Can you believe that this was the first time that Ray and I ever took any kind of trip together?

So, come along with us. This is the ultimate sibling road trip. We’re starting off with day one of the road trip from Huntington Beach to Las Vegas to Panguitch, Utah. And then the next day, that’ll be taking us all the way out to Denver. Ray had an AVP beach volleyball tournament. 

Hey, Ray. Thanks for coming onto the podcast. Yeah, no problem. Happy to be here. Yeah, this is so exciting. This is my first one that I’m doing with, like, anyone else. So, obviously, you know, my co-founder and brother, it’s great to have you on. (laughs) So, I thought… I was just telling everybody about AVP. Yeah. Could you tell them, like, the whole reason why we did this? Yeah. So, I’ve been playing volleyball and beach volleyball for a long time. Um, especially now that we live out here, uh, by the beach- Mm-hmm. … you know, I’ve gone a lot more into the competitive side of beach volleyball. So, when one of my friends texted me with this opportunity to go play in the AVP qualifiers… Uh, if you don’t know, AVP is basically, like, the- the pro-league for the United States. Uh, and these qualifiers, if you win out of the qualifier tournament, you get to play in the pro-level tournament. Um, so, uh, having the opportunity to sign up with someone and play in the qualifiers was a really big deal for me, especially that first time around. So, I jumped at the opportunity. It was in Denver, and we were trying to figure out, like, “Oh, how do we get there?” ‘Cause it’s- Mm-hmm. … it’s a pretty long car ride. It is, yeah. Yeah. (laughs) But it was a good one, it was a good one. Don’t get us wrong. Yeah, yeah. So, Lily and I turned it into a full road trip, and we, uh, stopped to hang out with a friend halfway through. She gave us a place to sleep for the night. That way, we didn’t have to do, like, the 16 or 17-hour car ride all in one go. Totally. And of course, my Limon mind was racing. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. We’re going all the way to Denver.” Like, think about all the content we could get for Limon. And this is back last summer, when we were, like, kind of in stealth mode, just building and all that, you know? Yeah. So, we’re like, “This is the perfect opportunity. We can just start posting about it when the app is live.” So, here we are. It was super fun. 

But to kick off the whole car ride, we woke up super early in the morning. Right, Ray? I don’t even remember how early. (laughs) I don’t either. I’m a morning person, so it doesn’t really, like, faze me, but Ray’s a night owl. Yeah. So, this was a lot for him to get up that early. Yeah. The agreement was, I would get up early, but Lily would drive in the mornings. That way, like- Yeah. … I had time for my brain to start working. (laughs) Exactly. Like, you in the morning? That just doesn’t- doesn’t work, even with- No. … coffee. So- No. … we figured it out. But yeah. So, basically, we live in Huntington Beach. So, we started to drive, just going through, like, rural California, and then we crossed the Arizona border and it started to look a little too familiar in a way. Oh, yeah. It totally looked like we were in Cars Land- Yeah. … at Disneyland. (laughs) Yeah, I’m not even kidding you. Like, this was the first time that we’ve driven through any environment like that. We started putting Life is a Highway on blast, and it was- Yeah, that and just the entire Cars soundtrack, actually. Yeah. (laughs) It’s one of those sibling nostalgic things. Like, we grew up watching that- Yeah. … and we’re on a sibling road trip. We’re like, “Well, why not?” Right? Exactly. We had to pass the time some way. Yeah. And then, we actually looked it up, and it was where the film Cars is based on. So, we were like, “No way. Of course. This is so fun.” 

So, Ray, there was another song that you were particularly interested in, right? (laughs) Yeah, there was. What- So, uh, those long car rides, there’s not much to do, so sometimes you have to go down these weird rabbit holes- Mm-hmm. … to keep yourself entertained. Uh, one of those rabbit holes that we went down was, uh, about the song Mambo No. 5. Classic. (laughs) (laughs) Everyone knows that song, right? But, uh, I was sitting there and I was wondering, “What about Mambo No. 4? No. 3, 2, and 1?” Yeah. (laughs) Why is there only a Mambo No. 5? (laughs) So, we did some research on it, and it turns out that Mambo No. 5 is actually, like, a remix of a super old song called Mambo No. 5. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I looked more into it, and he titled that Mambo No. 5 because he was just making music, and every song he made was, like, titled Mambo No. 1, Mambo No. 2, 3, 4, 5. But when I was trying to look online, the only one I could really find was Mambo No. 5, and I think I was a- also able to find, like, 4 or 3 or something like that. Well, yeah. Let me play a little sample right here so peop- people can hear the original Mambo No. 5. You’re gonna hear a little bit of the similarity to the one that got so popular now. Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of like how rap samples other songs all the time. That’s just what everyone does in music. Mm-hmm. You know? Uh, everyone gets inspired fro- from some sort of media. Intruder Alert. Ah, hoo! So, we had a fun time, uh, looking through the history of the different Mambos. (laughs) Yeah, the mystery of the missing Mambos, it turns out. Yeah, yeah. 

All right, so we finally made it to Las Vegas. It’s actually Ray’s first time ever to Las Vegas. So, what’d you think? Yeah, it was cool. I mean, I didn’t get, like, the full Vegas experience, because we were just- Yeah. … stopping there to grab some food and hit the road again. Um, I’d never been to Vegas because when I turned 21, it was while they required wearing masks there, so I just pushed off my whole Vegas trip for the first time because I didn’t want to do it having to, you know, be under lockdown. I wanted it to be, like, a true Vegas experience. Mm-hmm. So, stopping by there was super cool, uh, checking out all the hotels. It definitely did not disappoint. Uh, the- the inside of them, like, they- they were all so cool. Um… Yeah. I would love to actually do, like, a full Vegas trip there, but, you know, we’re kind of building a business right now. (laughs) Yeah, totally. We’ll come back soon. I feel like you got- Yeah. … the ultimate trailer for Vegas. Like- Exactly. … enough for you to want to come back soon. But, uh, when we stopped there, too, we just got some quick tacos, because Ray’s favorite type of food ever is Mexican food. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, there is never a time that Ray will say no to Mexican food, I kid you not. Like, literally every time he’s hungry, that’s his go-to. Especially for volleyball. Um, there was a tradition where, after every game or tournament, I would go get Mexican food afterwards, to the point that my, uh, that my club team, where we’d, like, travel all over the country, after we would play, we- we would have to pick somewhere to go eat that would be next to a Mexican restaurant, because my coach knew that, like, it was- it was either I get Mexican food or the team doesn’t eat. (laughs) Totally, yeah. So, we stopped for tacos. We found Tacos El Gordo. Doesn’t that just mean the fat tacos? (laughs) (laughs) Wouldn’t expect another choice from you, Ray. Good call. Those t- tacos were very delicious. Yeah. Online, it said that they’re supposed to be, like, t-… authentic-type Mexican food. Uh, it seemed like a pretty popular f- place, got good ratings. The food was great. Yeah. 

So in order to walk around Vegas, we did get to go through a hotel. So we walked through Caesar’s Palace. Ray, what were your thoughts about that? Yeah, th- so that was the first time I went into any of those, like, you know, like big Vegas places, or just anywhere that has such, like, a strong theme to it. Mm-hmm. Uh, so that was really the cool thing for me is walking in there and being like, “Wow, they really put this much effort into, like, making this almost like a new place.” Like, uh, once you step inside, it’s not like you’re in Vegas anymore. Yeah. It’s like you are there. Um, similar to, like, how Disneyland gives you that same sense of, like- Mm-hmm. … you step into the theme park, and all of a sudden, you’re not in Anaheim anymore. You’re in the park. So- Yeah. … that’s, that’s the closest thing I can relate it to. Um, so it was really interesting to check it out. And I definitely wanna go back and check out all the other places there in Vegas ’cause I’m sure each one has its own unique spin. Totally. And yeah, it really does feel like you’re in your own enclosed world there, you know? Like, it doesn’t feel like you’re just at one shop or the other, but- Yeah. … it’s truly a whole experience there. So then we hit the road again. 

This is probably the longest stretch getting all the way there to Panguitch. Mm-hmm. But yeah, what do you think about Panguitch? So Panguitch was another thing that was, like, super unique that I had never experienced. Mm-hmm. Um, super small town right outside of Bryce Canyon. Um- If I remember correctly, wasn’t it only like 1,700 people is the population? Something like that. Yeah, very small. Yeah, very small. Def- by far the smallest town I’ve ever been in. Mm-hmm. Um, so it was interesting. It kinda reminded me of, like, when we would go up to Yosemite and stop by, like, those different small towns on the way up there, like the small mountain towns. Yeah. It, it was similar to, to that. But it was just interesting to see a new way of life, um- Mm-hmm. … and how when you would go to the different restaurants, like, we, we went to a place to eat that my friend worked at. You can tell, like, everybody knows everybody- Yeah. … which, like, living- Like a small town community feel. Yeah, living in like Orange County and, like, going into LA all the time, you never expected to see the same person twice. Mm-hmm. So it was really interesting to see there, like, people were walking in, and they’re, like, being greeted like they’re family. Exactly. Yeah. I really liked the whole small town charm of it, and it has roots, you know, in like, in this whole cowboy era of the United States. And especially being out there in rural Utah, you know, you’re just so far removed from anything. And- Mm-hmm. … it just really felt like you were on a farm basically in that town. It was a really neat experience. So of course, we had to get dinner. And again, like Ray was mentioning, it is a small town, so it just so happened that the restaurant that we went to is the one that our friend works at. And so- Yeah, we didn’t even know that going into there actually. (laughs) Yeah, but of course, like, the, the restaurant looks like the coolest one there. Like, it makes a lot of sense, right? Yeah. Yeah, and then we talked to our waiter, and we’re like, “Oh, like, do you happen to know Piper?” And because it’s such a small town, like, of course everybody knows everybody. (laughs) Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. But the food did not disappoint. I got some steak and fries and salad, and what’d you get, Ray? A slimmer thing. It looks like I got some steak, mashed potatoes, and beans there. Uh, I remember the food was, was pretty good. Uh- Yeah, had to go for, like, the whole all-American food. It was delicious. Totally, totally. And it was also a smokehouse too, which it was really neat to see the way that they actually grilled the meat. And, uh, yeah, just to walk around the whole area, you felt like you were getting the truly authentic experience to that location. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It kinda gave me, like, gold rush vibes. (laughs) Yeah, totally. (laughs) I remember in elementary school doing, like, the whole gold rush play and everything like that, that everyone, th- th- that they made everyone do. Uh, it reminded me of, like, that kind of, like, country type of theme. So, yeah, just cool to see different parts of, uh, the US. Yeah, and then after that, our friend finally got home, so we went over to her house to stay the night before we headed off for the next day of our adventure, which you’ll get to hear next. 

Thanks so much, Ray, for being my first guest on my Limon page here. Where can they find you? Uh, so you can find me on Limon with the handle Ramon with a lemon emoji. Awesome. So yeah, go follow Ray if you wanna hear about his perspective of either this trip or… What are you gonna be posting about mostly? Oh, man. So this one was focused around an AVP tournament I did. I do play competitively, so almost every weekend, I’m traveling to a different beach to go compete. Mm-hmm. Uh, so a lot of my trips are usually gonna be surrounded around going to the beach somewhere and then finding a restaurant and maybe somewhere to go grab a drink with friends afterwards. Love it. Yeah. So if you’re an athlete, you gotta follow Ray. (laughs) An athlete or just someone that likes to travel to the beaches, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And if you enjoyed this post, make sure to give it a like, and follow me for more fun adventures like this. You gotta see what else happens on the Sibling Road Trip. Oh, yeah. It was a fun one. Totally. See you guys next time.