Where’d Bun Boy go?

A spontaneous road trip to Vegas happened on Thursday, July 2nd.  It started with Trina and I having  dinner with another couple at The Bowery on Sunset.  Someone suggested “Why don’t we got to Vegas?”  So at about 11:15pm we hit the road.  We had fun, we gambled, we won, then we lost, and we napped at what turned out to be a scuzzy little hotel (proving once again, you get what you pay for).  At about 3:30 the next afternoon, we jumped in the car and started the drive home. It hadn’t even been 18 hours since “Why don’t we go to Las Vegas” had first been uttered. It hadn’t been the “The Hangover” trip we’d first envisioned.  No one got lost, no cars were destroyed, no gay Chinese mafia guys attacked us, and no one married a stripper. It was much more like the movie “Swingers,” but without any Dorothies.  Still, it was a seriously great trip…until…

The ride home had been all about stopping at the Bun Boy!  The Bun Boy is an historic diner that has been a traditional part of any Vegas roadtrip for decades.  It lies in Baker, California at the perfect desert stopping point between Vegas and Los Angeles.  Well, it USED TO lie there.  Now granted, it’s probably been almost a decade since I’ve done the drive to Vegas from Los Angeles.  Not that I haven’t been to Vegas in that time.  I’ve made plenty of Vegas trips in the 2000′s (the aughts? the double ohs??)  I had just chosen to make donations to Southwest Airlines on these trips and save the wear and tear on my car…and my body.  The four hour drive back to L.A. after a Vegas weekend, can feel like 48 hours of Guantanamo Bay style torture. At least from what I learned by watching “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanemo Bay“.

Anyway, I digress.  The point is BUN BOY IS GONE!  It’s been replaced by a Bob’s Big Boy!   Apparently this happened a few years ago.  So how come nobody told me???  It was sad, not to the level of being tragic, but very sad.  Still, I managed to choke down a delicious strawberry milk shake, take a picture I ended up really liking, and climb back into the car to continue our voyage home.  Yep, it was great trip, but I’ll miss you Bun Boy.