I made it to the place that poker originally happened…for me anyway. It’s chilly. I have no idea what the temperature is outside. I’m sitting in the coach, generator running, motosat locked onto some satellite in the sky, doing a bit of website work before I make the final leg into Sandpoint ID.

The trip to this point is semi-uneventful.

When I drove through Vegas at about 3:30 a.m. on Friday – hitting the exits to downtown, a white suv pulled up beside me and started honking. I looked over, careening down the freeway at 60, and didn’t recognize the driver (how could I recognize shit in the dark?). I went back to driving. He honked again. I looked back again. And went back to driving.

He didn’t give up.

He had his window rolled down and yelled something at me. I rolled my window down and caught something like, “CHECK YOUR TIRES!”

SHIT! I gave him a thumbs up and headed for an exit. When I got stopped, I expected to find a flat and instead found half of ratchet tie down that was hooked over a cable underneath the coach and the metal part had been beating itself into a smashed up piece of spark throwing junk. I’m guessing that he was saying I was blowing sparks or something. The only thing I can figure is that the metal part got flipped up by my truck tires and managed to loop over the cable underneath the coach. The hook on the other end of the ratchet thing was looped around the cloth part of it and that kept it wrapped around the cable. WHEW! I’m glad he didn’t give up. I might have started a fire down the road from the sparks blowing off, or got pulled over by a cop, or???

I ran about 2 gallons of gold out onto the truck stop pavement when I stopped at a Flying J to fill up. The first pump I went to wouldn’t start (had to go in and give my CC – they turned the pump on). I flipped all the right switches and nothing happened. I used the phone at the pump to call the attendant. She said, “It shows it’s pumping.”

I said, “It’s lying.”

She decided to send someone out to help me. Yah Baby. It wouldn’t work for the someone either so I moved to another pump and went back in for the CC process again. The new pump wouldn’t accept the switch that allows it to auto fill without holding down the lever. I tried everything, inserting the nozzle completely into the truck, pulling it half way out, just barely tipping it into the truck – the bastard clicked off immediately each time so I resolved to holding the damn lever at half mast to get it to fill as it wouldn’t fill if the lever was held at max. I stood next to the truck, closed my eyes, and a moment later heard, “M’AM…LADY!”

I jumped. The damn lever didn’t shut off when diesel was pouring down the side of my truck and onto the pavement. Kee-rist! Good thing the trucker next to me was watching me.

Several stops along the way to Missoula for my own coffee, food at my place, and sleeping in my own bed after a shower in my little digs, brought me to an evening meal with my 21 year old granddaughter Jasmine, her boyfriend Eric, my great nephew Eric, Vickie and Monte (truck driving team that will soon co-occupy the new digs in Pahrump), nephew Rowdy, and a fried of the Erics and Jasmine named Andy. It was all fun and relaxing.

Down the road in a few…