TPIR Trip 1: Lake Tahoe

This year I won some prizes on The Price Is  Right. One of the major things I won was a trip to Lake Tahoe Nevada/California boarder line. My hotel was literally on the state line! I also won $400 worth of golf, and a rental car which is a big part of this story. This is also the first time I have ever been on a plane.

We woke up at 6 am, and got on the plane at 7:54 am. I have never been on a plane, and this was a really incredible experience for me as for I want to do world traveling my whole life but have never wanted to really do it by plane, but now I see plane's aren't bad at all and I actually really enjoyed the ride. We had a layover in Salt Lake City, Utah. That was my first time ever in UT. I got to walk around the airport a bit and see all the mountains outside. It was gorgeous. We finally arrived in Reno, Nevada which was also my first time ever in NV. We took a 1 hour shuttle to our hotel in South Lake Tahoe...

I stayed at the Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, with one of my best friends Thom. I stayed in room 628, a master bedroom, with 10 free drink coupons on any drink in the whole bar of the hotel, free breakfast every morning, a popcorn machine during happy hour and the place had a hot tub and indoor pool. It was nice.

Day 1 (Hot Tub Drunks)

Our first day, we checked in got cleaned up, walked around the town, it was beautiful everything was wooden paneled. Fresh air, trees, mountains, and casinos surrounded us. We got pizza at Blue Dog Pizza. It was delicious. We walked back started the happy hour and got drunk pretty quick. We hung out in the hot tub and started hanging with the other guest, ate free popcorn, and saw a Ron Jeremy (Ronny J, Ronald Jeremiah) look alike in the pool. We then went to the casino next store to discover they give free drinks to everyone playing the machines in there. We hung out met an awesome local server there. We watched the music, did a little bit of gabbling and called it a night.

Day 2 (Bear stalking)
We ate the free breakfast, and headed out to go bear hunting, and by that I mean hopefully run into a bear and give it a bear hug. We hiked a lot that day at Van Sickle Park. It was awesome. Just imagine to extremely sweaty guys getting the best view possible of Lake Tahoe. We found a water fall high up top but it was way too cold and would of made our testicles shrivel in seconds.  We headed back to the hotel, we hit up the pool and did their famous happy hour again! (Damn that place was incredible on happy hour, not only is any drink at the bar free with a coupon, if you run out every drink is only $2) Everyone was drunk around 5 pm everyday there. We got some advice to head to Zeypher Beach, we took a bus there, and relaxed on the beach and watched the sun set, as Canadian geese stormed us for food. It was nice, we left and went to bed.

Day 3 (Jimmy Buffett & Creed Covers)
We're sick of the breakfast so I drank a ton of tea, orange juice, and ate watermelon. We get word now to head to Mid-Town so we walked there. We found this really nice beach where we spent a great majority of our day, but then we went to this delicious organic food place called Sprouts. I ate steamed vegetables with tofo. This place was practically the talk of the town and definitely worth the reputation. It looked great and tasted great there. I highly recommend anyway to go there. We walked back to the hotel to pick up our bathing suits, during our time back we saw this hilarious man named Fabreezio dressed in a Hawaiian t-shirt, with a long mullet, cover Macy Grey - I Try (I try to say goodbye, and I choke song), as well as other crappy covers like Creed, Jimmy Buffett, etc. He was set up right out front of our hotel with keyboard and everything. We laugh and head back to the beach where we killed off a 12 pack and sat in the sand for hours, walked in clear water out very far as for you're still only knee deep somehow, played frisbee, and about 4 hours later we go back to hotel and the same Hawaiian shirt man is playing. He's been playing for at least 7 hours now, I ate a $3 quesadilla and we continuing watching him cover every 70s-80s song you could think of. It started to become kinda fun and entertaining to watch him take so many request and cover so many songs. We then eventually made our way to the hot tub. We sat in there for awhile and then went back to bed wasted and passed out.



Day 4 (Hitch Hiking with a drunk)

 

 It was time to PLAY GOLF! However did I forget to mention I'm not 25 and I couldn't get a rental car for that reason?!? Yes it's true I am 24 and won a rental car but they were not willing to fork it over, and the golf range was 10 miles away from my hotel. I tried to think of every way possible how I was going to get there cheaply but I couldn't think of a thing, there was a bus that went to The "Y" which I took but I still had another 5 miles to go. I made it to The "Y" and walked around and highly considered walking the 5 miles then I walked into a grocery store and thought about asking strangers for rides. I didn't... so I walked outside and saw some crazy looking man who smelled like alcohol, who looked like an old version of Will Ferrell, his name is Tom, and is 47 years old that use to live in New Zealand for 12 years, and lived in Nevada for 17 years. I asked him how to get from there to the golf course and he said drive down you can't miss it. I told him I wasn't driving and he said he would give me a ride. He did and we made it to the golf course, I asked him if he wanted to play $400 worth of golf with me for driving me down. It seemed like he crapped his pants but I wouldn't know due to the smell of alcohol, he was so excited and said yes but first he needed to ride back "to where he was staying" we arrived at some cabin house, and it looked em of glasses of rum and coke and damn he was getting lit. We came back to meet his old lady, who gave me a million hippy hugs, and he started making a couple of drinks.
I'm thinking shit, I just met this guy and he's going to kill me from him being too drunk to drive and I just offered the bastard $400 of golf, YOLO (I guess)!


We headed back to the golf course they gave us our clubs, balls, and our golf kart which I drove all over the course with and damn that was so much fun! This is my first time playing golf and I am telling you the honest 100% truth I KICKED ASS, especially this guys ass in golf I did so well and it was so much fun. I am so sad it had to end at the 18th hole. He bought us plenty of beers on the course. I was starting to swerve too much in the kart so some old man came up to us and asked us if we were okay which was fucking sick because every time someone came over to us the guy Thom would say. He won this on The Price Is Right! We have our rights to play here and do whatever we went.
I'm starting to feel like a celebrity at this moment, so for kicking Thom's ass in golf he buys me a 12 bottle pack of Blue Moon Summer Wheat, and dropped me back off at my hotel.
I DIDN'T DIE!!! YAY ME!
I'm back at the hotel and the Hawaiian t-shirt guy is playing for another 9 hour says the bartenders outside! I start to respect the hell out of him although he's now playing Train - Soul Sister, which kinda makes me want to laugh at him more but he was cool, we find out his name is Fabreezio. He told us he's opened up for Journey, Bad Company, and Bob Seager. We drank 4 of our Blue Moons each, did the happy hour for 2 margarita's for me, and I ask Fabreezio if he'll cover Here Comes The Sun, he does. I ask him to cover Don't Fear The Reaper. He does, but asks us to play cow bell with him, which I filmed. It will be up soon! It's awesome, we beat the hell out of that cow bell. I entertained the people outside. I then ask if he'll cover MARGARITAVILLE but have me do vocals. He agreed to it. Usually I know this song very well but this time I butch many of the lyrics but still manage to impress the people there. It's time to call it a night and pass out. I had a long one.

Day 5 (We fall of cliffs)
I heard word to check out Emerald Bay, which was definitely the best part of this whole entire trip. We took a bus to The "Y" again, we then took a trolley from there. It was a 30 minute beautiful ride to Emerald Beach. I mean it was super amazing scenic route up mountains. We made it and Thom suggested we rock climb and climb down the 200 foot cliff to get down to the beach. I agree and holy shit that was so dangerous! It was awesome but definitely super dangerous there was a point where Thom got stuck on the edge of cliff and had no where to go as I start climbing back up and fell down really hard and cut up my leg. I climbed back to the park aid and hung out there. I showed her my cut, she gave me her thermos to pour water on it and then I asked for a napkin but she didn't have any so I used a yellow sticky note to wipe the blood off. She gave me free water and bandaged me up. I heard from Thom about an hour later. He was completely red, and panting, he got water, he cooled off, and we made it the beach. We got in the crystal clear water, starred out to the island, walked around the castle, and had an amazing time. We got back on the trolley and headed back on our way to the hotel.

We made it back to the hotel to get our last round of free happy hour drinks, we drank them and remember Fabreezio told us he was playing Americana Grill. Turns out that is another hotel that we weren't staying at however the front desk girl at the hotel was one of the sweetest people I've ever met and she let us in where Fabreezio was playing which had a pool, hot tub, and sauna, which we got in all of them, we were getting drunk at a hotel that wasn't our. It was awesome! We listened to more Fabreezio covers as he played primarily to old people. we watched his whole set and hung out with him after he finished.
                                      Babies are being thrown at us!

We then left and were walking back to the hotel and 2 guys and some chick ran at us with their baby and launched their stroller at us with the baby inside of it, and called us bad names. It was somewhat hilarious but also sad.... We kept walking. We made it back to the hotel, cleaned up a little bit and headed to the casino where we met our friend Jessica who works there, and she gave us tons of free drinks from the casino. We were trashed in the casino next store to our hotel and I gabbled $1 and made $15 off the machine I walked out with about $30 of winnings that night. It was sick. We called it a night and went to sleep.

We took the plane back to SLC, had a 3 hour layover, we got our plane back to Baltimore and now I am home. This trip was insanely awesome, it was easily one of the best experiences of my life. I miss the West Coast and can't wait to go back August 7th to San Francisco for my 2nd trip I won on The Price Is Right.

day falling off a cliff, swimming in clear water, seeing fabrezzio at another hotel, having a baby thrown at us, winning $15 at the casino, drinking our 12 black of blue moon


Side Story: July 4th, and 5th.
My girlfriend Kim and I went to DC to watch the fireworks, it was super amazing to see in person there, we met up with her friends, ate watermelon. It was a very nice time. The next day we randomly decided to head to Ocean City for a day trip. We started driving and I suggested we stay at my grand parents who live over there. We later did, but before then we hung out in Ocean City, and ironically they had fireworks on the 5th of July because last night's got canceled due to the big storm the night before. We saw fireworks back to back. It was incredible, and a special moment. We walked around then went back to stay at my grand parents. The next morning we headed off to Assategue island where we walked over a tall bridge, hung out on the beach and saw a ton of wild horses. It was super cool, we went out to eat, grabbed ice cream, and drove back home. It was a fantastic weekend and awesome trip.

I have now officially have been to 32 states all together, and still am trying to make it to all 50 states by the age of 30




Thank you for reading my blog, you can follow me at @jameslanee