Nailed It

So the plan was for Lisa to start cleaning out the minivan in preparation for packing the rather large amount of stuff (Match Game SF takes up a lot of space) to go to Loscon/Westercon. I had an appointment with my chiropractor (treatment 25 of 30 of the spinal decompression plan), but if the van wasn't available, I could drive the Rolling Stone. But then things changed, and Lisa came in around 11:30 and said, "I think you need to cancel that appointment."

( Extra Trip to Reno )

I cancelled the chiropractor appointment, as as soon as I got off work, we drove into Sparks, where Big O repaired the tire under their road hazard warranty.

As it happens, we needed to run to Staples to buy something that we'd promised to bring to Loscon/Westercon. Initially it seems like it was something that Westercon 74 bought and that was sitting in our kit, but unfortunately, I'd managed to break it. I'd planned on replacing eventually, but this raised the urgency. Our initial plan had been to leave for Bishop today via Reno and pick up the replacement, but inasmuch as we were already in Reno/Sparks, we went ahead and got it on Tuesday. This means we can follow our original driving route, which is shorter, and of course we won't spend an hour or more working through Reno.

We got home with just enough daylight left (especially when the setting sun reflected off the clouds, making things lighter just after sunset) to deal with the tires. We initially had a setback, in that the spare didn't want to come off the wheel hub after Lisa removed the nuts. In a bit of serendipity, she levered the wheel off the hub using the pry-bar that we bought at Tonopah Hardware during Westercon to pry the fender of the rental trailer away from the wheel after someone backed into it while we were parked overnight. (This was one of several purchases we made in Tonopah that put more money into their local economy for which I had not planned, like Lisa's emergency shoes and a charging cable for my iPhone, the latter of which we got from A-Bar-L Western Wear.)

So we're running a little behind, but Lisa doesn't currently see it being a problem. Once the sun comes up and it warms up a bit, she will get back to work on packing. Fingers crossed that we can get out of here around Noon today.

We are of course relieved that this problem happened yesterday rather than today. On, and while working on the tire, Lisa spotted what is possibly a major source of the noise we've been dealing with since during the Winnipeg trip. Like certain other problems, it's annoying but not actually affecting the van's performance, so we'll once again put things off until after we return. More about this later.

Loscon Trip Part 1: Fernley to Bishop

[Backdated entry because I was too tire to write this at the time.]

On Wednesday, around 1:30 PM, we finished packing and set off for Loscon/Westercon. As usual, it took us quite a while to get out of Fernley, including having to loop back to the house after topping off the gas tank, but we then finally got going. Also as usual, our travel times are up to twice that of Google Maps, because we make a lot of rest stops and we don't drive at or above the speed limit most of time.

This is not the shortest route from Fernley to Bishop, but it is the one we prefer. As I said, we make a lot of rest breaks, including the one shown here at the El Capitan Casino in Hawthorne. Per our common practice when stopping to use the restrooms at a casino, Lisa put $1 into a slot machine, planning to either play it or make more than what we started with. With almost no money left, she hit a $3 jackpot, and we quit, then left for Bishop.

We got to Bishop around 6:30 PM. After checking in, we went to Von's grocery store for a few things for dinner. We tried to get to bed relatively early, because we had a long way to go the next day.