9 am came way too early… But the time had come to start my stumble home. So I forced myself out of bed, took a shower, and started drinking as much water as possible.
You see, I know my body well, and I know that after a long night of adult beverages my biggest issue is always dehydration. I also knew that I was about to spend 5 hours driving through the desert to Pheonix with no AC. So the hydration process was key to getting ready to go.
At any rate once my room was packed up I headed downstairs and got checked out. I then did my normal “leaving Vegas” ritual. I went to the casino and I inserted the dozen cash out slips I had that were all worth a grand total of about 5 bucks into a penny a lot machine. I had just enough for one last spin on the slot machine. I won… and I don’t mean I won 20 bucks… I won one of the mini jackpots. I won’t tell you how much it was worth, or how much I had lost over the previous 2 days… But I walked out of the casino with $255 of the casinos money. That’s right, on my last spin, the one I only do because I don’t want to waste all of the pennies I have slips for, I won all of my money back… Plus $255.
So I bought several over priced water bottles and headed to Pheonix. I am so very very over driving through the desert. I mean it’s windy, it’s dry, it’s hot, and it’s bright. My eyes are great for low light environments (like back stage in theatres), but the evil day star gives me headaches if I don’t have sunglasses… Well guess what I left sitting at the bar last night? My sunglasses… I also apparently have lost both of my spare pairs. So I suffered for the first 150 miles of the trip. Oh I also drank about a gallon of water in that first 150 miles, because it’s the desert…
The first gas station I came across was this wonderful little oasis of chaos. I pulled into a scenario that was quickly reminding me of Mad Max (the good ones, not the reboot). You see the internet was down, which meant no credit/debit cards; they also didn’t accept checks. So it was a cash only situation. Turns out in this day and age no one carry’s enough cash to fill up their gas tanks. To make matters worse the next closest gas station is 40 miles away. So everyone was waiting for the internet to magically come back. Everyone who didn’t hit the jackpot on a penny slot machine that is. Haha!
So I negotiated getting someone to move their vehicle so I could get Jeff in and fill him up. Turns out all I had to do was give the guy cash for his gas and then he Venmo’ed me the money… I am so very glad no one figured out that’s what was going on or things could have gotten interesting. At any rate, I filled Jeff up, bought 2 pairs of cheap sunglasses, and another gallon of water.
I then drove the rest of the way to my first pit stop on the way home, Pheonix. I actually have several friends from college who live there now, so several of us went out to dinner, and then I was to bed by 9pm. Thank god, After the Vegas marathon I really needed a full night’s worth of sleep, especially since I plan on driving 920 miles to Fort Collins, CO tomorrow.
Daily Score: 2
– 1 point for visiting with friends
– 1 point for accruing another 1000 miles
Total score to date: 38
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