You know you’ve been driving too long when out of your peripheral vision, you think your mother is putting on a dentist’s bib in the passenger’s seat. You know, the blue ones with the chain and alligator clips. This is actually what I thought I saw. My reaction? “Oh, are you getting ready to floss?”
You also know you’ve been driving too long when your mom starts to read you the Urban Ghosts for 10 Weird Places in the American Southwest and you both decide it’s a good idea to call the number listed for The Mojave Phone Booth. It was definitely a fascinating story and seriously broke up the monotony of the nighttime dessert driving, but 2 of the 3 people on the phone were jerks, so that kind of sucked the fun out of it. Not to ruin the surprise for those who want to call, but the number is now a conference line which the people on the phone referred to as a “chat line” and anyone can call in. They get reeeeallllyyy annoyed if you ask if the phone booth still exists and proceed to make fun of you until you hang up. Who knew such things existed??? Kind of creeped me out, but was an experience nonetheless.
The drive from the Sequoias to Vegas is about 380 miles which should take about 6 hours, but as we all know, I drive super slow and we make frequent-ish stops because I drink a lot of water. As a result, it was more like 7.5 hours.
The drive was really pretty while it was light out. The sunset in the Mojave and Death Valley was stunning.
Mom has two brothers, amongst other relatives, who live in California. As reflected in Stops #16 &18, we stopped and saw Tony in Northern California when Jackie flew out and Mom flew in. However, I haven’t planned a lot of visits with people.If you’re saying “you’re a selfish jerk!” you’re only partly right. I have done this for a few reasons:
1) it makes people feel like they have to change their life for you no matter how many times you say, “only if it works for your schedule,” when you tell them you will be in town;
2) it ties you to a timeline because now you have to be somewhere on a certain date at a certain time and that can be difficult when:
- a) you constantly break thinks on your domicile vehicle and have to change plans to get them fixed,
- b) you tend to change your mind about where you want to go, or
- c) you decide you want to spend longer or less time in a given place.
3) Sometimes people feel obligated to plan something for you once you throw it out there, and that’s not fun for anyone.
4) I’m kind of a selfish jerk.
With the timing of when Mom was flying out of Vegas, based on when Mike was flying into Vegas, and the things we wanted to see before we got to Vegas, there really wasn’t time to go to the Los Angeles area, where Mom’s other brother, Jack, and a number of other relatives live.
However, Jack was willing to drive to Vegas to meet us for a late night catch-up session and snacks. He felt the pain of some of my points above due to our ever-changing arrival time. Sorry, Jack!! We finally arrived about 11pm, got hooked up and then jumped in the car to show Mom the strip.
By then, it was 1am and we all needed some food (obviously) so we went to the TGIFridays that was in the super classy casino next to/associated with our campground (I only took Mom to the finest establishments). After eating, laughing and catching up, we were all exhausted. Three adults slept comfortably for 3 hours in the little camper.
Mom had an early flight, and Jack had to get back home (on his fancy new motorcycle), so we had an early morning photo session and off we all went. Focus on my tan, not my three-hours-of-sleep face and hair.
The Las Vegas airport is terrible. I swear it made us drive in 14 circles before we got to the point of dropping Mom off. She nearly missed her flight. Seriously, I dropped her off 40 minutes before her flight time. Oops. I rushed back to the campground, showered, unsuccessfully tried to clean up the debris from the tornado that went through the camper the night before, and then headed back to the airport to pick Mike up.
The first thing on the agenda upon picking Mike up from the airport was to take the trailer to the Airstream rental place to attempt to have the tongue jack fixed (which was now sometimes working). We found the place without much of an issue and man…these guys were GREAT! I cannot speak highly enough about Josh, Mona and their team at Airstreams 2 Go. They went out of their way to help us with what seemed like an impossible fix. On top of that, they refused to take any money AND they offered advice on a number of other items including checking out the propane tanks that appeared to be leaking and how to more efficiently attach the stabilizer bars to the Jeep. They run a great operation and are expanding across the country, including to Rhode Island, in the coming year. Unbelievable crew. I want to be their friends.
As a result of them checking out the propane tanks, it was discovered that one of the tanks was in fact leaking and was in fact bad (which is apparently rare). AND the connecting tubes were cracked. Eeeekkkk!!! So much for all my precautions of turning off the tanks while I drive. The stupid thing was just shooting gas out everywhere anyway. Encouraging. So, they told us where to go to get a new one and off we went to Camping World! This place is something else. Wish I had stopped at one sooner. I obviously left not only with a new propane tank, but with several other items to fix the things I had damaged in the past month and a few niceties.
Of course, upon trying to hook up the newly purchased connecting tubes, it was discovered that the connectors to the regulator/splitter thing-a-ma-bob were wrong, so Mike went back in and purchased adapters. Of course, they only had one adapter and we needed two so we had to drive another 20 minutes to another Camping World to get another adapter.
FINALLY, after Camping World Stop #2, we were on our way to the Stop #23, The Grand Canyon!
Lesson of the Day: Never underestimate people’s goodwill and always pay it forward when someone does something great for you. It can make someone’s life A LOT easier for little effort on your part. Thanks again, Airstream 2 Go!!!
L&K Take America 