Saturday, April 26th

Did I mention that for about $50 I got a hotel room with a fridge, microwave, in-room coffee maker, and free wireless internet (Even the nicest rooms in Vegas do not offer this for some reason). My car enjoyed the break last night and he was all back to his normal self today. No yellow warning lights on the dash the entire time. Perhaps he likes the weather in AZ and NV? Anyway, grabbed some coffee and what could best be described as a hot dog on a stick, but it was a breakfast sausage wrapped in a pancake. Not many non-chain choices along my route on AZ 66 West and I don't want to disappoint John Madera by stopping at a McDriveThru. The gas pumps were all being used, so I headed down the road to fill up at the next station, where I gracefully spilled half of my coffee all over my drivers door (inside and out and all over the window). Would this be a sign that this was going to be a bad day? It got down to almost freezing last night, but now at 10:30 am it is already back to 62 degrees. Since US 66 was basically obliterated by I-40, there was a lot of freeway driving in the first leg of today's trip. I got off to drive through Williams AZ where the famous Grand Canyon Railway is located. AZ 66 takes a long departure from I-40 near Selingman AZ, so I naturally decided to take the scenic route. I stopped for some photos and a few knick-nacks, then drove on. I saw a few recreated Burma Shave slogan ads from the 50's. My favorite one went like this: "If daisies are...Your favorite flower...Keep pushing up...Those miles per hour". I should have heeded warning, because in the next small town the speed limit went from 65 to 55 to 45 (I was doing like 49) and then, to 35 (which I missed). The friendly neighborhood police officer decided to stop me and let me know that I was speeding, but after running my information and seeing that I had a spit clean driving record, he let me off with just a warning. Close call! I was basically paranoid for the rest of the trip that I might miss another one of these small town speed traps, but luckily most of the remaining miles were on US and Interstate routes with faster speed limits anyway. Kingman AZ was my last town on old 66 before turning north for Las Vegas. I wanted to go further and drive through Laughlin, NV but this weekend was the 26th Annual River Run and as much as I wanted to see all of the great choppers and custom bikes, I really wanted to get to my room in Vegas and get ready for the APA National Planning Conference tomorrow (thank God I did - read further). I hit 3,000 miles traveled from my humble rowhome in Center City going north on US 93 at 2:45 pm (about 40 miles from the Hoover Dam). It got up to 86 degrees before crossing the dam, which took over 40 minutes since the engineering feat of a bypass of the dam is still not complete (they were working on it the first time I was here in 2005).

I got to the Paris Hotel/Casino at 4:45 pm and it was now 92 degrees. To my dismay, they overbooked and sent me down the road to the MGM Grand instead (which is great, but the conference is AT PARIS NOT MGM! Now, I got to get up extra early, find some coffee (Motel 6 offers free coffee @ $35/night but the MGM Grand cannot at more than 5x the cost/night), walk over to Paris (which is only 2 buildings over, but probably like 2 miles from my room to the conference center), register, and be sitting down in a session by 9 am on either Management Skills or Negotiation Skills (in Planning of course). Well, it's only shortly after 9 pm here, but my body is still on EST and I got to talk to my girl before I go to bed. Here's to 2 days of NOT driving for a change.