Driving to Vegas...

It's a long way from Atlanta to Vegas.  I know this because I've flown there something ridiculous like 7 times in the last year, and I get antsy on the 4 hour flight.  Usually this is because I'm sitting next to someone who inevitably finds out I play poker, and goes into his 2 hour bad beat story while I sit there and nod while I think of various ways to make this guy die a slow and painful death.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Atlanta to Vegas.

Google maps has it at 1968 miles, 1500 of which are spent on I-40W.  I'll be happy if I never have to spend another minute on that road for the rest of my life.  Until next month when I drive the reverse route.  Since I don't have a ton of interesting stories from the drive since everyone bailed on coming out with me (yep you know who you are.  Don't think I won't rail on you in my blog just because you don't crack the 5 foot barrier), I'll give a recap of what I remember about each state that was passed through.

Georgia - The trip begins, driving across the country still seems like a great idea.  Car is packed with 2 months worth of clothes, golf clubs and tennis rackets, and 2 cases of 5 hour energies for when sleep inevitably rears it's ugly head.  By the time I make it to the border, it's officially the longest I've ever driven in my life.  Sweet only 30 hours to go.

Alabama - This state just straight up blows.  There's not a lot to look at, the highway I'm on has traffic lights, so I can't use cruise control, and every person I see looks like they missed a few stages of evolution.  I counted the number of intelligent looking people I saw in the 4 hours I spend in this miserable state.  I set the over under at 2, and in my mind I took the under.  Needless to say, I won.

Mississippi - I don't believe I was in Mississippi for long.  I remember it being similar to Alabama.  I'm also fairly certain that the man watching me pump gas and pick at his naval lint had some dirty thoughts going through his head.

Tennessee - Hi.  Bye.

Arkansas - Here we had scary moment number 1 of 2 on the trip.  Like the idiot I am I forgot that my Mazda RX8 doesn't get the best gas mileage.  I'm nearing the E line when I see a sign saying the next city is in 10 miles.  I pull off to a rest station right away and make some investigative phone calls to figure out how far I can go before the car dies.  My sources inform me I should barely make it.  I wonder how many people have been raped an murdered at the rest stop.

I make it to the gas station, more strange people look at me for being different.  At this time I'm getting fairly tired and decide I can't make it to the next major city to find a hotel.  I drive around Little Rock for over an hour and every hotel is booked.  Finally I drive a little bit further west and find a shit hotel that still charges me $200 for the night.  Hey, at least the porn selection was good.

Oklahoma/Texas - These two go together for no reason other than it's my blog and I do what I want.  After waking up early in Little Rock I start day 2 by heading through these amazing states.  There is nothing to see this entire day, except for some desert.  Oklahoma is one wide ass state and I know about wide asses; there's nothing like entering a state at mile marker 350 and knowing you're in for a long day.  Texas is basically a continuation of Oklahoma except for the fact that every sign reminds you "you're in Texas bitch, man up."

New Mexico - All these states are running together now.  Maybe it was the fact I was stuck in the car for 35 hours in 2 days, but I don't really remember anything about New Mexico.  I definitely slept the 2nd night in Albuquerque in a nicer hotel than Little Rock, but I remember the porn selection being worse.  Oh well, can't win them all.  A lot of people called me while I was at this hotel, apparently most of them thought I'd be dead in a ditch after 2 days driving, but I surprised them all.

Arifuckingzona - In case you can't tell, I don't like this state very much.  Now it's time for scary moment number 2.  It's got a similar theme to number 1, gas.  I pass through Flagstaff with about 3/4 of a tank left.  My math tells me I've got about 180 miles before I'll need some more gasolina, so there's no need to stop in Flagstaff, right???  What they fail to tell you, is that there isn't a goddamn thing anywhere in that entire state.  When I hit the quarter tank mark I started to get a bit nervous.  Hell, I hadn't seen anything that resembled civilization in about 50 miles at this point.  When the gas light came on I started to panic a bit.  At this point I saw a sign for Kingman, AZ in 50 miles.  I was fairly confident that I had about 40 miles left before I was dry.

Now I'm freaking out.  I'm going in and out of cell phone reception areas, so I finally pull over and call some people and have them try to google maps me and find a gas station.  Google maps basically says fuck you notilt, you're done.  Now, I was going through a bit of a dilemma here.  I had already planned on running out of gas about 10 miles from Kingman, but there was a problem of some stuff I was carrying with me in the car.  No it wasn't my stash of coke which is conveniently hidden away somewhere muahahah, it was the 20k cash I had on me to bring to Vegas.  While debating if I should leave it in the car and walk 10 miles to get gas, or take it with me and risk getting killed by someone who i hitched with, my car hit the E line.

I'm sweating bullets at this point.  It's still a 2 lane highway so I start to slow down and attempt to yell at passing cars to see if any of them are carrying extra gas.  Well at least I thought about doing that, but then I realized I really hate interacting with people so I just smiled and waved at the passing cars full of happy families with tons of gas.  Anyway, I'm starting to feel the car start to slow when I see a sign for food.  30 seconds later I see a sign for lodging, and another half minute later I see a gas station in the middle of the desert.  I can't even image how many people have been saved by this place.  They should charge $1,000 a gallon and no one would have a choice.  So I get my gas and head on my merry way.  I'm guessing I couldn't have gone much more than a mile further.

Nevada - Hoover Dam, Highway 215, and I arrive at final destination.  I'll write enough stuff about Nevada in future posts so no need to do it here.

Overall it was a good trip.  Hopefully I'll never do it again until I have to go home.  :(   <---- sadface

- Dan