day 6: vegas to california

After a night of bright lights and big city, we woke up, packed up and headed out of the giant pyramid to Jack-in-the-Box. 

Don't judge. It was a childhood favorite and still makes me happy.

Punk insisted we head to the Coca-Cola store where for eleven dollars e bought a flight of 16 sodas from around the world. We spent almost 30 minutes sampling, oohing, aging, sometimes gagging, at the various concoctions. Yoda declared all of them "yucky" except maybe the melon from Thailand. The rest of us loved the Fanta pineapple from Greece, Lift Mazana from Mexico, and Smart Apple from China.

The Vegitabeta from Japan was pretty gaggy, though the Japanese couple next to us insisted they'd never heard of it. The Krest Ginger from Mozambique tasted like watery mouthwash. The worst by far was the Beverly from Italy. With taste like laundry detergent mixed with grapefruit, combined with a bitter/poison like aftertaste, none of us could sip it without gagging. Too bad for Punk who lost a bet of his own design and had to polish off the entire cup.

We made short stops at both M&M world and Hershey's Chocolate World. Both were nothing but huge tourist traps, but the free samples and Statue of Liberty made entirely of chocolate were pretty sweet.

All in all, if I never saw Vegas again it would be OK - except for these guys. I wanted to bring these guys home with me:

Five hours later we are finally in Ventura, with cousins galore and the kids couldn't be happier.