begrudgingly hiked back down the way I wanted to go, and we both left our packs at the top of the mountain, just off the trail, and started picking our way to the crash site. The whole time, Alex is reminding me how stupid my idea is, and how this way is just as hard as his way, and I should have listened to him. Jeez!!! After about an hour, we lost sight of each other — the terrain out there is SUPER rugged, as mentioned, and it’s easy to get lost.

I picked my way along for about another hour or so, but I wasn’t really dressed for it (I had on shorts) and it was REALLY windy, and I couldn’t find the plane wreckage anywhere…so I finally gave up and hiked back up the mountain to where we’d left our packs, thinking I’d wait for him there. I sat around for a bit, but saw/heard no trace of him…which kinda got me worried. I called his name a few times, no answer. So I decided to hike back up to the spot where he’d originally wanted to hike down to the crash site — it was a better overlook of the crash site, so maybe I’d see him there. I left a note on his pack saying I’d be right back, then hiked back up to the first spot — no sign of Alex!

So I hiked back down to where we’d left our packs, thinking he’d probably be there waiting for me — still nothing! Only now, my sleeping bag was missing!!! Our backpacks were there, but my sleeping bag was gone. I figured he’d hidden it somewhere nearby, and was sitting there watching me — so I looked around, but no sign of Alex or my bag. My next thought was that the wind had blown it down the mountainside — but I looked around pretty thoroughly, and saw no trace of it. I mean, a bright blue bag would stand out pretty well on a scrubby hillside, no? But I couldn’t see it anywhere!!!

So now, I started to get a little weirded out. I figured a person didn’t take it, since a) there were no people up there, and b) there was much more valuable equipment in Alex’s pack. So did an animal drag it off?? I had no idea, and it was so windy and weird up there, with the ghost of Carole Lombard keening in the pines, that I kinda got a little creeped out. I sat there for another hour waiting for a sign from Alex, until about 3pm, but it was fucking cold and windy and shitty, so finally I gave up and decided to wait for him in my truck at the bottom of the mountain. I left another note on his pack saying I’d wait for him in the truck til 7pm, then hiked all the way back down to the bottom, about 3 miles.

When I got to my truck it was about 5pm, and I called my mom to see what she thought I should do. There were only about two hours of daylight left, and part of me was afraid something had happened to Alex up there, and I should try to find him before dark. But ANOTHER part of me knew that he is totally ornery and independent, and for all I know had hiked down all the way to the bottom, leaving his pack up at the top to pick up the next day, on his dirt bike. For all I knew, he was already at the Saloon, waiting for me. I wasn’t sure what to do!

Alex had left his cell phone in my truck, so I took the liberty of calling his dad and asking him what he thought. His dad didn’t seem too worried — apparently Alex disappears all the time like this. He said I should wait til 7, and then call him if I still hadn’t found him. But then somehow his mom found out, and she called me, all worried, saying that she was sending his dad out there right now to look for him. I mean, the terrain up there was so rugged that there was nothing either one of us could really have done, anyway…but it seemed like we had to do something! At this point, I hadn’t seen Alex in five hours…kind of weird for someone you are supposedly hiking with!

Anyway, I drove around the base of the mountains looking for signs of Alex, but most of the roads were either gated off or two gnarly for my little 2wd truck to handle. I went into town and checked the saloon, but no one had seen him there, either. Finally, I headed back to the place where I’d parked the truck overnight, down by where he’d wanted to cut the lock — and there he was, waiting for me! Apparently he’d hiked to the crash site and hung around for a couple hours waiting for me, and when I didn’t show up, he figured I’d just hiked out and followed me back. D’OH!!!!!!

Now I felt like a total ass for having called his parents — and when he found out I’d called them, he flipped out! “DON’T YOU KNOW I’VE HIKED ALL OVER THE WESTERN U.S., CANADA AND MEXICO?! I CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING OUT IN THESE WOODS!” He made me feel like a total puss for having worried, so I bawled him out in the car and told him I never wanted to see him again. I drove him back to his parents’ house, dropped him off, and that was it. Two days later he moved to Colorado for the summer, to work at some high-class golf resort out there…and I haven’t seen him since.

Honestly, it’s for the best. There are some people who just don’t get along, and he and I are two of them!! But now I’m really wondering…..was I a total idiot to have worried so much about him up there on that mountain? In retrospect, it seems I should have just sat in my car and waited til he showed up, and not worried so much.

Dangit!!! I need to be less of a worrier…….and more of a WARRIOR!!!

 

 

 

Incoming search terms:

• taylormadeclips blueberry
• blueberry fetish
• taylormadeclips google drive

Remember how last month, I was hanging out with Käpt’n Rummelsnuff and his First Mate Christian at their desert compound in Wonder Valley?? And remember how they filmed a music video for their new single, “Salutare,” with me and my sis and background dancers??

HERE IT IS!!! Enjoy this glimpse into the fabulous life at the Cat Ranch in Wonder Valley…

It’s springtime in the desert…as oft mentioned, my favorite time ever! The sun’s rays have just begun to gently seduce bottle-blonde party whores all over Vegas into shedding clothing like cherry blossom petals, and foot pervs everywhere are sporting wood over all the newly-pedicured toes going around in flip-flops. Well, with all that going on, never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be balls-deep in snow this time of year — but it happened to me TWICE in the past couple of weeks!

The first brush occurred a couple weeks back, when my friend Alex invited me to go camping “in the desert” off U.S. 395. For those not in the know, the 395 runs north-south along the eastern side of the Sierra Mountains, through some of the most beautiful country in the world. I haven’t explored it much, but have heard many tales of the amazing hotsprings along its hallowed length…so I was super stoked to check it out.

In addition, every time I drive up to the Bay Area, I take CA-58…and just outside Barstow, I always pass the 395 turnoff, at a place called Kramer Junction. The 395 trails tantalizingly off to the north, and every single time I’ve passed it, I have solemnly vowed to one day take that road and see where it goes. Well, that day was finally here!

Alex sent me a link to this fabulous-looking place called the Alabama Hills, which due to their relative proximity to Hollywood have been used as the backdrop for countless Westerns, and suggested we camp there. It looked awesome and fairly temperate, so I packed up my tent and some weed, wine and warm-ish clothes, and headed out with him on the open road.

 

Now, Alex is the guy I almost went to that off-road race in Baja with — he’s a loose cannon, to put it mildly. I originally thought he was like the male version of me, but I’ve since come to learn that he’s more like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Either way, he’s an interesting person if you like exploring the desert…and are not easily offended. You just have to stay on your toes.

Anyhoo, we left Vegas on a Friday afternoon, and moseyed down I-15 to Kramer Junction, then hung a thrilling right — at long last!! There is nothing in this world I enjoy more than heading down a road I’ve never been down before — NOTHING. It was fabulous!

 

After stopping to check out a few local attractions, including a creepy old abandoned military base/prison camp/???, we continued cruising north to the scenic little town of Lone Pine, where we turned off and headed west into the Alabama Hills, right at the base of snow-capped Mt. Whitney — the tallest peak in the continental U.S. The snowcapped mountains made a super-gorgeous, ultra-dramatic background to our campsite, nestled among the gently rounded boulders and desert scrub of the Alabama Hills — absolutely breathtaking!

After unpacking our gear, Alex rode his dirt bike off to town while I stayed behind and set up my tent and built a fire, like a good squaw. When he got back, I ate a pot cookie and got baked by the fire, and had a pretty good time. There’s little in this world I enjoy more than a campfire in the desert…ya know? The night was fairly warm, even with the snow-capped mountains in the background, and everything was completely amazing.

The next morning, I cranked up some Dark Side of the Moon and drove Alex’s truck while he rode his dirt bike through the hills and down the road to Manzanar. Manzanar was this internment camp where the U.S. Gov’ment forced U.S. citizens of  Japanese descent to live during WWII, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was basically a couple steps above a concentration camp — there were no ovens or forced labor, but they still had to give up all their possessions (other than what they could carry with them), abandon their homes and businesses, and leave their entire lives behind to go live in these drafty barracks in the desert until the war was over. Shameful!!!

Manzanar is now a museum and memorial site, so we checked that out and then headed back up the 395 to the slightly larger town of Bishop, where we stopped at Erik Schat’s Bakkerÿ (?!) for some delicious shepherd’s bread (for reals, you gotta try this shit. It’s amazing!!). The plan now was to keep heading north to Mammoth Lakes, where there are a bunch of super cool hot springs that I’ve been dying to check out for years. Alex knew all about them, since a few winters ago he and his ex-girlfriend lived out there in his truck, while working as ski lift operators at the resort on Mammoth Mountain.

However, the skies looked pretty ominous, and I kept getting these “Winter Storm Warning” alerts on my phone: “Are you sure we should camp there??” A storm was moving in over the mountains, and heavy-to-moderate snowfall was expected that night — and I hadn’t prepared for snow camping. All I had was my shitty little $20 WalMart kids’ tent, and a super thin sleeping bag. I was even kinda chilly the previous night, in the Alabama Hills! But Alex just scoffed at me, calling me a pussy: “I lived there all winter…you’ll be fine. You can sleep in the back of my truck [he has a camper shell] and I promise I won’t manhandle you.”

Hmmmm. If there’s one thing I hate more than being freezing fucking cold, it’s being called a pussy! But, man…I reeeeally hate being cold. Almost as much as being manhandled.

So we drove up to the ski resort area and checked it out, and it was pretty cool, if you’re into that scene. I personally am a lizard — I like the sun, and I like it HOT. Snow ain’t my bag, nor is snow culture in general — all those snowboarding bros and bro-ettes, bourgey skiiers, and boisterous blond kids in funky knit caps boozing in the chalet, which I observed in one of the bars up there over a round of drinks (I had one of those delicious hot toddies with coffee and Baileys and shit, trying to fortify myself for the freezing night to come…drinking hot toddies is the only part of ski culture I can get down with).

Anyway, despite my misgivings, we headed back down the mountain to the hot springs around sunset, and it was only getting colder and colder. There are several springs in the area around Mammoth, all sort of scattered around in this meadowy area on the east side of the highway. There’s even a hot creek that runs through the meadow, although they don’t recommend soaking in it as the temperature is known to fluctuate wildly from one minute to the next, and people die up there all the time from being scalded by boiling water being belched from the Earth! Yikes!!!

Anyway, skipping the creek, the first couple pools we stopped at were crowded with drunken revelers — and since Alex doesn’t like to soak around other people, those were no-gos. But when we did finally find a deserted pool, the water in it was only lukewarm :/ I insisted that if I had to spend the night freezing my ass off, I at least wanted some seriously HOT water to warm up in…so we kept going.

Meanwhile, along the way we stopped to check out this little hunting cabin Alex knew of, that’s easy to break into in case of an emergency — it has a wood stove and cozy beds and a cooler full of beer, and I guess is mainly used by cowboys during cattle grazing season, although Alex and his ex-girlfriend used to bunk there on exceptionally cold nights, when the temps were too low for even badasses like them to sleep in the back of his truck. As long as you leave it as you found it, it’s apparently OK to crash in…I mean, in an emergency, ya know?

Well, any snow at all is an emergency situation in my book, and that cabin looked pretty good to me!!! But Alex just called me a pussy and insisted we push on.  So we cruised back over to the hot pool with the least amount of people near it, and set up camp up the hill a bit, as close as possible to the springs…so that when we eventually had to get out, at least we didn’t have far to go in the freezing night air.

By “set up camp,” I mean all we really did was unload the firewood, build up a fire ring, and take out my camp chair. It was too dark and too cold to bother with anything more — so instead, I ate some mushrooms and drank some wine, and we headed down to the springs for a nice hot soak. Yay!!!!!

Now, all this time Alex was still chewing me out for being a pussy, since I was pretty much non-stop grousing about how cold it was. But I couldn’t help it — I was fucking cold, and not prepared to camp in the snow!! I’m a fairly hardy outdoorswoman, but only if I’m prepared for conditions. If I’d expected to camp in the snow, I’d have brought warmer clothes and blankets and stuff — but as it was, I’d packed for the climate in the Alabama Hills, which are at a much lower altitude. Either way, all we did was bicker and bitch and bitch and bicker at each other — until, thank Christ, my shrooms kicked in 🙂

By then, we were soaking blissfully in the pool of steaming hot spring water under an inky-black sky, and it was pretty fucking fabulous. We had the place all to ourselves (the other soakers probably took off when they heard us come bitching and bickering down the path), and the night was utterly still. This particular pool is fairly rustic and natural, but the bottom is cemented over, so it isn’t mucky and gross and full of pubes, like other natural springs I’ve been to. There are even little benches built in, so you can sit and soak in the utter peace and solitude with your head above water. It really is a truly exceptional hot springs!

As the night wore on and my buzz intensified, I turned on my headlamp to look for my lighter, and noticed that snow had begun to fall! The storm my phone was warning me about had rolled in, and big, fat fluffy flakes were falling all around us. In my shroomy state it was the most magical thing ever — to be sitting in a natural hot spring, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snow flurry!

Alas, my shroomy brain failed to anticipate the fact that snow melts when it touches warm shit — so all that magical snow piled up on my head soon melted into ice water, soaking my hair. Snow also covered my down jacket and furry boots, at the water’s edge — and so when my buzz finally wore off, there I was, sober and miserable with all my warm clothes cold and wet, and my head cold and wet as well…facing a bone-shatteringly cold night in a tin coffin i.e. camper-shell-covered-truckbed. Quel horreur!!

Well, there was noting to do but sack up, get dressed and tromp back through the snow to our “campsite,” where it was too late and too cold and too wet to even bother with a fire. To his credit, Alex made a pretty cozy bed in the back of his truck, and I snuggled down into my shitty WalMart sleeping bag and tried to get some sleep. But two things were bedeviling me.

One, my hair was wet and freezing fucking cold. Even in the best of times, I am afflicted with cold hands and feet (like many women)…so this night, I was really cold!! My feet were like two ice blocks all night long — despite the mountains of blankets Alex had prepared, my feet were by the drafty tailgate, and they actually ached from the cold, all through that miserable night.

Second (and even worse), I had somehow lost my lighter down by the hot spring, and the only one Alex had was buried in his gear outside the truck, in the freezing cold. I didn’t feel like getting dressed to go look for it in the snow…so I couldn’t even hit my pipe and get baked to forget my misery!! Instead, I had to break off a piece of a bud and chew it in my mouth, like chawing tobaccy — which, needless to say, didn’t really work well 🙁

So I spent a long, freezing, miserably sleepless night huddled up trying to warm my aching feet…and when the sun finally came up, it was a blessed relief. Even though I hadn’t really slept, I couldn’t wait to get up and put my feet back in the hot water of the springs. It was the only way to stop the aching!! So I rolled out of bed like a grumpy, puffy-eyed icicle, and got out of the truck to survey the landscape.

It really did look magical: a clear blue sky, with sunshine sparkling off the crust of pristine white snow covering everything — including this poor mango I’d brought along that had accidentally rolled out of my food bag, and was laying there in the road covered in frost, like a metaphor for my sad frostbitten ass.

 

Once I’d brushed my teeth and had some coffee, I felt better about things, so Alex and I headed back down to the springs for a morning soak before heading on our way. This morning we had company — an über-cool bearded road-warrior type named Kevin, who lived in a van with his two dogs, one of which was soaking in the pool with us. He was a super cool dude, and very interesting to talk to — he’d been on the road for over ten years, and had been camping out by these springs for a few weeks. His supplies were running low, though, so in a few days he was headed back to town — but in the meanwhile, I spotted him some smoke, and gave him the rest of our shepherd’s bread (which Alex relentlessly bawled me out for, despite the fact that it was my fuckin’ bread that I paid for…in fact, I paid for all our meals and drinks on the trip).

Anyway, after an hour or two we got out, dried off, packed up and headed out, stopping for lunch back up on Mammoth Mountain before cruising eastward, back into the desert at long fucking last!!! The happiest sight I ever saw in my entire life was the sight of those fucking snow-covered mountains in the rear-view mirror, let me tell you.

A friend had told me about these other springs in a place called Fish Lake Valley, right on the Nevada/California border north of Death Valley, so we headed there next, stopping in the town of Fish Lake Valley proper for a sody pop and some gas (Alex has the supremely annoying habit of only gassing up $5 at a time — his justification being that if his car conks out, he doesn’t want to leave a full tank of gas just sitting there).

Fish Lake Valley is little more than a blip in the road — a few alfalfa farms, a general store/gas station, and a wonderful-looking and very aptly-named little bar called The Boonies. But no one was in the bar — the real action was on the patio out front of the general store, where a bunch of Mexican farmworkers were chilling out drinking Coronas in the sun. Alex wasted no time in befriending them, and they shared their beer and told their stories: the various ways they had sneaked over the border into the U.S., their decent-paying gig as alfalfa harvesters, and their sympathetic bossman, who gives them plenty of warning on the rare occasions that Immigration comes sniffing around so they can hide out in the woods or wherever. Fantastic!!! It was really cool talking to those guys, and I have to give Alex credit for being really good at getting strangers to open up.

After an hour or so, we headed back down the road to the Fish Lake Hot Spring, which turned out to be a pretty cool little spot, if you’re into off-road dirtbiking/four-wheeling. The spring itself is a concrete rectangle at the edge of a marshy lake, in the middle of a vast, desolate windswept valley — I’d only recommend camping there if you can sleep in your car or in a hard-shell trailer; tents or tent-trailers would probably blow right the fuck over out there.

That being said, it was a pretty cool spot — there’s a vault toilet, and barbecue grills and fire rings, and if you’re into dirtbiking there are tons of trails criss-crossing the area. As we soaked, Alex talked to a few guys who came riding in from just such adventures, and he started developing an idea for an offroad motorcycle tour company, where he plans to take groups of wealthy Europeans on off-road adventures all around the desert surrounding Vegas.

Meanwhile, I chatted with this awesome dreadlocked Viking hippie who was soaking in the pool smoking a joint and reading Harper’s Magazine — he’d driven out from South Dakota with his dog, and was cruising around camping at various hot springs to escape the freezing South Dakota spring. He informed me that the Rainbow Gathering is supposedly going to take place in northern Nevada this year, so now I have no excuse not to go — it’s been on my bucketlist forever, although I’ve heard from some that it’s really kind of gross, and full of the nasty, lazy, society-leech-type hippies I despise. (I’m a hard-working hippie myself, ya heard?)

Anyway, I had to be back by in Vegas by 11pm for this dumbass conference call in the morning, so we left Fish Lake and cruised back into Nevada by way of my all-time favorite ghost town, Gold Point! You may remember Gold Point as the ghost town where me and my Goddess Collective nude model friends all met at a two-day photo shoot back in 2012 — these two photographers had hired the four of us to go out there and goof around in the sagebrush, and we all had a wonderful time.

Well, I can never pass by Gold Point without stopping in to say Hi, and besides….Alex needed another $5 worth of gas, which they don’t normally sell to people out there, but it was an emergency, so Walt the bartender let us buy a couple gallons. After gassing up, Walt let us into the saloon and we sat around bullshitting over a drink — and I couldn’t believe what he told me next.

Come to find out, those same two photographers have already booked a return trip later this year! This is shocking, because they didn’t hire me again — I checked with the other Goddess Collective members, and apparently they did hire at least one of the other girls again…but I never heard a word from them 🙁 Oh, well….I guess they didn’t care much for my look! They seemed happy with me last time, but with modeling you have to have a thick skin and not take this shit personally. D’oh!!

Anyhoo, after that the sun was going down, so we said good bye to Walt and headed back to Vegas. And before you know it, I was home again, feeding my dog and watering my plants and up at 7am for this dumbass conference call and a Japanese TV documentary I played a small role in and had to be onset for all day. But shockingly, it wasn’t long before I found myself balls-deep in motherfucking freezing cold snow — again!!!

The very next day — April Fools’ Day, no less — I had made plans to go hiking. My girlfriend from Arkansas was in town, and she wanted a bad-ass workout before starting her miserable week of working a tradeshow, so I decided we’d go up northwest of town and hike through the ancient bristlecone pine forest to the Raintree — this awesomely ginormous, knotty, warped giant bristlecone pinetree, said to be the oldest living thing in Nevada.  I’ve hiked to it many times, and while it’s only 6 miles roundtrip, it’s a pretty decent elevation gain, so it’s a pretty good workout.

I also invited my friend “Ken,” a commercial airline pilot I met back in January when I was hiking the Goldstrike hot springs trail, and he was repairing the rope ladders on the bouldering portions of that trail, using rope he’d bought out of the goodness of his heart. A really cool guy, and a pretty badass outdoorsman — when not flying for one of the major-ish airlines, Ken is a veteran backpacker who is also building his own log cabin on some property he owns way the fuck up in Northern California. Oh, and he’s super easy on the eyes, too!

Anyway, the three of us met at the Tropicana Hotel, drove up north 30 minutes to the trailhead in Lee Canyon, and set out for what we assumed would be a fabulous, moderately-strenuous day hike. But what none of us realized was that a storm had blown in, and the top of the mountain was completely blanketed in fresh snow! Down in Vegas the weather was sunny and warm…but here on the trail, at around 8,000 feet, it was pretty chilly.  I mean, who the fuck expects to get caught in a blizzard in Vegas, in April?!?! Not me!

Thank dog I actually brought along my tennies — I normally hike this (and all) trails in flip-flops, but for once I had brought along real shoes, a hoodie and even gloves. And BOY, WAS I GLAD I DID! The farther up the trail we went, the snowier and icier it got — the trail was downright treacherous in places, due to the ice, so after awhile we gave up hiking on the trail and tromped along in the snow, instead.

Ken led the way, what with all his rugged outdoors experience, and soon we were near the top of the mountain, somewhere near the Raintree — but the problem was, up there at the top (9,400 feet) it began to snow so heavily, and visibility grew so bad, that we couldn’t even see the damn Raintree through the foggy mist! And that’s a huge fuckin’ tree!!

Worse, we couldn’t see the trail anymore, either…so after stumbling around awhile, and taking a bunch of “Look at me! In the snow, in Vegas! In April!!” photos, Ken suggested we should give up on finding the tree, and just head back down before we got caught in a bonafide blizzard. My girlfriend and I concurred, although privately we agreed there were worse things that could happen to us than spend the night in an igloo with handsome Ken, haha.

But even finding our way back down to the bottom of the mountain proved insanely difficult in that fucking snow! We hiked in a downhill direction, but by now we’d completely lost sight of the trail, and ended up scrambling through brush, off trail, for four long hours of uncertainty. Let me tell you, those mountains are surprisingly rugged, for being only 30 minutes outside Vegas. It ain’t like that fake-ass jungle in the Mirage, let me tell you! Even Ken, who has backpacked the Pacific Crest Trail in the High Sierra, was taken aback by the harshness of the terrain.

Anyway, neither Ken nor my girlfriend had ever hiked that area before, so they didn’t have a good grasp of the direction we were headed. I’d done it a few times, but I wasn’t much help either, since we had somehow ended up waaaaay off course after getting lost at the top of the mountain. We meandered up and down through avalanche chutes and steep ravines, coming to dead ends at sheer cliff faces and having to turn around and backtrack several times. It was actually pretty scary there for a minute! We were cold and wet and exhausted, tromping through snow and ice and sharp brambles — meanwhile, back in Vegas, jackasses were laying by the pool sipping piña coladas!! Surreal!!!

Finally, after five long hours of painful scrambling, we found the trail and made it back down to Ken’s truck — which also has a camper shell on the back, incidentally. But instead of having to spend a freezing night sleeping in the back, we simply sat on the tailgate in the sunshine (it was totally sunny and beautiful at the base of the mountain, bizarrely), shared some beer and sangria, and then headed back down to Vegas and beat the fuck out of some Thai food. Boo-ya!! It was one of those crazy adventures that are slightly terrifying at the time, but are so much fun in retrospect — in my experience, all the best adventures are the ones with a slight element of danger, ya know?

Anyway, after all that I was DONE with fucking snow! Done, I tells ya —fuck snow!!! I grew up in Germany as a little kid — I saw enough of that fuckin’ shit back then to last me a lifetime; I don’t need it cramping my style now. Thankfully, my next adventure was down by sunny Hoover Dam, where it never snows.

A really cool friend of mine from the local hippie/Burning Man community has a bunch of kayaks, so he invited me on an overnight kayak trip down the Colorado River, with a campout at the Arizona Hot Springs beach, midway down the river. I camped at that beach around this time last year, and it was amazing — my friends and I drank shroom tea and soaked in the springs til all hours of the night, and had a generally fabulous time. Well guess what?!?!?!? We did it again!!!

Originally, a bunch of people were supposed to go…but most of them bailed out at the last minute, for one reason or another, and it was gonna be just me and two guys, unless I could round up more people on my own. I tried messaging a few girlfriends, and invited Ken and Alex as well, but none of them were interested or available…so I finally resorted to the nuclear option: posting a call on Facebook. I don’t really like doing that, because you never know who is gonna show up…but at this point, I was desperate. I mean, the other two guys I was going with were cool, but the more the merrier…ya know???

Well, imagine my astonishment when the one person to answer my post was the last person I ever expected in a million years!!!

I met this chick we’ll call The Baroness back when I was working at that nutty nightclub last year. I’m calling her that because she’s kinda like The Baroness from The Sound of Music — blonde, beautiful and ultra-glamorous. You never see her out and about without her being dressed to the motherfucking nines: evening gown, fur stole, trademark long cigarette holder and perfectly coiffed platinum blonde hair. All this fabulous bitch does is party all night, every night, and then retire to her glass castle in one of the luxury high-rise towers facing the Vegas Strip, where she sleeps all day in her fabulous, ultra-feminine, super-luxe princess bed. She’s straight out of a movie, and I totally dig her style — we’ve hung out a few times, and she’s one of the nicest people I know.

She’s also the last person I expected to be into kayaking and camping — but she was down to come along!! After taking her limo to WalMart for supplies (she travels everywhere by limousine, of course), she was packed up and ready to go — sleeping bag, tent and a jumbo-sized bottle of Bombay Sapphire. Have booze, will travel! I picked her up at 7am (!!! that’s how hardcore this bitch is; she was up and looking fabulous by 7am) and we cruised out to the Hoover Dam to meet my two guy friends at the launching area.

I can’t imagine what my two dusty hippie friends thought when I rolled up with the Baroness in tow, dressed as she was in a fabulous full-length flowing yellow chiffon skirt, with a matching bikini top barely restraining her massive breasts. Fringed leather sandals and matching hobo bag completed her look, along with a chic straw cowboy hat with turquoise accents, and oversized stunner shades. Meanwhile, I just had on an AC/DC ball cap and my usual shorts and flip flops — we must have looked like a lesbian couple, lol!

But despite her glamourpuss looks, let me tell you something — the Baroness doesn’t fuck around!! That bitch is hard core. The first thing she did upon arriving at our meeting spot at the Hacienda Hotel was to go in and buy cigarettes and bottled Kahlua drinks, which we chugged in the parking lot at 8am while the adventure outfitter loaded our gear onto his truck. When kayaking or canoeing the Colorado River, that’s how it works — even if you have your own vessel, a special tour outfitter has to tote your gear down to the launching spot, since it’s on restricted Federal Government land directly below the Hoover Dam. You pay a $27 launch fee, but once you put in, you’re on your own the rest of the way. Pretty cool deal!

Once our gear was loaded, we climbed aboard the outfitter’s van and he drove us down to the launch site. Meanwhile, my good old buddy Alex had roared up on his dirtbike out of nowhere to bring me my tent, which I had accidentally left in his truck after our Mammoth Mountain mishap, and while he wasn’t allowed to follow us down to the launch site, he got some cool overhead photos of us launching from the bridge overhead. He also let me borrow his cold-weather sleeping bag, since I was afraid of freezing my ass off again.

Anyway, once they drop you off at the river’s edge you have fifteen minutes to get your gear in your boats and take off — and they are very strict about it. Between me and the Baroness and all our booze and accouterments, plus my two guy friends and all their accouterments (drum, tambourine, three cookstoves and a dog, etc.), it was QUITE an ordeal getting everything loaded up and ready in time. The Feds were on our ass the entire time, telling us to hurry — there are only three launch times on the river (7am, 8am and 9am) and we were making them fall behind schedule. Thankfully, the Baroness and her tits and her fabulous sunny outfit all served as a sort of charm offensive, keeping the Feds at bay until we were all packed and ready to go. And then we were off!

The plan was to kayak downriver 4 miles to the Arizona Hot Springs beach, stopping along the way at various sites of interest. Our first stop, not even a mile from the launch site, was to be the fabulous, legendary Sauna Cave — a long tunnel bored into the cliff face below the Dam, through which a hot spring runs, creating a steamy sauna effect. It’s truly fabulous! But before we even got there, disaster struck!

First, the Baroness tipped over in her kayak and fell overboard, completely soaking her long chiffon skirt and fringed leather sandals and handbag. Like a bonafide champ, however, she sacked up and scrambled back aboard, none the worse for wear — I’d had the foresight to bring us Ziploc bags for our cellphones, since we’re both social media whores and can’t be without our phones for two minutes, let alone two days. So her phone and cigarettes were dry — and that’s all that really mattered!

By the time she recovered, however, we had already drifted downstream past the sauna cave!! Catastrophe!! We regrouped, and decided to paddle back upstream, against the current, to reach the little beach at the foot of the sauna cave. But on our way up, I capsized my kayak — and even worse than the Baroness!

My entire kayak flipped over, and every single thing I had was completely soaked — my Camelbak, my backpack full of gear, my clothes and my flipflops. I was struggling in the icy water, hanging on for dear life, trying to keep my flipflops on my feet and my Camelbak and backpack from sinking to the bottom of the river. Meanwhile, my sleeping bag was soaked and my kayak wouldn’t flip back over…YIKES!!!

Finally with the help of my friends, I somehow managed to right my kayak, rescue all my gear, and climb back aboard without losing a single thing (!!!). Even my phone stayed dry in its store-band baggie!! It was nothing short of a miracle, I tells you…and a real baptism by fire.

At this point, the Baroness and I were both having second thoughts as to the wisdom of this little excursion — so we all paddled into one of the many wonderful little caves lining the river, and took a few tokes to regroup. Not all of us partook, but I certainly did — and let me tell you, it was fan-fucking-tastic! Once our nerves were settled, we continued back upstream, fighting the current until at last we reached the sauna cave beach. SUCCESS!!!

After laying my things out to dry in the sunshine, we all hiked up the trail to the sauna cave — and it was truly magical! The cave is more of a tunnel that goes back into the cliff face about 50-100 feet, and halfway along it curves to the left, so that you lose sight of the daylight and you’re in complete inky pitch-black darkness. We decided to inch along in the dense, velvety steamy darkness without a flashlight, just feeling our way along the walls with our hands, sloshing through the warm water running through the bottom. Let me tell you: high as I was, it was fucking amazing!!! Like being reborn, passing through a dark, watery womb — or like one of those sensory deprivation tanks that rich New Agers pay big bucks to float in. You lose track of all time when you’re deprived of your sight like that, plus I was high as a kite, so it felt like it took forever…but finally we reached the back wall of the tunnel, covered with these calcified stalagmite-type formations that felt really cool in my altered state of consciousness. I was so glad we went through all that to get to the sauna cave, because it is BAD ASS!

By that time my clothes were mostly dry, so we packed back up and headed back downriver to the next stop: a “rain cave,” which is basically a big, beautiful mossy cave that drips hot spring water from the ceiling. The Baroness and I were super careful not to tip our kayaks from that point on, and I’m pleased to report that neither of us capsized or had any further mishaps the remainder of the trip. Maybe it was all the weed I smoked…I don’t know. Either way: Yay!

After that, we beached our kayaks at Goldstrike Hot Springs (the same springs where I originally met Ken, the pilot), and went ashore for a little hike to one of the better soaking pools. We hung out there for awhile and had some cocktails (the Baroness made gin & juice for everyone), then cruised further downriver to the Boy Scout Hot Springs. There was already a family camped out there, and we didn’t want to sully their Rockwellian idyll with our boozy antics, plus those springs are kinda lukewarm anyway, so we didn’t really stay long.

By this time it was getting later in the day, and the Baroness and I wanted to get to Arizona Hot Springs beach so we could set up camp and dry out the rest of our stuff before the sun went down. So we paddled the rest of the 4 miles to that beach, arriving about an hour before sunset. Perfect! We built a fire, wolfed down some food (kayaking burns about 50,000 calories a minute), had some drinks and then set up our tents and stuff.

As mentioned, the Baroness had gone to WalMart for supplies, and on my recommendation had purchased a $20 kiddie tent — only they were out of the real tents like mine, and she’d ended up buying something that was really more of a kids’ play tipi — printed with cartoon owls, and without a zipper or any way to close it. Additionally, it had this huge glory-hole looking thing on one side, which I guess was designed for kids to crawl through…but which for camping purposes looked like it would let in badgers and shit!!! Yikes!! Again, however, she sacked up like a pro, mixed another drink and just dealt with it. Fabulous!!!

By now it was getting dark, and us four were sort of sitting by the fire grousing about how nobody else had showed up — I’d invited my guy friend from last year, the one who had made the shroom tea, and it looked like he was flaking out, too (he was supposed to hike down through the canyon, overland, and meet us on the beach). But then, lo and behold, came two backpacking figures hiking towards us in the dusky gloom: my good ol’ buddy Alex, and my Shroom tea friend (I’ll call him Sal)! YAY!!!!

Now it was a real party! We had more drinks, built up the fire, roasted some hot dogs and stuff, and then Sal fired up his Primus stove to brew some of his famous shroom tea. Gooooooooooooooood times, let me tell you. Not all of us partook, but I’m here to tell you that I certainly did, and it was fan-fucking-tastic.

When the tea kicked in, we all headed up the canyon to the hot spring for a moonlight soak — the most magical thing in the world! I’ve been to a lot of hot springs in my day, but I have to say that I think these Arizona/White Rock ones are my #1 absolute favorites — they’re the ones you have to hike up a long, narrow slot canyon to reach, climbing up a series of waterfalls until you reach an intimidating rusty metal ladder bolted to a boulder — and did I mention the ladder is about three stories tall?! Yikes indeed! Not only is the ladder precarious as fuck (although it is securely bolted to the rock), it’s also soaking wet and slippery, so you really have to keep a death grip on it with your hands and toes! Now imagine doing all of this while you’re shrooming!!!! Whoa, maaaaaaaan!!!!!!

Astonishingly, we all made it up the ladder without mishap and enjoyed a long, surreal soak in the beautiful springs. Last year when we did this, we brought all these colored lanterns and took really cool art nude photos — the springs are in a really steep slot canyon, almost like a cave, and the lighting and reflections were really cool. This time though, we just chilled out and soaked. And when we’d had enough, we headed back down to the fire!

Alex had stayed behind with my other friend’s dog (who can’t make it up that ladder), drinking beer and Old Crow, and by the time we got back he was in fine form. A bickering match began in no time, only this time it was between him and the Baroness — they went at it all night long. In her defense, the Baroness did nothing to provoke him — that’s just the way he is. It was a super awkward situation, let me tell you. I think they ended up making amends later on, but I’m not sure — it was pretty bad. I was sorry for the youth group camped next door — they really got an earful 🙁 Plus, we had set up camp right in the middle of the fuckin’ path to the outhouses (there are two vault toilets on that beach), so those poor kids had to walk past us angry drunks every time they had to pee. My sincere apologies, kids.

Anyway, around 4am we all finally passed out in a mess of beer cans, Solo cups and smoldering resentment, and I spent a miserable few hours trying to sleep, despite the fact that I had Alex’s really warm sleeping bag, plus he also let me borrow his sleeping pad, and I had my lighter and weed and everything right there. The sad fact is, I can’t sleep well unless I’m in my own bed…which really sucks for adventuring, but I’m learning how to deal with it. Meanwhile, Alex himself passed out on his spare bedroll by the fire, the Baroness konked out in her kiddie tipi (which was only 5’x5′, so her feet stuck out), and the other guys all crashed on/in their various rigs. What a fucking zoo!! I can only imagine what those poor kids next door thought when they got up at sunrise, tiptoeing past our hot fucking mess of a campsite on their way to the potties — it must have looked like the remains of Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4. Sad!

Astonishingly, we were all up and at ’em by 8am or so, eating omelets and drinking coffee like nothing happened. The Baroness emerged from her tipi looking radiant as always (the bitch!!), and we all packed up and then headed back for one last soak in the springs before leaving.

After a soothing soak, we all felt much better and were ready to face the rest of our journey. If you rent kayaks from the outfitters, they recommend leaving Arizona Hot Springs beach by 11:30am in order to be at Willow Beach in time for the shuttle bus that takes you back to the dam — well, luckily for us, our guy friends had gone ahead the day before and left a car there, so we didn’t have to get there at any particular time. We were able to mosey!

I’d brought these canned espresso drinks along, and was trying to figure out a way to make cocktails with them, using the limited materials at hand. After last night’s blowout, all we had left was half a bottle of Old Crow…so we improvised, mixing that with espresso and coconut milk: crowconut lattes! I’m here to tell you, it was actually a damn good drink!! And that Old Crow came in handy in more ways than one — the Baroness also used it to sanitize a cut on her foot. She had also broken one of her beautifully manicured nails, way down to the quick…but did she sit around and bitch about it?! Nah…she simply sacked up, poured some Old Crow on it, and bandaged it up with a Band Aid. And then kayaked 8 miles to Willow Beach!!! Now, that’s a badass.

Anyway, now we were wasted again, sitting in the sun on the beach, some of us baked and all of us having a blast. Sal hiked out early, to beat the heat, and Alex ended up staying another night and making friends with another group of boozy campers that had arrived that morning, so around 1pm or so, the four of us kayakers climbed aboard and set off down the river again.

Actually, only three of us were in kayaks — my one friend (the guy whose kayaks they all were) actually had a canoe. He’s a pretty rugged outdoorsman himself, and goes down on the river all the time with his dog…so much so that he devised this ingenious Dog Board that fits onto the prow of his canoe, so that his dog can lay on the front like a masthead, while he sits in the back and paddles. Meanwhile, he has a badass airbrushed drawing of an octopus on the side of the canoe, with the legend “El Pulpo” — the Octopus, because between him and his dog they have 8 limbs. How cute is that??!?!

So with El Pulpo leading us, our ragtag band of hungover, waterlogged boozers journeyed on, the rest of the way to Willow Beach. As mentioned it was an 8-mile trip…and I’m here to tell you, 8 miles never seemed so long!!! As tired and hungover as most of us were, with our various injuries, it was a wonder we even made it.

At first it was great — we glided along with the current for awhile, listening to Alanis Morissette’s “Thank U” blaring from El Pulpo’s boombox, echoing off the canyon walls. Then we glided along in silence for awhile, and it was so amazingly peaceful. We stopped for a while at Emerald Cave, this exceptionally beautiful, humongous cave where at the right time of afternoon, the light turns the water a gorgeous shade of emerald green, some of us taking one last ceremonious puff on the peace pipe….and then we basically hauled ass for Willow Beach.

By then, the weather had gotten overcast, and it looked like it might rain…so for the last two miles or so, I just paddled. Left, right, left, right, left….ugh. Kayaking is exhausting!! After that 5-hour scramble in the snow the other day, I’d gotten a great lower body workout — well, now I was getting an amazing upper body workout, too! And my liver got a great workout the night before. Fuck!!

Now, Arizona Hot Springs beach is a great place to camp out in most respects…but if I were to do this trip again, I would seriously think about camping closer to the halfway point. It’s a 12-mile trip from the Dam to Willow Beach, so ideally you could camp about 6 miles down and then not have so far to go the next day. Well, either that, or you could just not drink so much the night before, and you’d be fine :-p But seriously, there are all kinds of cool little coves and beaches along the river down there….there are TONS of options. But I guess if you want potties and those fabulous hot springs…you have no choice.

Anyway, we finally made it to Willow Beach, one after another, and all of us virtually collapsed on the shore, completely exhausted. I was so proud of the Baroness — she fucking kicked ass, had a great time, and my friends totally dug her. I have a complete newfound respect for this woman! Here’s to you, Baroness! 🙂

So anyhoo, once ashore we loaded everything up, drove back to the Hacienda, and then separated our gear and parted ways. By now it was around 8pm, already dark, and we all pretty much just straggled home to bed. I dropped off the Baroness at her Glass Castle, then came home and crashed hard, completely exhausted — not just from the kayak trip, but from ALL this crazy shit I just wrote about! Damn!!! I mean, I loooove adventuring… but it can really wear a gal out.

Still, that being said…I can’t wait to do it again!!!! 🙂

You know how back in the day people used to name their estate? Like Monticello, Gray Gardens, Menopause Manor, Peyton Place, Graceland? Well, you might not know this, but my own humble estate has a name, too.

I call my crib Villa Sinvergüenza, which basically means “house without shame” in Spanish. Why? Because it was purchased with the money I earned doing stuff other people might consider shameful — toe sucking, ball-kicking, donut-eating, twat-flashing…etc.

I am a deeply moral person, and don’t consider any of the above activities to be “wrong,” or anything to be ashamed of. Hence, this blog…and thus also the name Villa Sinvergüenza. I used my “ill-gotten” earnings to buy the place, and I use the same ill-gotten earnings to pay my property taxes and keep up with my home maintenance and repairs. I’m a good neighbor, and a good citizen. Ain’t no shame in that!

Anyway, what I need is a little plaque to hang on the wall next to my front door, letting visitors know what’s up. Just think of all the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormon missionaries and homeless beggars I could fend off with a sign like this!

This is really important, guys. I tried to paint my own sign, but I overestimated my artistic ability, and it came out totally crappy. So I’m putting it out here: if any of you are sign painters/carpenters/craftsmen and can hook a sister up…let me know!

I only have a budget of about $50 for this thing, which is why I’m reaching out for help. The site I used to create the above example (danthoniadesigns.com) is trying to charge me $145 for my design, and it’s only 12″ long by 5.5″ tall!!

So…if anyone can help, let me know. I’ll gladly pay you in toe sucking, ball-kicking, donut-eating, or twat-flashing 🙂