and i'm crazy but i get the job done

I'm lying on my couch in Palo Alto, which is absolutely thrilling. I made it back from Vegas in ten hours, which was pretty good considering that traffic came to a standstill for almost an hour in the miles leading up to the agriculture inspection stop outside of Barstow. However, because I didn't start driving until 11:30am, this means that I got home at 9:30pm, which was later than I had hoped. Still, I'm glad to be back, and I'm glad that my odyssey of driving is over. I just put all the destinations that I went to into Google maps, and it appears that I drove 4500 miles in my loop around the Great American West, not counting any little extra bits of driving around towns and such while touring the various places on the list. While I'm not qualified to be a trucker just yet, I've done more solo driving (3000 miles of that trip was on my own) than I'd like to do for awhile.

Still, the trip was good, and I'm glad I did it. I got up around eight a.m. today with the intention of getting out of Vegas as quickly as possible, but I changed my mind and decided to have a leisurely breakfast after showering and drying my hair. On the way back up to my room, I learned from my fellow elevator guests that there was some sort of disaster in the hotel the previous night, for which they were trying to get a voucher or a comped room -- a transformer exploded, and there was a fire, and the power went out to the entire CityCenter area. Since I was asleep before midnight, I didn't notice any of this, and they didn't evacuate the hotel, so I wasn't inconvenienced at all. But apparently the people who weren't in the hotel (which would be many of them, since most people don't go to Vegas to go to bed before midnight) couldn't get into their rooms until four a.m. or something -- I'm guessing that without power, the elevators and key cards didn't work, which would make for a bad night. So, I stood in the insanely long checkout line rather than checking out on my tv so that I could take advantage of their misfortune, and the hotel comped the meal that I charged to my room last night (too bad I didn't eat someplace even fancier!) and is sending me a voucher for my next stay. Yay.

And then, after standing in the equally long line to get my car back from the valet, I drove back to California, and there is absolutely nothing of interest to report in terms of the drive. I think I shall go to bed now -- I need to start writing Ellie and Nick's story tomorrow, just as soon as I go out and get some milk (for tea) and groceries (so I don't starve). Goodnight!