Episode 62 The Serendipitous Jen is on the road...AGAIN (Day 1)

The Serendipitous Jen and Carlos are fleeing the state once again to discover new unmarked territories.The final stop will be Durango, Colorado for The Durango Blues Train ride. Today was filled with stops at Calico Ghost town, Speed Vegas for some drifting in a Dodge Charger Hellcat, then off to gamble in the casinos and just when they were making their way to Utah... Carlos got a whim to gamble some more! They will spend the night at a casino / resort in Mesquite, Nevada before making their way to Bryce Canyon tomorrow. Stay tuned for day 2.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, it's Jen with the serendipitous Jen. Um I'm here with Carlos.

SPEAKER_05 0:04

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

And we are going on a road trip again.

SPEAKER_05 0:08

Again.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

So we took off this morning at 7, now almost 10 a.m. Uh Saturday morning on our way to Durango, Colorado, or a Durango Loose train that Carlos got tickets for, but I'm gonna let you talk more about that because I'm driving.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

Okay, so the way it went down was I was at work and um I saw this ad on Instagram or a uh like a three-hour tour on uh like a coal. It was an old school coal steam train uh that uh plays blues with a live band on the train as you're going through the uh Colorado Mountains uh in Durango. And uh it was funny because when I was looking, it it didn't occur to me. Actually, it was my co-worker, and my co I was showing my co-worker, I'm like, hey man, check this out, the subscription. And he's like, You really like trains, don't you? And I'm like, I didn't it didn't dawn on me, and I'm like, think I was like, why did he say that? And I started thinking about it, and I had told him about the first met you. Yeah, the Glenn Blair bar, which is only accessible through pedal carts or trains.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

And of course we chose the train. Yeah. That's when I first met you. I was like, what's your dream like trip or whatever? You're like, I always wanted to take a skill train in Northern California. I'm like, why haven't you done it? You're like, I don't know, and I'm like, let's go. Yeah. So I took you there.

SPEAKER_05 1:32

That was freaking awesome. It was like the coolest train ride ever.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

And then Grand Canyon, we went to the Grand Canyon, and you're like, let's take the train to the Grand Canyon. Yeah, and I was like, alright.

SPEAKER_05 1:42

Yeah, and it was like another slow train that had entertainment on it. Yeah, so the scum train was like about a short 35, 45 minute ride. But it was beautiful because it went super slow as far as trains were concerned, and you and it was an old school train, same thing. Yeah, and the cars, one of the cars at the top was off, so you could literally stand and it was all wide open, so you could see like the redwoods on each side as you're going through the trees, through the forest, across these creeks. It was just awesome, right? Yeah. So then we did the we did that, and then we did the Williams to Grand Canyon train, and that was awesome too. And then now this one's like drive into the I guess my co-worker, yeah. I guess my co-worker was right. Like I'm into like the old slow moving, like theme type train rides. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So I'm always fascinated along the T here because we see the longest trains. I've already seen two because they're really yeah, because they're really moving stuff, and they must be like at least 200 hours long.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I'm just fascinated by how it all works, yeah, where they're going.

SPEAKER_05 2:51

So when when I saw these, I was like, man, let's going back to the Durango train. When I saw these um tickets, I was like, you know what? Screw it, let's I'm just gonna buy them. And at first we were trying to figure out how we were gonna do this as far as like, do I take like a couple days off, and do we fly into Durango and then take the mu take the train ride and then fly back? And then we're looking at the logistics of it, and so I had some vacation built up, and I'm like, you know what? If I'm gonna take Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off, I might as well just take Monday and Tuesday or Tuesday off because Monday was part of my work schedule, is I get every other Monday off anyway. So I'll just take one more day off and then have a whole week, and then we'll just roach for a bit.

unknown 3:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

And then I had to ask my boss for time off, and I never take a time off. I only take um at Thanksgiving Tuesday off of that week because you and I always fail.

SPEAKER_05 3:44

And I think she takes that off too, doesn't she?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah, and then uh but I never asked in two and a half years to like do this, and it was kind of spontaneous, so I wasn't sure how she knew it. She was like, Yeah, just make it a light schedule for me and I'll be fine. So that worked out well.

SPEAKER_05 3:59

It just worked out so we kinda mapped out our route, but not not to the point where like we have reservations. Everything's not like hard set.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

We have no reservations.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

Yeah, we got no reservations nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

We added solar to the van. That's what we've done since last podcast.

SPEAKER_05 4:16

Yes, we added solar, so that's running our bridge right now, so we can keep our fridge on 24-7, which is good. That's never been and um semi-mapped it out.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, we just uh we just stopped in Dead Valley at the Hartley because we were driving past it, and then we just pulled up to check that out.

SPEAKER_05 4:36

It was cool. We saw some good, some cool bikes.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah. I think I'm ready to sell the lowrider to get us into the next thing. I think so.

SPEAKER_05 4:44

I think we're ready for like a true bagger.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

We've had that for two years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:48

Yeah, I think we're ready for a bagger now. Uh but we gotta look into the logistics of that too, because I mean the insurance is really low on the low rider on the low rider.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

The bagger's gonna be a little more, but motorcycles in general are cheap.

SPEAKER_05 5:01

Yeah, they're yeah, they're pretty cheap right now. There was one we saw for like those like 56,000. But these ones we're looking at were only like low 30s. I know. So if we get like 25 or the other one, yeah, we're in good shape. So we'll see that's gonna be the next adventure as far as toys.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

And then you labeled over because your maps led you to you for sleeping, but the maps told me to exit, so I didn't. I was like, oh, there's a McDonald's error. I can run and go eat in a diet or treat or whatever. Um, and then over leaving, you got so excited, and you're like, oh my god, I saw I was like, hey babe, look at that funny little RV hole. And you're like, oh my god, I saw that on Instagram. That's a little churro truck.

SPEAKER_05 5:45

That's a Volkswagen bug that got by a van. But the Volkswagen bug is converted into like a churro making bug. A churro making bug, yeah. The guy makes churros inside that bug. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And then all the Dodgers come downloaded down to blue, blue with white. It's very noticeable, but you got so excited. Oh, you posted it on your Instagram.

SPEAKER_05 6:08

Yeah, I thought that was a coolest thing. Oh, look at that guy, because when I saw the Instagram, I go, oh, that guy's making churros out of that thing. And when I saw the Volkswagen, I just thought the Volkswagen was cool because it was back down with the Dodgers theme. I was like, that's bitches. And then it shows the guy, he's inside the bug, and he's like jamming out churros. I'm like, oh shit. Wow. He stands in the bug. He stands in the bug and he makes them. Yeah, it's like the whole little kiosk thing that I think there was like an umbrella that went up too that he puts in there.

unknown 6:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

It wasn't there when he was pulling it, obviously, but yeah, it was this whole little like shindig, kind of like those uh the root stands you see with the rainbow umbrella. Kind of like that. Well, I thought that was pretty cool. It's like, yeah, you can you can probably book them to have a chural party or something.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, on your next cantinetta, I think. Yeah, when I have on my quincinetta.

SPEAKER_05 6:55

I'm 54, so on my quinciniera, I'm gonna have one.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Darn it. Darn it, we missed it. Too bad. No chute, man.

SPEAKER_05 7:04

No chudos.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Decanoyers.

SPEAKER_05 7:10

So yeah, that's uh that's what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Where are we now? We uh in the middle of nowhere. Dead Valley. I just we just passed it risen.

SPEAKER_05 7:17

We're on we're we're in the sprinter band, man. I know. We're in the sprinter van, you're in the driver's seat, and I'm in the passenger.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Right. But we just passed it risen.

SPEAKER_05 7:25

Alright. There's just a bunch of mountains out here right now.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

And those are hills.

SPEAKER_05 7:29

And a bunch of hills. And some uh tower towers, weeds, and bushes.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I think the cars are out today, too.

SPEAKER_05 7:38

So that's that's what I that's what we see right now. Okay. And so in your mind's eye, picture that.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

So wait, today we're going to St. George, at least, but we're gonna hopefully end up in the middle.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

Yeah, well, I put St. George because it gave us a direction we did not want to go because when I first put in the Google, it gave me three different it gave me three different routes. I'm like, oh, let's take the north route. Well, when I put it in this time, it only gave me one. I'm like, oh man. So I had to go in there and I had to pick a spot that would lead us north, and St. George was it. So uh we might stay there, we might uh we'll just play it by ear.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

I want to end up in zion and rice canyon for sure because last time we did zion, now we're we never saw Rice Canyon. So we need to get that.

SPEAKER_05 8:20

So once we get close to St. George, I'll probably put in the directions for like Rice Canyon.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, you think that ticket to Utah is only like six hours, seven hours from our house.

SPEAKER_05 8:29

Yeah, I didn't I never thought that. I thought it was for whatever reason I thought it was hard.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Me too. I don't think anyone thinks about that. And the drive between Vegas and southern Utah is absolutely uh stunning. You drive through like these huge mountains and the desert, you know, the desert-looking mountain. I can't believe that part of this drive. This last time you slept through it, so this time you probably get to see it. It's huge.

SPEAKER_05 8:53

My whole state would be.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah. So this is uh seven states, six states.

SPEAKER_05 8:58

Okay, but probably six.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Six, yeah. That would be fun. Oh yeah, so then we're gonna make our way to Durango. And then on the way back, is it family in New Mexico?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And then go through Arizona to head up to standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona. I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_05 9:14

That's one of the stops we gotta make. If you're unfamiliar with that phrase, it's from the Eagle song Take It Easy. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, if you have any free time, listen to that song, and then later on, uh, we'll be posting some stuff uh on the Instagram. Uh I'll be posting on my Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

I usually do some too.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

And I usually tag. Well, I always tag.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 9:35

Well, what's your Insta bit?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Serendipitous Jen. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 9:41

If you wanna see some pictures of our trip, if you're uh so inclined to do so, you can follow the serendipitous jen on Instagram. Make her Instagram famous, y'all.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, that's my goal.

SPEAKER_05 9:57

No, we just want to share our uh uh journeys with you guys, and uh, you know, listening to it is awesome. But if you want to see some pictures of the journey, yeah, check her out.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, it will be fun.

SPEAKER_05 10:08

She's a little hottie on there.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Very funny. Alright. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_05 10:13

All right, okay. Alright. Okay, bye!

SPEAKER_01 10:16

We just made it stop too.

SPEAKER_05 10:18

Calico goes down.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

That's right. So that was fun. I always wanted you to see it. It never worked out on our road trips before we just stopped by because it's usually on our way home, and we're both just ready to go home. You know what I mean? How long did that take us? We arrived at 10 30. What did you think?

SPEAKER_05 10:35

I thought it was pretty cool. Saw some cool uh a glass bottle house, uh 5,000 bottles to make. Uh we saw some other uh little huts that were made of rock and I guess a mixture of earth, mud, or whatever, clay, whatever they had out here to use as mortar. It was really, really cool. Saw some cool history on this.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, that cool fire drawing.

SPEAKER_05 10:55

Yeah, horse drawn. Horse drawn steam higher drawing. Yeah, that was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_05 11:05

Yeah, they were actually really cool. Mine lights up, yours.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, they fit your headlight perfect in mine, my head perfect.

SPEAKER_05 11:13

Yeah, mine took mine off. It was my I was sweating too much. I sweat up. I run hot, so I like I was like sweating and that thing. It might be good like during the winter time with my head on.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Right?

SPEAKER_05 11:22

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

No, but it was fun. They have like a little old bar saloon.

SPEAKER_05 11:26

Yeah, they have a little saloon, they have a little museum, a little jail house there.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah, yeah, we took a cute picture in there. I can post that on my Instagram later.

SPEAKER_05 11:34

Yeah, we got some pictures we can take definitely of uh if you've never been to Calico, they're definitely gonna be on the uh Instagram, so you can check out some of the pictures.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

And also I think I should be on the one people bucket list. It's eight bucks to get in person.

SPEAKER_05 11:48

Yeah, one thing I didn't realize is how much of a tourist town uh is well I was gonna try to go this way and shave off time.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

I don't want to backtrack it if you're gonna go.

SPEAKER_05 11:56

Yeah, just go about the goal left. Okay, I just want to make sure we're talking about direction, sorry about that. We went off on a side note.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

No, we try now.

SPEAKER_05 12:07

But um, yeah, it's it was a trip because on the way out I noticed that it was a sign that had four whatever was said it had four different languages. So a lot of people donation. A lot of people, um, tourists come here from other countries to check it out.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

We asked a couple of guys to take our picture when we were standing in the jail, and they were like uh looking at us weird, and I was like, Oh, do you mind taking a picture? I said it again, and then one of the friends like, oh photo.

SPEAKER_05 12:31

Yeah, I'd like to point to the phone and like do like the clicky thing with the hand. I do international sign language, so if you can just imagine in your mind, I'm doing the clicky thing with both of my fingers on each side.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

That was so funny, they were so nice. I did it. Yeah, they were good for it.

SPEAKER_05 12:46

So yeah, that's uh one of our pit stops.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Now we're back on the road. I don't know what next.

SPEAKER_05 12:51

Yeah, but like I said, we have a general idea of where where we're going, but it's just gonna be kind of random stuff like like this one, right? We uh I just saw a sign on my calico like, oh, put it in Super Tack. I thought we had passed it. I'm like, oh no, it's ahead. So yeah, it was on the way. 11 minutes just off the B path, checked it out for about an hour and a half, took some pictures, bought some memorabilia, and uh now we're on our way.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

All right, thank you. We'll keep we'll keep in touch.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Okay, we're at exotics racing outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, right on the border, and we're gonna go drift in a charger Hellcat RT RTS something. Anyway, um I'll record from the car. Okay, we're getting ready to get into the exotic racing speed vegas control park to protect and swerve. Lights are on. Okay, I'm in the car. I gotta buckle my seatbelt. And what's your name? Mike. Hi, Mike. You're from uh Ventura. Yeah, and you do this for a living? Are you kidding me? Yes, is this nitrous oxide in the back in the trunk? Just water. And I heard I get to move around the most because I'm in the back. Is that right? Oh, do you want me to take a hand? Like, oh, take a screw spin around and you sit back here.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Okay, so that was amazing. But I have to tell you, my heart was pounding the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

And also, the other thing is even after we Okay, so as I was saying, uh I gotta be honest with you, my heart was pounding our looks like so hard, and it took me like ten minutes to calm down even after we took off the helmet.

SPEAKER_05 15:16

Yeah, that was freaking wild. Like, it took me a while to calm down too. That was pure drone, like right off the gate.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, and you were up front. I had a little uh sliding around back there in the backseat, which I loved even more.

SPEAKER_05 15:27

Yeah, you could feel the G's coming on each turn. He was getting on it. Right off the room. We're doing over a hundred. Yeah, I can't believe it. Like the whole almost the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I can't believe that. That was crazy. It was one corner to the next corner, and it's a Dodge Charger Hell RTS. But it has to be modified. Yeah, but it has to be modified somehow.

SPEAKER_05 15:47

Oh, yeah, that thing is way modified.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Because the trunk he was filling with water before we even got in.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

Yeah, it was that thing was sued up to the back.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

That's his day job. That's what he does all day long.

SPEAKER_05 15:57

Oh, you can pay for that.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

I wonder how many accidents they have. Do they have any?

SPEAKER_05 16:01

Uh, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

And they said that was the first time anyone's done a podcast in back.

SPEAKER_05 16:05

Yeah. Yeah, they were getting excited when you told them, like, go do a podcast. The guy's like, no way!

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yeah. Both of them. Yeah, first time. Okay, we'll keep it, we'll keep going. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 16:17

Okay, so we made it as far as uh almost out of Vegas.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

We made it to the yeah, the last or almost out of Nevada. Mesquite. We made it to Mesquite. Mesquite, Nevada.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

So we did make it out of Vegas.

SPEAKER_05 16:30

Yeah, we made it out of Vegas. We did make it out of Nevada.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 16:35

Most of the day in Nevada, yeah. Calico, Coast California.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

No, that was California, Calico by far still.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

We got into Vegas.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

We did the Vegas car racing, sliding thing, exotic something racing. Yeah. It's okay. And then we hit up a casino.

SPEAKER_05 16:59

Yeah, we hit up a casino. We hit up a south point.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

Then I stayed there for a while with $20, and then I came out a winner with 85 cents.

SPEAKER_05 17:09

Yeah, I was down when we left, and then we made our way down the 15, stopped, and got some snails, and it was like 109.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

109 degrees.

SPEAKER_05 17:20

And then uh we were in and out real quick, jumped in the bam, headed down the road, and then uh we were heading on the 15 and then ran into Casa Bongo.

SPEAKER_04 17:31

We kept seeing the billboards. Yeah, because 100 bucks a night or something.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah, we're like because once you get into Utah, you can't gamble on Utah. No we don't drink anyways, but you can have lots of fun out there, don't give me wrong. Oh yeah, Zion and Bright. We figured we'd stay here because we were on the road all day and get some rest.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

Yeah, it was a good call, and you wanted to gamble some more.

SPEAKER_05 17:59

Yeah, they don't have a pool.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

No, but they have a cool pool we're gonna take advantage of.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

They have a really cool, like, waist high pool with like this waterfall going cascading down. It's really cool. It's a really big pool, too.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

So we're gonna hit that up in the morning. I'm going to the hot tub because it's open 24 hours.

SPEAKER_05 18:21

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I don't know how big the hot tub is. I might come with the trunk. Oh, okay. I thought I was gambling.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

Oh, well, you can do both. You could gamble in your trunk. Yeah, they bring you a little portable machine.

SPEAKER_05 18:40

Floating black jacket in the pool.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I do here. Surprise! No, but I pulled your trunk. I thought that'd be nice to sit in the hot tub together. Eventually. We have plenty of time for that. Okay, I just wanted to update everybody. I'm gonna put it out now.

SPEAKER_05 18:58

All right.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Because I can get it out. And then hopefully we can do another one tomorrow. Oh, yeah, good. Alrighty. Okay. Thanks.