My Air Conditioning Dies in the Desert...How Rude!

I'm back in Las Vegas. I got up very early this morning to get a start while the day was still relatively cool. "Relatively" is the operative word here; it's been really hot in Palm Springs this week, with the temperature hitting 120 degrees just a few days ago.

Just after I left the Indian gas station at Cabezon (gas on the reservation is always cheaper than the White man's gas. I don't know why, but it is), about 30 miles into my trip, I noticed things beginning to get a little stuffy inside my car. With the temperature hitting 100 degrees that early in the morning, there was no way I was gonna drive with the top down, so I cranked up the A/C. Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, not a darn thing. No air conditioning.

It was completely gone. So I rolled down the windows, got some fresh, warm air, which was much better than no air at all, and toughed it out to Las Vegas where I arrived feeling like a soft-boiled egg. I've already made an appointment to have the A/C fixed when I get home, but for now, I'll just tough it out.

When did we all become so soft? What did we do in the days before air conditioning? How did Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill drive back and forth from Beverly Hills to Las Vegas in the 1940s, when the Flamingo was under construction? They didn't have air conditioned cars in those days, did they?

Maybe they drove at night, when the desert cools down a bit. Maybe they didn't care. Maybe Bugsy was tougher than me. Maybe he only came to Las Vegas in the winter, when it's not hot at all.

Who knows? I've gotten my air conditioning rant off my chest, so now it's time to head on over to the Rio, to the World Series of Poker and see what the day has in store.