There’s an episode of Storage Wars where Barry, one of the show’s regulars, buys a sign and takes it to the Neon Boneyard in Vegas to get it appraised. The sign turned out to be worthless, but the Boneyard itself looked amazing. It showed up on our radar, so we decided to stop by and check out this awesome collection of vintage and historic Las Vegas signs.

Upon entering the Neon Boneyard, we learned two things — one, the tour is $18 per person, and two, the tour sells out weeks in advance. (Every link on the entire Internet says that the tour costs $15. I swear on all that is holy that we were told $18. Maybe it’s $15 if you make reservations?) Then when Susan asked if she could use the bathroom they told us no. They also told us that there was a possibility of getting us in on a tour in three hours.

Based on what I have seen online, the Neon Boneyard is a really cool place to visit. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for us. Instead, I snapped this picture by sticking my phone through the shielded gate and snapping random pictures.

The tour is highly rated and if we had known there would be such a wait, we would have made reservations. But we didn’t, so instead we saved $80 and ended up going on the Rick’s Restoration tour (which was free) and the Ethel M Chocolate tour (which was free). Maybe next time, Neon Boneyard!

If you’ve seen the reality show Pawn Stars more than once or twice, you’ve seen the handiwork of Rick Dale. Rick, the owner of Rick’s Restorations, is the guy that turns the Pawn Stars’ junk into beautiful pieces of work. In fact, Rick and his crew are so good at what they do that his restoration business was spun off into its own television show, American Restoration.

Rick’s Restorations is open to the public. Inside the building is a lobby full of restored items on display (and for sale) and a gift shop. There’s also a free behind the scenes tour that takes about 10 minutes to walk through. No photography is allowed during the tour.

Here’s a picture of the lobby. Those gas pump globes on the wall were $375 each. The blue Pepsi machine on the left hand side was $7,500. In the middle of the room stood several restored gas pumps and Coke machines, most of which have been featured on the show as well.

The Rick’s Restorations Tour takes you into the working area of Rick and his crew. Unfortunately we went on Saturday, so Rick and his crew were elsewhere, off enjoying their weekend. The tour takes you essentially into a single hallway with five or six large windows, each of which looks into a different room. There’s a machine shop, there’s a work room, there’s a disassembly room, there’s a … I don’t know man, there were four or five rooms and they all had workbenches and tools in them.

As with Pawn Stars, there are entire message areas and websites dedicate to how fake reality shows such as American Restoration are. Reality shows most definitely contain set ups, scripts and actors, there’s no denying that — there’s also no denying that Rick and his crew are a bunch of talented guys who do some really, really nice restorations. If you’re a fan of Pawn Stars, American Restoration, or simply appreciate restored classics, definitely check out Rick’s Restorations while in Vegas.

Last year when the fam and I were Vegas, Mason and I visited the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, aka the home of the his television show “Pawn Stars,” while Susan and Morgan stayed out in the car. This was my second time to visit the pawn shop, and the first time for Susan, Tim, and Dawn.

The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop is much smaller than it appears on television. After entering the store you will be funneled into the store’s current, which feeds down the right hand side to the back of the store and then back up the other side until you reach the exit. Depending on the amount of people inside the store it can actually be difficult to stop and look at things.

On the right hand side, the front half of the store consists of three or four large display shelves. Everything is either under glass or out of reach. Some things have labels marked “AS SEEN ON TV.” There are swords and watches and a few other things that you’re not very likely to buy while on vacation in Vegas.

Once you get past those display shelves you hit the gift shop area, which is filled top to bottom, front to back, floor to ceiling of Pawn Stars t-shirts, Pawn Stars shot glasses, Pawn Stars Bobble Heads, Pawn Star Posters … you name it. Just past that area is a small room with some of the store’s larger items. Last time I was there, I saw a cannon. This time, there was a jukebox. Once you hit that area it’s time to turn around and work your way back toward the front. You’ll hit more merchandise again — more t-shirts, more bobble heads, more everything. There’s a cashier in the back in case you want to pay right there, but even if you did, you would still have to follow the flow of the crowd to get out.

Near the front of the store is a small alcove which is where people actually pawn things. There’s a big sign above the desk that says “no photographs in this direction.” The people we saw over there didn’t look like the people you see on television. They looked broken and hungry.

Like my last visit, nobody from the television show was actually at the store.

If you are in Las Vegas and are dying to get a Chumlee bobble head, the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop is your place. I suppose it’s worth stopping at if for no other reason than to see what the miracle of television cameras can do for a location. I doubt I’ll ever go back.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Susan and I hopped on a plane and flew to Las Vegas and met our friends Tim and Dawn there. The purpose of our trip was to celebrate Tim’s 40th birthday by seeing Guns and Roses perform live at the Hard Rock Cafe. We arrived in Vegas Friday afternoon and flew home early Sunday morning.

Despite the fact that we were in Vegas for less than 48 hours, we did a ton of things. Over the next few days I’ll be posting stories, pictures and reviews of the following places: The Hash House, the Hard Rock Cafe, Rick’s Restoration (from Pawn Stars and American Restoration), Pawn Stars, the Neon Boneyard, the Ethel M chocolate factory, Freemont Street, the Freemont Street arcade Insert Coin(s), and of course, the Guns and Roses concert. Did I mention we got to go backstage? We got to go backstage.

Posts should be going live live twice a day (6am and 6pm) through Friday.

Here’s Susan, Tim and Dawn in the rental car, ready for a fun weekend in Vegas!

Mason was only a year-and-a-half old in 2003 when Susan and I made the decision to sell our ’96 Dodge Neon and upgrade to a more family friendly vehicle. After doing some market research, we settled on the Honda Odyssey minivan. I don’t know that deciding it’s time to own a minivan is a particularly proud moment in any man’s life, but Honda lessened the blow by offering leather seats with seat warmers, automatic sliding doors, a six-disc changer, a DVD player with a flip down screen, and eleven cup holders. For some reason, our salesman really pushed the fact that the van had eleven cup holders.

We paid $32k for the van brand new off the lot. I’ll never forget, as we were standing in the showroom waiting for the paperwork to be finalized, we spotted a Honda S2000 — one of those sporty, two-seater convertibles — also with a price tag of $32k. There was a brief moment where we questioned our decision. Surely you can squeeze a kid’s car seat into the trunk of one of those things, right?

Ultimately we made the right decision. That Honda Odyssey has hauled myself, Susan, two kids and those eleven cup holders across the country more times than I can count. This past summer, with 200,000 miles already on the van, we drove to Seattle, Washington and back for our Alaskan cruise. During that trip the van took us through Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska. The summer before that it took the four of us to Las Vegas, Nevada, through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The van’s been through Missouri, Illinois and the edge of Indiana more times than I can count. It’s been to Washington DC and back more than once, a route that takes us through (at least) Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. The van’s been to Mississippi at least twice. Two months ago, Susan drove the van through Alabama and Georgia and back.

Last month, with 215,000 miles on it, we drove to Chicago and back.

At around 100,000 miles, Susan put AAA on the van. We used it once. After being in Alaska for a week, we returned to the van and it wouldn’t start. AAA came and gave us a jump start. One of the kids had left on one of the rear dome lights and ran down the battery.

The van is not without its quirks. The automatic sliding doors occasionally have a mind of their own — possibly a by product of years worth of french fries, crayons, and loose change falling down into the sliding door tracks. The rear windows no longer open. The DVD player is a lot pickier than the day we bought it, randomly rejecting discs. Some of the leather has peeled away from the arm rests. Probably the most annoying quirk is that the radio controls located on the steering wheel occasionally “shift”, which almost always manifests itself whenever the driver attempts to crank up volume when a good song comes on the radio, causing the radio to change stations instead.

All first world problems, really.

As for the drive train, it’s as strong as the day we bought it. Like I said, last month we hopped in the van and put around 1,800 miles on it while driving to, around, and back from Chicago. The month before, we put on another 2,000, driving to Atlanta and back. Over the summer we put on around 4,000, driving to Seattle and back. I’d drive it anywhere tomorrow.

Well, not tomorrow — because we sold it. A few months ago Susan bought a Honda Crosstour, which has replaced the van as her daily driver. (After having such a good streak with the van, we stuck with Honda.) We’re hoping the Crosstour (essentially a 4wd Accord with a slightly larger body) holds up as well as the van did. We’re on our way to finding out; in three months we’ve 12,000 miles on it. (That’s high even for us.)

The Odyssey has set off on a new odyssey with a new owner. I’m not “sad” to see it go like I have been with some of our cars, but it’s been a damn reliable vehicle that has lots of years and miles left in it. Lots of life left in it for someone else’s adventures.

Due to high (read: none) demand, I have created a new area of the website in which I track every states I’ve ever visited! There’s a link to it over on the left hand side now — or, you can simply click here).

To date, I’ve been to 41 of the 50 states (not including DC or the few times I’ve been out of the country). I spent a few hours Sunday creating a short entry for each state I’ve visited. For each one I noted the first and last time I had visited the state, and included pictures where possible. A few of them (about five, I think) I have only driven through and I debated whether or not to include them at all. In the end I did.

As future travels take me to new states (or back to old ones), I’ll post about them on the blog and update that repository at the same time. One thing I will do now is try to find interesting things to stop and see or do in every state I visit from now on.

Today, I got to sit down and work from my desk for the first time in two-and-a-half weeks.

It all started with an invitation to a work meeting in Atlanta, which took place the last week of September (9/24-9/28). As I mentioned a week or so ago, my buddy Jeff recently moved to Atlanta, so I used the opportunity to travel a few days earlier than normal to hang out at Jeff’s house. (We are allowed to do this as long as there is no additional cost to tax payers.) I used a day of vacation on Friday, September 22nd to drive to Atlanta. (It took me just under 15 hours, although I’m sure I could beat that time.) I hung out with Jeff and his family that weekend, and reported to work in Atlanta on September 24th.

During that week in Atlanta I was invited to a second meeting, this one in Washington DC. Had I flown to Atlanta I would have flown home that Friday (Friday, September 28th) and flown to DC on the following Monday, October the 1st. But I didn’t; I drove, and driving the 15 hours back to Oklahoma City only to turn around and head back to the east coast the following day seemed ridiculous. So, I stayed in Atlanta at Jeff’s over the weekend, and drove from Atlanta to Washington DC on Monday, October 1st.

That weekend, Susan and the kids decided to drive out to Atlanta and see me and visit the Martins as well. We all had a good time together. I think Jeff’s kids enjoyed seeing some of their Oklahoma friends for a bit, and I know Jeff and Heather and Susan and I all had a good time catching up with one another.

I would also like to note that until I got there I had no idea how many friends I had living in and around the Atlanta area. I’ve already mentioned Jeff and his family, and I have several friends I’ve met through work (Earl, Curlen, and Deborah to name a few) that both live and work in Atlanta. Throw in a couple of friends from Digital Press, a couple of friends from the cDc, and my friends Jay and Thomas over at Video Game Trader, and … yeah. I could literally spend an entire week hobnobbing around Atlanta. The next time I’m in town, I’ll definitely set aside more visiting time.

On Monday, October 1st, I left Atlanta and drove to Washington DC. It’s not as far as it was from OKC to ATL, and I made the drive in around 10 hours. Unfortunately for me, I timed it to where I would arrive in Washington DC at almost exactly 5pm. Fortunately at that time of day the traffic jams revolve around getting out of DC rather than getting in. While the line to get out of DC stretched for miles and miles, the line heading in that time of day was relatively painless.

The part of DC we were working/staying in (Navy Yard) kind of sucks unless you’re willing to get on the Metro and head out. I think my phone showed less than half a dozen restaurants within walking distance (at least within my idea of walking distance). Normally on work trips I don’t worry about going over my per diem amount, but after being on the road for two weeks back to back I began reeling back the meal costs. Then again, I think I drank all my profit, so … yeah.

As the meeting adjourned, I had one task ahead of me; completing the third leg of the right triangle that would take me from DC back to Oklahoma City. The GPS said it would take 21 hours, straight through; I made it in 24 hours, leaving DC at 4:30am (no traffic for me!) and arriving in OKC at approximately the same time the following morning. For the most part the drive was uneventful, although I did have an orange and white safety barrel hurled at me by a careless trucker. Surprisingly, the Honda Crosstour handles fairly well even with the brakes locked into a dead skid. Once again, years of playing video games paid off.

For some reason, these drives always hit me the day after I get home. I drive literally all day Friday. Saturday I was tired, but not sore. On Sunday, I could barely get around. Thanks to Columbus discovering a place people already inhabited I was off Monday as well, which gave me an extra day to recuperate.

Because of the project I’m working on at work, there was no time to ramp back up; I hit the meetings at 8am this morning and had them all day long. Welcome back.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen a few posts and check-ins over the weekend from Atlanta. That’s true, I am in sunny Georgia for the week.

Early this year, my life-long buddy Jeff moved to Atlanta. This week I have a meeting in Atlanta, so I took advantage of the situation by taking vacation last Friday and driving out to Atlanta and hanging out with Jeff and his family for the weekend.

Fifteen years ago (WOW), Jeff did the same for me. After Susan and I moved to Spokane, Washington for work, Jeff and his girlfriend Heather flew out to Spokane and met in person for the first time. Susan and I lived in Spokane for a year and a half before moving back to Oklahoma. This time, it was my turn to travel out of state and come visit Jeff. It just dawned on me that Jeff’s son Talon is in 7th grade — that’s the same grade Jeff and I were in when we first met.

It was also ironic that Jeff and I ended up at a Chicago restaurant in Atlanta. In 9th grade, Jeff went on vacation with our family to Chicago. I was there when Jeff ate his first Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich, and as of this moment, I was there when he ate his last one.

Back in high school, we didn’t look alike at all. Now, people ask if we’re brothers.

Sunday I introduced Jeff and his family to geocaching, and we ended up looking for six different caches within just a few miles of Jeff’s house. We found four of the six, and each of those four were hidden in different containers: a plastic Rubbermaid container, a waterproof cylinder, a fake sprinkler head, and a tiny, really hard to find envelope. There were two that stumped us — one that has a long history of stumping people, and a second one that was apparently hidden on a gas pump at a busy gas station. We searched for that one until the manager came out and asked what we were up to. When it was obvious he didn’t know what geocaching was and disapproved of us hanging around, we split.

I had a great time this weekend hanging out with Jeff and his family, and we’re already talking about a follow-up trip in next spring.

This morning Jeff went back to work, Jeff’s kids went back to school, and I did a bit of sight-seeing around town before heading downtown to my hotel. Tomorrow it’s back to work for me too.