Mule Days does sound like fun but I think we might be competition for the loudest attendees... wouldn't want to drown out the brays with our laughter since I'm pretty sure that (despite the prohibition of gambling) our little group's volume will far outweigh our mass. Right folks?
Plus it's at the end of May. And Bishop? Talk about the middle of nowhere...and I have this really bad anxiety thing about being out in the desert with no trees or places for shelter. Actually had to leave a camping trip in the high desert because I was having one continuous humongous anxiety attack. Monkey brain at work mutter, mutter (and no I am not sitting on my hands).
I would love to host you all in Vegas although I have only been there a couple times myself.
May or October are good times to go in terms of weather. We could shoot for either Memorial Day weekend or Oct. 10th - Columbus Day long weekend - if folks have that off. October is kind of a long way off and my mom's health is not great lately so there's a chance the house might not be available in which case we would need to do hotel/vacation rental.
Here's a vacation rental I pulled up on a quick search with room for up to 16 people and the weekend rate in the fall looks like it's $299/night. The place has a pool table, pool, spa - it's huge and we wouldn't have to even leave the house if we didn't want to. Just one example in case we needed a back up plan. If we had 10 people that would be about $30 a night each
http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p257610
I'm open to the possibility of doing Vegas. Or someplace in CA is good too. We live in Sacramento and would be willing to host here this summer - we have our own pool but not much room for guests in the house.
Was there a poll about the West Coast? If so, I missed that.