When I made it through to Day 3 of the WSOP, my girlfriend came out to Las Vegas to be with me. Sadly, there didn’t turn out to be much more poker to watch, so we took the next few days to travel in the area. We were in Bryce Canyon last night, and tonight we’re staying in a quiet little Mormon town called St. George. Quiet except…
So we were outside in the pool, about to come in and shower before dinner. I was toweling off when I heard a sudden, angry shout, “Get down! Get down on the fucking ground!” I didn’t even really panic, because although it’s a scary thing to hear, you just don’t expect to get robbed in a La Quinta pool. I mean, is there a stupider place to try to rob someone than a hotel pool?
I looked up, and sure enough there were two men with two guns drawn. Thankfully, they were pointed at a third guy, who is indeed face-down on the ground. As best I could tell, the two with guns were undercover police officers. In any event, they had got no interest in us, so we quickly headed back inside. It was pretty surreal though to see guns brandished at a hotel pool in Mormonville.
The other thing that was kind of funny, in retrospect, were the other two people in the pool with us. There was a little boy, about eight years old, out with his grandmother. The little boy had just dove into the water when he realized he didn’t have his goggles. “Maybe you can just swim without them, and we’ll get them for next time?” Grandma suggested.
“Can’t you just go up and get them?”
“I can’t leave you out here by yourself in the pool.”
“OK.” And so the little boy got out and started walking towards the gate with his grandmother just as the fugitive was being accosted. Knowing now what was to come next, it felt straight out of a Fox crime drama or a Nicholas Cage movie, where one or both of them end up getting taken hostage.
But nothing that exciting happened. There’s been a cop car parked outside all day, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.