We departed Santa Fe, NM for Lake Powell, Grand Staircase in Utah. It was a longer drive but a much much more fun drive compared to the previous legs. We had long stretches of road, I mean, I bought this car so I could “gooo faassster” which is the point of the car, no? Probably my favourite purchase ever. Or maybe it’s a mid-life and I crave too much attention, either or.
Nearly every gas fill-up or stop, people come up and chat about the car, which is cool. Most didn’t know they made an SUV. So it’s mostly about that. One guy had an extra tire back in Albuquerque and wanted to send it to us for free in LA. We exchanged info and he’s seriously going to send it for free when we were back. What a nice guy.
We got to our stop in Lake Powell (Under Canvass) which is a glamping type setup. It’s a series of tents (most have hot running water, fire places etc) with a common area, restaurant, fire pits. Very cool. Comfortable camping. Always sleep pretty well when I stay in Under Canvas. Wish I could have stayed an extra day here, well, actually in each location just to see the sights, but we were on the road each day for about 6-8 hours.
Grabbing some good solid video and shots
At night time, with the ridiculous camera in the iPhone, we got some pretty cool night shots. Went exploring a bit while slamming some Truly’s and Scotch which was probably a bit irresponsible. You can see the stars in the shots. Yeah, we were climbing some small cliffs….bad idea with Davis (the dude below).
We woke up pretty early the next day, got ready for the shortest leg which was to Vegas. We had plans to hit up Monzu Pizzeria (best pizza ever), meet up with my poker coach (didn’t happen as we got tied up) and to basically just muck about showing Davis the city (he hadn’t been there). I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas during the WSOP (a month at a time) and it’s been a while since Covid, man, the emotions of competing flood back in. Though my family does come visit, it’s often just for a week or so and I’m there alone playing tournaments each day which is an interesting mental state deviation from normal life both negative and positive. Hard to explain but I can’t wait for the next WSOP in October so that says something! I’ll be licensed PPL and can fly myself to and from LA (1 hour flight) without disrupting the family too much re having to stay over. I can fly back when I bust a tourney.
We got in, expecting to ball it up and get valet at the Wynn but it was closed so we just parked in the normal structure, got our bags and got to the rooms. We ended up opting for two suites as we were sleeping in the same accommodations the whole way down and they were super cheap being during the middle of the week and Vegas was fuckn’ empty! The most eerie thing ever. Check out the pics here. Not a single person at the pool etc. Was so weird to see. No europeans, No Canadians just Americans …it was like the whole rest of world was removed from the mix.
We ended up having Monzu, going to Venetian, touring the strip and then having some sushi at Sushi Mamba. After that, we got free drinks at the Wynn and played some BJ for fun. We lost. But it sparked me wanting to get back into Card Counting and bringing the team back (Ash and I did on our road trip back to Canada in about 2 weeks from this trip and it was awesome…)
The next morning, we had breakfast and started our final leg into LA. Fresh as daisies, thanks to (I seriously think it’s a life hack) Drip Drop. I take these electrolytes that I found out about in Necker. They’re a powder thing you put into water …I’d do like 1-2 during the night when I am drinking and 1-2 in the AM and I seriously have zero hang-overs and negative effects. Highly recommend. We used every single day this trip and we had some messy nights with zero issues next day.
Next up, LA, which was arguably more messy and eventful than the whole trip!
As for trading, the entire trip, the trades just increased in value but we did hit stagnancy in P/L from about Jun 4 to present as the market vol increases. All in all, good results, I think it’ll end up at 25% for the first half of 2021 which is exactly as modelled. It’s been steady since 2018 H2 and quite boring which is what we’re after. Boring trading is good trading. The whole setup is a play on diversification. It’s diversified in time, entries, types of trades, types of black swan hedge and this creates a smoothing of volatility which allows for better compounding. Older trades hedge off newer trades, this most recent down move and vol, is actually preferred by the entire portfolio as we’ve had older trades like Aug, Sep entries that have a hump built up. All of this together, creates a system of trades that don’t care about any market move. That’s the point. It can feel slower, boring and unexciting but it’s steady and it’s $