In the past five days I have seen two highly disparate cities in the United States, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Las Vegas basically equates with tacky and overdone extravagance, covered in artificial lights and packed with people dressed in some of the hottest fashion trends. Salt Lake City, on the other hand, is quiet (possibly a little too quiet) and extraordinarily clean. Last night, after eating a vegan dinner with Tara, Jeannine, Justin, and Mickey, a definite change from the distinctly gluttonous American all-you-can-eat buffets of Vegas, we were the only people still roaming the streets. Roaming may be the incorrect word, as Jeannine was creating an impressive flower bouquet. 
 Nonetheless, both places have their merits. Vegas has a roller coaster in a hotel; although not as fancy as Six Flags, I am a huge fan of achieving 65 miles per hour in under a minute while going upside down (make a car do that and maybe I’ll consider getting my license). Also, Justin, embracing his duty as my Vegas escort, took me down the strip where I got to see the I-Phone, ride a “horse” (OK, so it was a chair from the Sharper Image that moved like a horse), and even finally try his famous hot dog on a stick!

 Today I enjoyed a delightfully suburban “girl” day, which involved both a salon and a mall. In order to rightfully fulfill our roles as punk rock Truth crew members, Tara, Jeannine, and I decided to get some makeovers. I know as my parents read this they are biting their nails in worry and, hopefully, slight anticipation. Well, my hair now has two magenta stripes in it. Ironically, I guess my Salt Lake City adventures were slightly more taboo than Vegas …

 I seriously love my tour mates… they are such awesome people…. Jeannine picked some flowers for me when they went out yesterday she is the best hippy friend ever.

Jessica and I are like sisters…. We bicker and blah blah blah, but I seriously think she is the coolest, funniest girl. Yesterday we talked till 4:30 am about life. She is the sister I’ve always wanted.

Tara always adds her witty, funny comments and definitely adds to our group dynamic.

Trife… is Trife. Haha. He is always down to have a good time!

Sean is full of information. He knows how to do so much and makes sure to go out of his way to teach me how to do it.

Mickey is very motivational and watches out for the good of the group.

Scotty is an amazing boss man… ALTHOUGH he hides my stuff when I leave it around the bus! Grrrrrr.  

I cant wait to be back on the bus—its our day off today—and be on the road with these amazing people.

lasjflsfkdjflsjlf…. translation: it’s hot in Vegas. But we are definitely all bonding like crazy. I am enjoying it. We went out last night…… do you like how dole juice sean covered my face!?!?!

There are wayyyyyy too many things to do here. Some of my guy friends are coming tonight and my girlfriends are coming tomorrow. Yessssssssssss.

p.s. there used to be a potions shop called Merlin in between Luxor and Excalibur…. my fav store ever…. they shut it down in exchange for a lame thrift store…. I’m pissed off….

p.s.s. ramore and coheed and cambria are great live. Hayley from paramore commands the stage and it’s great to see a band with a girl do so well…. and coheed is just insane…. I still need to see chiodos and karate high school…. I guess I have to wait…

So I could talk about all the awesome stories from Vegas but as the saying goes “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”  We spent most of the day today driving to Salt Lake City, Utah and man let me tell you how exciting that was.  Pretty much the whole drive everything out the window looked exactly the same (i’ll put up a picture of what it looked like out the window).  We ended up watching a whole marathon of project runaway for the entire bus ride.  It made the time go by way quicker than watching the super exciting Utah landscape go by.  When we finally arrived at our hotel it was kind of late so Tara suggested we go to this place Sages.  Little did I know this was a vegan restaurant and i’m a lover of meat, it’s mmm mmm good.  Needless to say this was the first time I had been to one and lets just say it was an ummm interesting experience.  Don’t think i’ll plan on hitting up any other vegan eaters while on the tour.  Anyways, i’ll get some photos uploaded from Vegas and the bus ride up to Utah.

Peace

Let me just start out saying that this has been one of the BEST Vegas trip I have EVER had…

Day 1: We just got here… EXTREMELY hot.  Like, about 112 degrees during the day.  INSANE.  Most of that day was just about settling down into our hotel and just chilln’ out.  I was so tired that night I passed out at about Midnight.  Didn’t help that Trife, Mickey, and Sean were in my room body slamming, tossing me off the bed, burying under my own mattress, and pouring cold water on me all in hopes to get me to wake up and go out with them.  I resisted tho…but I wish now I had listened to them and gone out cause I heard they had a good time.  Dag, yo.

Day 2: Me and Jessica decided to brave the heat and walked down the strip.  I’m really glad we did too. We got a free massage (at Brookstone), Jessica rode a (fake) horse, we got a big Eiffel Tower drinking glass, we saw a free #D movies about MandM’s, I was wearing pants and shoes in the hot weather so I bought shorts and flip-flops, played with the ultra-awesome Apple iPhone (I SOOOO want one now), got Hot Dog on a Stick at the mall, chilled in front of the fans spitting out water, and rode the New York New York Roller Coaster.

Day 3: Me, Jessica, Jeannine, and Tara went to go watch the movie Ratatouille (EXCELLENT movie, btw), we saw a 7-Eleven modeled after the Simpson’s Kwik-E-Mart (can’t WAIT for the movie to come out) then me, Jess, Jeannine, and Mickey went to get fatter at the Carnival World buffet at the Rio as well as take in a show, then we went bowling afterwards..

Man, what a fun time I’ve had.  Kind of wish my next city didn’t have to be Salt Lake.  Well, I’m hoping that it’ll surprise me of what they will have over there.  We’re staying in a hotel there too, so I can recover from this whole week.  Regrets: Missed out on 4th of July fireworks.  We seriously tried to find em, but apparently they were on the other side of the strip from where we were at. 

Alright, well, tomorrow I start to embark in TOTALLY different cities and states I’ve never been to before, so I guess my adventure starts now…

Yesterday was a great day. I met up with my friends Nicole and Autumn. They both flew in that day from the Orange County area in California. Nicole and I spent most of our time watching Autumn gamble since we both have no idea how to gamble. The weather in Las Vegas is brutal, it has been well over 110 degrees the past few days we have been here. The weather is so hot it feels like your skin is burning off and your eyeballs are boiling. I’ve spent most of my days inside venturing outside occasionally walking up and down the Las Vegas strip. I haven’t seen Transformers movie yet, but I’m gonna make it point to check it out in SLC.

We leave tomorrow for Salt Lake City, we’ll have our first all day bus ride which should be nice to just cool and watch the scenery. I feel so refreshed after having our days off, I just hope the team and I can get back into touring mode when he hit Warped Tour on Saturday.

Mountainview was a busy day but a good time. After the show my friend Kris from San Francisco picked myself and one of the gentleman from Killswitch Engage up and took us into the city to hang out for a bit. He also came bearing gifts…a “tour care pack” that included apples,all natural organic throat drops (which I need!),chocolate chip cookies and various other treats. It was very sweet and very much appreciated. He got us back in time for bus call (an hour early actually!) and we headed off to Vegas. Umm…woo-hoo.

I am not going to lie.(This is the truth after all…har de har har).
When I found out we were going to be spending our days off in Vegas I was a little bummed. I had been looking forward to spending some extra time in Salt Lake City where we will be meeting back up with the tour. I mean for me, Vegas has little to offer. I don’t drink, I don’t gamble and I sure as hell don’t want to be anywhere near a smoky casino floor inhaling the numerous chemicals found in secondhand smoke. Anyway,I’ll get off the soapbox for a minute here and tell you the upside of the experience. Of course spending time with the team out of the sweltering sun and off of our aching feet is always nice plus.   Plus J9 and I went all out and ordered roomservice today so I’ve been living large and I am stoked that my team is having such a good time here and we are all getting to bond a bit outside work hours.

As previously mentioned I was just working on a television show before I got here. Two of the crew members live in Vegas and they swung by and picked me up today. I just spend ten weeks living with them in less then desirable conditions so it was a pleasant change of pace to see them in the real world. They have been a saving grace in the vast desert wasteland that is Vegas.Brian the medic (you’ll be seeing him on ABC come August!) and one of my favorite people ever-Garrett took me to Ronald’s Donuts where I bought two dozen vegan donuts (creme filled! cruellers! a donut as big as my face!), then on to target to stock up on vital tour supplies (like cookies,Dr.Scholl’s Insoles and a new pair of shorts) and then we went out to some Middle Eastern Vegetarian place for dinner. Afterwards Garret and I headed out to watch Transformers. We tried the Palms first but much to our chagrin it was totally sold out. After a quick pitstop in thier photobooth we headed to the Orleans and were able to catch the movie.Those transformers are a bit cheeky and for such a big budget picture there was a good deal of subversive sentiment. I know this is all a bit mundane for a blog but as my friend V once said,”tour isn’t all rainbows and hot boys.”

She was right… sometime’s tour is also target stores,rainbows,transformers and hot boys.

I kid, I kid.

Until next time…

Locals Only,
TaRa

I am in a place I never really thought I would visit, and yet, here I am in CRAZY Las Vegas! The rest of the Warped Tour headed North for Canada, while the Truth crew remains in the U.S. We’ll meet back up with them in Salt Lake City, but for now, rest and relaxation are on the schedule.

 We ate some ‘not so great’ buffet breakfast food, enjoyed the opportunity to nap, and spent the night out on the town. The rest of the ladies and I eventually ended up dancing at the Coyote Ugly, and convinced the guys to meet us there for some fun. Oh the memories…I have yet to see the pictures…but I’m a little afraid…

           The night sky here is a sight, the lights, the castles, the pyramids, etc. It may be a bit too artificial of a place for me for long term, but I’m glad to say I’ve been here at least once.

          Although it is nice to sleep in a hotel bed, a part of me really misses the tour bus. I’m digging the experience of living in such close proximity with my new friends/family. Trife and Scotty are kinda like father figures, Sean’s humor is right on and fills my day with necessary laughter, and everyone has been responsible for making this feel like a home away from home. Tara and I spent the morning watching Rob and Big on MTV, something I’d find myself doing back in NYC. Though I do want to give a shout out to two people who I miss like crazzzzyyyy; Emma and Dan, there is no me without you (Dan, what did the donkey do?).

Happy 4th of July everyone! Enjoy it, I know I will…and I can’t wait till Salt Lake City…

PEACE.

The wheels are moving underneath me and we are making our way towards the third date on warped tour. If all goes well we will wake up in Mountain View, CA. My first night on the bus was fairly uneventful. I banged my head about twenty times but the bed itself is surprisingly comfortable. I woke up and drank some tea to heal my ailing throat and got stoked for another day, slightly less hot than the day before. Our booth was set up near the main stages today so it was pretty loud but I could almost see New Found Glory and Bad Religion if I squinted.

When not touring with the truth or working on some bad reality t.v. show I book shows for bands. One of these bands I worked with in college was a pop punk band from Florida called Inspection 12. Pete from Inspection 12 went on to join Yellowcard who are on this years tour and I was able to track him down today and catch up.Like I said yesterday it’s always exciting to see people you know doing well and people defiantly love his band. Jared Leto also descended upon warped tour to watch Circa Survive and mingle among throngs of oogling pre-teens.

The venue today was also right across from a beach so at the end of the day with about forty minutes to bus call I headed to check it out with Melissa from Fuse and some of her crew. We all had to be back on the bus by 11 p.m. so we only had a few minutes to enjoy the waves. The beach was pretty rocky and the waves would pull the rocks out over other rocks and the result was a sound exactly like thunder. Those sort of times spent hanging out are among my favorite part of  the tour experience.

The incredible thing about touring is you just go to bed and wake up in a totally new place. The thing that remains the same throughout the cities is this incredible community of interesting people we are traveling with and the fact that I never really know if we are going to get a chance to shower before the bus leaves.

I’d call day two a success.

Locals Only,
TaRa

P.S. Shilpa doesn’t know who Jared Leto is.

Today we have a few days off in Las Vegas which I am extremely happy about. We are staying at the luxurious Excalibur on the Strip. Walking from the tour bus to hotel check-in I managed to see the heads of a mechanical dragon which I think is used in one of their shows. Chris and I went to the New York, New York Hotel which wasn’t very New York at all. Tomorrow, I get to see my friend Nicole who is flying from California to spend July 4th with me. Transformers also comes out tomorrow and Chris, Mickey, and I are dressing up as cardboard Transformers. We will probably see three showings of the movie- since the cartoon was one of our favorite shows growing up.