Big Game!

September 24, 2010 Friday

Checked out of the Eldorado Casino early (before sunrise) and set our sites on Yellowstone National Park.

We have our Annual pass we purchased in Maine, so our entry is covered! The station ranger takes a quick photo as we pass through the West Gate, and we do the same!

It was a long ride but we made it into the park around 4:30. Almost immediately, the long trek pays off with animal sightings! First animal, Elk buck, next 2 young moose. Then bison! Very big, and walking down the road straight for the time machine!and deer and steam! Massive formations belching steam and sometimes hot water flows. Yellowstone is a beautiful park; huge, bigger than I could ever have imagined.

Old Faithful was expected to show at 7:33 and it was on time. Beautiful, awesome, fantastic and I took a video with the camera vertical. Oops! All day as we traverse the park, we discover that everyone here has a camera, and they take advantage of seeing the time machine in such a strange setting to capture the moment. A few donations are made at each scenic pull-off. We start our way to the NE exit where our cabin awaits. It’s a very long 2-hour ride that turns into more than that, when a road closed to fire stops us. So around the world we go and it’s dark and we’ve been driving since 5:00 am. To add an extra element of danger and excitement to the exhaustion and peril of driving off the steep cliffs, there are constant signs reminding us of the very real possibility of animals suddenly appearing in the road, at any minute.

We finally make it to our cabin and pass out. (This photo was taken the next morning in the daylight.)

Cats, Costumes and Casinos.

Thursday September 23, 2010

We have a very nice breakfast with Kimball and Jeffery; what super friends. Their farm house is so warm and beautifully decorated. The effects of home sickness seem to melt away while we are here. The evenings and mornings have been getting chilly, and fall is in the air. The drivers door on the D is getting more and more floppy in the cold. Something is definitely up with that door! I find little tiny cat prints across the hood; a sign that Ramses has visited! :) We depart for Old Sacramento and the Train Museum. We arrive around 12:30, have lunch in a 4 story Saloon and then we explore the costume shop which has an antique elevator and vault! The entire town looks like it came out of a western. -Because many of the buildings really date back to the 1800's. Raised side walks (board walks) line both sides of the street, and you can imagine cowboys walking up and down the planks, with spurs a-chingin'.We get a call to be guests at the Team Fox Charity Poker match in October but have to say no. We have a very busy schedule already. The folks at the Train Museum are wonderful; we pull up to the old hardware store and folks start taking pictures and making donations. There is a Cameraman there from channel 10 News, and he interviews Oliver. We visit the museum. They have a great movie illustrating the history of the railroad, then at the end, the screen lifts, revealing full-size steam engines which you get to explore! Very magical and impressive displays! They also have some relics from ‘Back to the Future 3’! After a bit of fundraising, we hit the road for Yellowstone. We make it to Reno and stop at Walmart for some camping necessities, pbj, bread, cereal and milk. Oli replaces a low pressure A/C switch so that we can have air conditioning again. (It gave out a few days ago and a quick call to Danny Botkin at DMC Garden Grove helped us figure out the problem.) We’re staying at the Eldorado Hotel and Casino. Back to the neon lights and loud slot machine music! Not to mention there must be a motorcycle rally in town. On line the rooms listed at $50; at the desk I get queen room for $20. Very happy with the price and the room is very nice! Cheapest hotel on the trip yet!

We hope to make Yellowstone tomorrow and have Saturday to explore the wilderness.

NASA, Grapes, and Namaste.

Wednesday September 22, 2010

Today we visit a very special shop!

The visit to Don and Anna Bie's 'Fair Street Films' workshop was inspiring: such creative people, using their resources to make amazing models. With a history in film work, including 'Star Wars', and -of course, 'Back to the Future', Don and Anna and the crew were in the process of building NASA rockets. They had shipped off quite a few to an exhibit in Stockholm, Sweden and Don showed us a video of the pieces. We were so impressed with their work and they seemed to enjoy our car. Many pictures were taken, smiling faces all around.

Now for wine tasting at a favorite winery of our friends, Graton Ridge Cellars.

A sweet vineyard. The grapes are very small. They don't let them get too big, in order to concentrate their flavor. Tastey wines and a boccee ball court. First time for both wine tasting and boccee playing. The 'pallino' is the white ball and the goal is to get as many of your team's colored balls as close to the pallino as possible. Not much athleticism required, so it suited us well! And we worked on a nice bottle of Chardonnay as we played, which improved the skill level (or at least our perceived skills.) A lot of fun! (Even though the boys tried their best to cheat, the girls won!)

We drive through a neighborhood where a fellow has installed creative lawn art. It started with one for himself and then his neighbors wanted one of their own. The art is humorous representations of the neighbors done in found metal objects, welded together. Some large, 4 feet, others smaller. A mailman, a milkman, dogs, cows, just plain fun! Northern California seems to have such creative energy in it's people! Then to Namaste', where we enjoyed lamb, shrimp, chicken, eggplant, saffron rice. Yummy! The moon rise was beautiful over the hills, Happy Fall everyone.

Now to sleep, tomorrow we drive to Sacramento for a TV interview and museums.

Clean car, clean clothes and clean us!

Friday morning the car is returned to us from David Watson's Automotive Restoration and Detailing business. She is dazzling, absolutely beautiful. Dave donated the time and resources of his business to our vehicle so that we could represent Team Fox in the best light! We take her for a ride to the laundromat, (we live such exciting lives.) While parked, people make donations into Mr. Compassion and take flyers for the upcoming car show. Oli gets a hair cut nearby and I fluff and fold. Back to the hotel to clean up for the Gala. It's being held at he Blackhawk Museum in Walnut Creek. Its a modest facade nestled within an outdoor shopping/dining center (which also has a cinema.) In fact, it's so well tucked away, we circle the mall twice trying to find it!
But when we do, it blows our minds. The museum houses the most unique collection of car masterpieces I have ever witnessed. There are one of a kind autos here, dream machines. Oliver liked the wooden one. I favor the purple one, no the silver one, no the red one! Oh wait, all in a row the most amazing Alfa Romao's. beautiful! There are 3 levels to the museum and each has wonderment to see. They have us park the Delorean at the entry for all to see as they enter the Museum. An extension cord is offered and we plug in, light all the lights and play the promotional video on the ‘wing-screen’ and all is well. After a few hours, we have a bit of a panic when the sound system fails. The radio is out! A quick call to our official DeLorean Technical Support, Bob Zilla and Oli is checking fuses. It's getting scary, then Oli realizes that the lights are starting to fail and the time circuits start to fail. The outlet we were told to plug into was not live! It's on a timer and won't turn on until Sunset. We've been running the D on her own battery, with all the effects even the TV and DVD player! She's a tough little car and did her very best, (amazing she lasted as long as she did on her own power!) but she did even better when we found a live outlet. Thanks to the fine crew at the Museum, they tested a few outlets before we found a live one! Crisis averted, now let's enjoy the party. It starts with a silent auction, folks have had a chance to write their bids, and to finish, the auctioneer steps to each item with a tall blinking sign and does a final rally for bids. It's a great way to build excitement and bids! Dinner is held in the museum and we are surrounded by amazing cars. Our table partners include Tom (and wife Nancy), who designed special glasses that help him walk; he has PD. And then there's Gale and her husband who have a fully restored 1955 Jaguar. As the night goes on, we share stories and tales and find out that Gale and Jerry live near Jamestown; the train is in their backyard. Maybe we will see them in the future. Back to the room, there's a VW Camper Bus all decked out for a vacation. It's the favorite the Owner of the museum admits later in his greeting. The announcer is a local reporter who calls the weather lady for an update on tomorrows forecast. Partly sunny with a chance of light rain is the translation. Translation because the connection is broken up, they must have ATT too! Jim and his wife have a moment to speak, very kind and generous people. Then Debi takes the microphone, she announces that Team Fox has hit the $2,000,000 mark, and that's just for this year. Team Fox has raised over $200,000,000 in it's history! She then introduces a video that Michael J. Fox has sent. The dinner was delicious and the auction exciting. A trip to Budapest to race a Formula One, a Safari in Africa and a Diamond Necklace. These are only a few of the lavish items up for bid. At the end of the evening there was a card pull, they sold 52 cards for a chance to win earrings. Very popular with the ladies! And last but not least a paddle raise, here they gave you an opportunity to raise your paddle and yell out the dollar amount your family wanted to donate, no prize just pure pleasure in giving. The evening ended with us having a moment with Debi and then to the hotel to rest up for the car show.

Zigzagging, Petrified, and the PCH 1.

Tuesday September 21, 2010
We leave the San Remo heading for Lombard Street. We zig zag our way to the crooked-est street in the world. We approach from the bottom and receive cheers as we head to the top. It’s an exciting ride, people yelling and taking photos all the way down. At the bottom more cheers! What fun! We cross the Golden Gate Bridge and head north. We decide to visit the Petrified Forest, huge rock trees that are millions of years old and the world's largest specimens. About as exciting as petrified trees can be, but to get back to Petaluma we took the PCH 1, Pacific Coast Highway, which WAS exciting!
It’s a beautiful day, blue sky, cool breeze and the awesome ocean and rocks! We stop at shell beach, not so may shells, and hike down the cliffs. Oli and I both love this part of the world. A little lunch with sea gulls at Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed 'The Birds') and then on to Petaluma, CA., a town established in the 1800’s that still has a lot of the old town style. A grand old bank building on the corner now houses a seed company, featuring non-genetically altered seeds. 'Heirloom seeds.' Also some really cool book stores and toy shops.
Then off to the farm to visit our friends, Jeffery and Kimball. They live in Petaluma where Rameses the Great Hemotep Kitty Uncommon, greets us at the top of the drive.

Roy, Walt and many others.

September 20, 2010 Monday finds us packing up. Leaving the Lafayette Hotel is difficult, the beds are so soft. But we pack the car and head over to Dave’s for one last good bye. The Danville d’Elegance car show is over and we have had a wonderful time. We set our sites on San Francisco. We pay a $4.00 toll to cross the Bay Bridge. A thick fog layer covers the bay; it’s hanging low and all you can see are the very tops of the Golden Gate Bridge. Our destination is the Disney Family Museum. It’s a remarkable tribute to the Disney Family and the family man that Walt Disney was. The displays are informative and some are even interactive. Awe and amazement at the beauty of the museum and even tears of joy and sadness. Highly recommend you visit. We lunch with our friend and host of the San Francisco Ghost Hunt, Jim Fassbinder. We catch up and share stories and before you know it its 5pm and time for Jim to get ready for his walk. Another highly recommended San Fran attraction. Oli takes him for a quick ride around the block and he insists on making a donation. What a generous, kind friend. Back to the museum where the car has been parked and drawing a crowd all afternoon. We meet Josh Keppel (wearing a USA shirt) from NBC Bay Area and do a quick interview. Josh introduces us to Aaron Maestri who was actually responsible for designing the exhibits of the museum and just happened to be there this day! What a coincidence and an honor to be able to compliment the designer on his brilliant work. This was Aaron’s first visit to the museum since it opened. Our favorite part of the museum is as you turn the corner and look down upon the Disneyland section. During Aarons many meetings with Diane, she told him she wanted the experience of that room to be like coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Mission accomplished. We both got goosebumps and our eyes bugged out. He happened to be there today having lunch with Diane Disney herself. When they exited the museum they saw the DeLorean and looked it over. I can’t believe we missed Diane by a fraction of a moment. We were probably walking right beside her while inside the museum and didn’t know it. -But she saw our car!! And if it made her and her daughter smile, we’re happy to have given back a small portion of what her family has done for us over the years. By request, we posed the car in front of the building for the crew of the museum to take pics. They made donations and we sat a few of them into the drivers seat. Now we’ll watch FB for their posts! Finished the day by getting a room at the San Remo Hotel and a sourdough bread bowl of clam chowder on Fisherman’s Warf. Tomorrow we decide if we explore San Fran some more or head for the Redwoods. I vote Redwoods!

A Parade and the car show.

Morning comes quick again. We drive to the intersection of Prospect and Railroad in Downtown Danville and set up the car. The shop owners are all happy to help with letting us run power to the car, we check the outlet first of course! Folks are from all over, earlier there was a heart walk so all those folks have filtered into downtown to enjoy the cars. All makes and models, there's an REO Speedwagon, a pic up truck, weren't they a band in the 70's? Jaguars, Astin Martins, Lamborginis and Range Rovers. And lot's between. Oli led the parade with silent auction winner, 'Mackenzie', as co-pilot in the time machine, and they blasted Huey Lewis' Power of Love all the way down the parade route. Mackenzie enjoyed the 'aooga' horn button! We had a great time sharing the tent with the Parkinson's Institute. Debi helped us set up the booth and then had to catch a plane. But before she left we took some pics with her in the car. She looks good in a time machine! Fun! The day was filled with kids wanting to climb in the car, some with blue tongues.We set the time circuits to their birthdays and just had a blast. Gale, my dinner partner from last night, cutie patutie, stopped by with her grand kids. It's a beautiful day for a car show, cool with cloud cover in the morning but by the afternoon we are enjoying the sunshine! The show finishes up with the awards and we all start to pack up. Good bye Danville! We have had a wonderful time in your quaint, charming town.
Now to decide where to next? Seattle? Yellowstone? Well first the Disney Family Museum tomorrow, then we'll decide.

Sleep, Bacon, and an ocean of Blue.

Thursday 9/16/20 After the salt flats excitement of Utah we head for California. After a fill up and a bite, we leave town around 2pm, later than we had planned, but with only 9.5 hours to go, we figure we'll be o.k.
We make it to Reno around dusk and decide to push it one more hour. Oops, it's a very dark and dreary road through the Tahoe National Forest. There is construction most of the way and it's pitch black. Difficult driving so I start making hotel calls. The rooms are crazy expensive until I call the Colfax Motor Lodge. Affordable and get-to-able! It's the perfect place, sweet room that feels like California, arched doorways. Everything looks like the owners take great care and pride with their motel. The paint is kept fresh, the outdoor carpeting of the covered walkways is vacuumed, etc. For the first time on this trip, even the toilet has the little paper ribbon declaring it's sanitation! It is not fancy, but meticulously cared for and it shows. The morning comes too quickly, but up we get and pack the car. At the entrance's hill is a restaurant -and it's home cooking! Since we had skipped supper, we're both hungry and were thinking Cracker Barrel thoughts. This was even better! Eggs, home fries, pancakes, bacon. Mmmmm. Now let's get to Danville! Getting back on 80, the construction seems to end shortly, or at least easier to get through in the day light. The road is wide and very hilly, running like a giant rollercoaster. Our ears pop every few minutes, dipping down low, then rising up over the next hilltop. A strange looking plane flies overhead. Traffic is flying, and though we're not sure what the speed limit is, we're able to keep pace pretty well. The beautiful pine trees go whizzing by and we're so happy to be well rested and able to see the roads and be out of the construction! As we take a hill, we see a blue light off to the side of the road. Oli slows, then sees the speed limit sign after the blue light. 65 mph. Then, as we crest the top of the hill, we see something that puts our hearts in our throats. An ocean of blue lights, all up and down the highway. Travelers pulled left and right by a squad of police. It's a major speed trap! The first we've ever seen like this. And, as you might imagine, Oli looks in his side mirror and we have attracted a blue light of our very own. We pull over, as quickly as we can, trying to find a clear spot between all the others. The young California patrolman is not Eric Estrada, but has strong features and short brown hair with frosted highlights. He walks up smiling with a mouthful of perfectly white Hollywood teeth. "Good morning! Our radar plane read you doing 86 in a 65." (Ouch!) "If you had gone 2 miles faster, I might not have been able to catch ya!" The officer has a sense of humor but still gives us a ticket. It's obviously a well orchestrated operation and they will be very busy, all day long. At least we got our turn early in the morning. Oh, well. The state of California is in major financial trouble, and maybe this is helping them pay for all that road construction! :) Now to concentrate on Danville. We are so close. Oliver grumbles that if he had been able to drive just a few more miles last night, we would have been past where they set up the speed trap the next morning. Better a ticket than wrecked off the mountain side due to exhaustion. With a phone call we confirm our hotel and it's beautiful. Lafayette Hotel, old time Cali style! Very luxurious, with all the charming touches, including robes and overstuffed furniture. Even those fancy curtain boxes over the beds, that make you feel like you're sleeping in the royal bedroom. (No paper sanitation ribbon on the commode, however!) We drop the car off at Professional Automotive, where Dave, an organizer for the car show has graciously offers a full car detail. We apologize for the salt and other buggy 'road trophies' we've collected over the past 3000 or so miles, and he laughs. There is a 1954 Jaguar one spot over, a beautiful machine. I compliment it and Dave claims it as his own! He says that they just did some damage restoration on it and it's ready for the show. Also that we'll be seeing lots of classic cars, but that he's thrilled to see our little D! Back to the hotel for a nap and then maybe some dinner. We rent what Oli calls 'Freddy Fingers,' (Nightmare on Elm Street), and Oli keeps falling asleep!! When you lay down on these beds, you keep going. You just sink in and never want to climb out. A nice nap and we start a review of the days and weeks to come. We've got the map of America in front of us and a calendar. There is so much to see and so many miles and really so little time,. We want to make the most of it, with out killing ourselves. Exhaustion is acceptable. We have dinner at a Mexican restaurant down the street that seems to be birthday party central. It's so loud and the service is slow, but the food is good. It seems we're the only couple there, as most everyone there is in groups of 6 to 18 people and all of them have screaming kids! (It's a Friday night, so we accept the terms of the chaos.) We eat and leave with our ears ringing, like we just left a rock concert. Oli works on catching up the blog, I find a book on the shelf in the room about PT Barnum. Then sleep!

Ree Greenwood, fast and friendly!

Thursday morning, 9/16/10

We wake up early and Oli wants to have a picture on the salt flats. We pack the car and head for the Bonneville Salt Flats Racetrack. We take the exit and there’s a State Park with trailers and tent campers. Oli considers taking the picture there, but decides to keep on driving. We stop at a tent and say ‘Hi’ to the nice greeters and explain what we’re doing in a DeLorean Time Machine when asked, and are given a couple of pass pins and directions to follow the cones. It’s more than a mile to the raceway, but we figure we might as well take a look. We stop where there are a lot of cars waiting in line. Everyone is so nice, they suggest that we go to the pit area and talk to the organizers. We meet Ellen and she calls Jim. They have been involved with the races since inception in 1976. Jim says that we should get inspected and IF we pass, we can race. Not really race, but rather time test, -so we race time! There's a special section called the 130 Club. It's for regular cars to have fun, and the goal is to get to 130mph. From a dead start you have one mile to drive as fast as you can. Kenny, who Oli met at the hotel the night before, inspects the car; he’s the one that suggested we “check out the races.” The car passes -with Kenny looking the other way on a couple of items. Fortunately, we have our fire extinguisher, which is required. The only thing holding us back is a helmet for Oli. Can’t race without one. As we are heading for the line up area a guy on a 4 wheeler stops us to say hey. He asks if we are racing and Oli replies that we want to, but must find a helmet to borrow. The guy just hands him his! "Here use this one!" and then escorts us to the line up. The guy’s name is Dalton and he is a real good guy. We start to prep the car; no loose items allowed, -and we’ve got lots. So I start packing and realize that we are in the sun and we’re going to burn. Ahead of us are 4 ladies and a Mustang. I ask if anyone has sun block and am offered some. While we are protecting our ears, 'Ree Greenwood', one of the ladies, starts talking with us. We do a basic intro and then she asks if we’d ever raced before? No. Well, she had and she was ready to give us some great advice. Ree loaned us her compressor to inflate the tires. 'Less contact with the surface, the better,' she says. Helps us empty the passenger foot well. Laughs as Oli tapes an 88 on the car using some electrical tape. That’s our registration number! He slips on some long jeans over his shorts and puts on a long sleeve shirt (both are requirements to participate.) And before you know it, Oli is racing. I hand a camera off to Dalton and run for the start line. Oli’s off before I’m really ready. But I shoot as he blasts down the salt flats. Dalton rides me out to meet Oli and Oli’s asking if he can go again? Yes, Yes! I say and head back for the line up. Oli got up to 88 and was lucky for that much because of him being squashed in the car wearing a helmet. He has to sit slouched as it is. He's bummed, because he shifted from 2nd to 5th accidentally. So he’s ready for the second run. Getting advice from Ree. We empty the bonnet of everything. Ree has brought her Meata that she raced earlier and we use it as a storage car. She is so nice, all the while she’s been telling folks about our mission. Much of the donations that day is thanks to her! Oli is racing again. I’m better prepared and there are 3 professional photographers catching the moment. They just walked up and offered. Okay! Oli is off and gone. Dalton is waiting to ride me over to Oli when he comes back. I wave Oli on to the photographers who’ve set up lights for a shoot. Great pics are taken and we are grinning from ear to ear. Ree has stuck with us and brought our belongings and sign and even suggest taking our shoes off to walk barefoot on the salt. All this fun and a foot treatment too. Life is good.

Oli’s second run is timed at 99.9 and he is happy!! We're allowed 5 runs total, but time is short, and we've got to get to Danville for the next event.

We finish up with Oli doing an interview and we pack up as the photographers take Ree’s pic in her sweet Meata!

We head back to the pit so we can say thank you and good-bye. Jim is there and I give him a great big hug. This was more fun than we could ever have imagined. We’d seen the movie, 'World's Fastest Indian,' starring Anthony Hopkins. It’s an amazing movie that had been filmed right there on the salt flats, and with many of the club's members. And Oli just raced time on the very same! The gang says goodbye and hopes we'll be back, now that we've 'had a taste of the salt!' What an unexpected adventure!

Now we are off to California. I keep trying to help, but I am still not confidant driving the D. At least I can give Oli a break, short one but it’s a break and we are still moving.

Windmills, Rainbows and Salt.

Wednesday 9/15/10 We made it well past Omaha yesterday, long hard driving. Stay at a Days Inn, wake early and hit the road. Nebraska, then Wyoming. We see windmills and then more windmills and hill tops covered with windmills. Alternative energy, that gives the landscape wonder. We notice the engine running hard and then see a statue of Abraham Lincoln at the top of the hill. We are on I-80, the Lincoln Highway and have just passed the highest point. We figure that the car is struggling with the thin air. Oliver says he feels like he did our last trip to Colorado, trying to take deeper breaths from the lack of oxygen! We keep on going and going and going. We start seeing jutting rock formations that turn to mountains. We see a cowboy on a horse, chasing a calf down the hill. There goes Wyoming, and now we are in Utah. More buttes, more mountains and then Salt Lake City. Then the Great Salt Lake. There’s the Morton Salt factory. Go figure! There’s an unexpected tennis ball tower sculpture that we’ll have to google later to find out what it is.

It’s more than 2 hours around the lake but its okay because it’s sunset and it gives us a beautiful show. Long desolate flat straight road with salt flats on either side. The mountains turn blue, there seems to be a fog in the air and we enjoy. The plan is to reach the first city, which just happens to be Wenton, NV. Nevada? The first sign of life is a road sign saying, “Races” with an arrow. Salt Flat races? This is where they run cars and motorcycles at crazy speeds! Oh how cool. The movie ‘World’s Fastest Indian’ with Anthony Hopkins was filmed here. We keep driving. We exit the highway and find ourselves in a small town, we drive through hoping to find a hotel near a restaurant. Out of Wenton into West Wenton, or as some might say, Little Vegas! There are blinking lights and neon signs, A neon dance hall girl kicking and a cowboy waving his hat. A bit of a shock after hours of such a blank landscape. I start calling hotels for rates and everyone is sold out. Oh dear it’s race week. A few more calls only to find out that the only rooms left are suites at $200 a night! Oh dear a few more calls and I find a room at the Rainbow, it’s a smoking suite for $70. Yippie! Pulling into the parking lot is a relief. A mustached man with a kind mature face and wearing a blue denim shirt with some club symbol embroidered on the pocket approaches. I figure he’s going to ask if we have a flux capacitator in there, or some other usual comment. Instead, he asks if we’re racing tomorrow. I don’t know what he’s talking about, and he says over at the Salt Flats. It only happens once a year and registration starts at 8am. We thank him, and decline politely. We’re too exhausted to even tell him about our mission. Turning the engine off, we experience a quiet stillness that was long forgotten. What a relief. So peaceful.

We walk in, through the smoked glass doors, and instantly, that peacefulness is gone again! We’re enveloped in a casino atmosphere where everything is neon and mirrors, with black light carpeting of rainbows in outerspace. Very dark, yet blinding at the same time. It is a shock to the system after the long drive of very little to look at. To get to our room, we have to carry our luggage throughout the entire casino. ‘Go to the end, and turn right after the craps tables.’ I suppose they are trying to entice us to drop our bags and play a round of 21, but the ploy somehow does not work it's magic on us. We’re beat and hungry, and are not really feeling like trying our luck. Food and bed is on our minds. Through the smoke filled cosmic darkness we tread, past endless stools filled with old people spending their retirement savings and the sounds of machines happily taking it, only rewarding them with cheerful chimeing ‘ding!’, ‘ding!’, ‘dings!’

The room has a Jacuzzi and a puffy soft bed. Huge flat screen, walk in closet. Mirrors and fake fur on the walls. Marble bathroom with non-matching marble accents. The doors are even covered in tacky marble linoleum! It’s smells of stale smoke, but we’ll survive. The dust ruffle on the bed is made of a similar color-changing material as Marty’s cap from BTTF2! (What a wild thing to notice.)

After taking the full tour of the suite, we head for the restaurant. The Over the Rainbow line is very long. Oli walks over to the Rainbow Buffet restaurant and it’s closed. I see that there are 2 seats at the counter open so we take those. We wait for service, and everyone just passes us by. We leave and cross the parking lot for the exotic wonderment of Burger King. Drinks, fries and burgers, the dinner of champions, or better, weary travelers. Back to the room, a hot jacuzzi and we collapse on the big puffy bed. A little over 9 hours left to Danville, we plan to sleep in, but here I am awake at 5. Well I can’t get on line so now that I’ve caught up with the blog maybe I can get a couple more winks in. California here we come.