Because we returned the U-Haul truck last night (borrowing our van from the mechanic's lot so that we didn't have to walk back to the hotel, then returning it to the lot so they didn't think we'd run off on them), we didn't have to get up terribly early and could sleep in for a couple of hours, which we did. Once we were ready to go, we walked over to the shop, paid for the van ($475 including the 10% AAA discount), drove the van back around the block to the hotel, packed our bags, checked out, and headed for home.

( Leaving Elko )

While we were anxious to get home, we were both so tired that we had to make many stops to rest and stay awake. As we pulled out of Lovelock, the last city before Fernley (about 50 miles), Lisa noted that the gas gauge was low. I asked what the trip-meter said, and based on that reading, figured we had enough gas to get back to Fernley with some distance to spare. What I didn't realize was that somehow we had reset the trip-meter around 100 miles after we refueled at Fernley before leaving for Utah.

As we crested the last hill before Fernley, the Astro started showing signs of being out of gas. Lisa shifted into neutral and shut off the motor, then turned on the emergency flashers and coasted. We rolled several miles, then down exit 48. We lucked out in that there was no conflicting traffic at the bottom of the ramp, and she rolled us into the Flying J, where (luck again), there was an open pump.

( Perfect Roll )

We got home around 4:45 (just as Amtrak was going by on time eastbound), unloaded the van, then made a trip to Raley's to refill groceries.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work, and I've rarely been so happy that my commute is from my bedroom to the living room.

( Backtrack: On the Salt Flats )

Despite the vehicle drama with the breakdown in Elko and the out-of-gas at Fernley, this really was a good trip, and we're happy about it, but now we need to rest and recuperate for a few days.

Today, Lisa and I had shifted gears to our Westercon 72 Fan Guest of Honor roles. Fortunately, the other members of Team Tonopah staffed the Westercon 74 table and started selling new memberships and conversions to attending from voting.

( FGoH Spotlight )

On Saturday evening, we held our second and final party, the Westercon 74 Thank You Party. We still have an enormous amount of canned soda left over. We could easily take it back as far as Elko in the rental truck, but it's unclear whether we could squeeze it into the Astro. We'll be offering our leftover soda to any groups here who want them, including the Styrofoam coolers we got to hold them.

We're having a marvelous time here, but we're really tired. And there's one more day to go.

We were at the auto shop as soon as they opened (it's right next door to the hotel). As we rather expected, they didn't think they could look at it until later in the day, so we had to switch to Plan B. After confirming online that they had a small (10') truck available, we walked the 3 km or so to the U-Haul dealership and paid $700 to rent the truck for a week. This is expensive, but less expensive than renting a sufficiently large cargo van from any of the car rental companies in Elko would have been, and there were no U-Haul cargo vans available in Elko.

After collecting the U-Haul, we drove back to the hotel (stopping to pick up a padlock for the truck's cargo box), moved out of the hotel room, and then drove over to where the Astro was parked and trans-loaded the convention gear.

( On the Bright Side, It Loads Much Easier )

After getting the SpikeCon stuff and our luggage into the U-Haul, we turned the keys over to the auto shop and set off for Utah, stopping to get breakfast at the Starbucks inside the Red Lion Hotel/Casino.

We made decent time, and could have done even better on the high-speed sections of I-80, but the truck has a speed governor and can't go faster than 75 mph. (The speed limit is 80 mph in many places.) Still, the driving was easier than you might think. The U-haul handles more like the Rolling Stone than the Astro, but it's okay.

Around the time we finished the crossing of the salt flats east of Wendover after crossing into Utah, the mechanic called. Not to Lisa's surprise, the diagnosis is the need for a new water pump/fan assembly. Estimated cost $450. They don't expect it to be a problem for us to collect either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. (I think the latter is more likely.) We'll make a reservation at that same motel next door, and as long as we get the U-Haul back by the time they open on Wednesday morning, we should be okay.

So on we pressed for Layton. Unfortunately, we were several hours behind the schedule we would have been had we been able to get to Wendover yesterday, and that meant we got to the SLC area in the teeth of the afternoon commute/getaway day traffic. We finally got to the Home2 Suites around 5:30, about three hours later than originally planned and $700 poorer (not including the repairs to the van, which don't really count).

We unloaded our personal gear and most of the Tonopah stuff into our hotel room, leaving the Match Game gear on board. Had we been on the original schedule, we would have had time to go shopping, but time had run out on us, for we were scheduled for a guest of honor dinner at the nearby Golden Corral, which did suit us as we'd had nothing to eat but the breakfast sandwiches at Elko this morning.

We had to leave a little early to go get MGSF running. Lisa and I headed over to the Convention Center, where we met up with Scott Sanford, and while they started working on getting the tables and chairs on the stage arranged along with the tech tables, I walked back to the Home2 and brought the U-Haul over. I handed the keys to Scott, and a bunch of folks volunteered to unload the gear (and there's a lot of it) while I returned to the Home2 and changed into my game show host costume.

As I expected, we started at 9:30 rather than the announced 9 PM, for various reasons. But the show really went quite well, and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves. It went really well, and we gave away prizes and Lovely Parting Gifts.

After the show ended, we had many willing hands to "strike the set" and put it back in the rental truck. Here is the one bright side of having to rent that truck: we can store the gear in it pretty safely locked up in a way that we did not feel comfortable doing in the minivan. That means we don't have to try and move all of the gear back into the hotel room, but can leave it in the U-Haul. That's good because our hotel room is the site of a room party on Thursday night, that being the only night we can hold a bid party.

It was a frantic day, and there will be a day of financial reckoning later, but we managed to pull off everything we promised today. Tomorrow won't be any slower, with the opening ceremonies, initial Westercon presentation after the Opening, site selection opening, our bid table, a room party, and the shopping trip we'll need to do sometime in the afternoon. How we're going to manage it, I don't know, but I do know that we have to get a few hours of sleep now.

As we drove home from Sacramento yesterday, we briefly though we were only a couple of days from having to leave for Utah and SpikeCon/Westercon/NASFiC; we actually leave a week from tomorrow. We took our time driving home, stopping in Roseville to look in Fry's (they seem to be having supplier issues with the parts Lisa wants) before stopping for breakfast at Kuma Bear's favorite restaurant.

( Un-bearably Cute )

After breakfast we went to Railroad Hobbies in Roseville and spent more money than probably was wise, before turning for home. But because we had plenty of time, we did a little bit of side-road exploration. I now think I've driven (not all on the same day) all of the remaining continuous sections old US-40 between Sacramento and Truckee, and some of the discontinuous ones.

This week we both have to rest a bit from last weekend but also pack for Utah. That means packing all of the Match Game SF gear plus the Tonopah Westercon bid, plus our own personal luggage of course, but the latter often feels like an afterthought. Lisa is not bringing the large P2 camera for this trip because she's testing out a smaller rig at Westercon in the hope of using it for Dublin, and that helps a little on space.

It's been quite a while since I printed any new Match Game SF questions, and we have a lot of games planned for SpikeCon. There are two shows planned: the first on "preview night" (Wednesday before the official start of the convention), where we expect to have up to four games, and the second on Friday night, where we have up to six games planned. That means a total of ten games, with four questions per game. Forty question is a lot.

This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours working on the computer setup on which we print the questions, which is upstairs in Fernley House and is rarely used for anything else. It turns out that it's been so long since it was last used that the laptop computer internal battery had run down and I had to spend time resetting things. Eventually I got it together, though.

In the next few days, I'll be picking out the questions we've used before, plus some new ones that Lisa and I have developed. As usual, If you have an idea for a question, send it to me and if we can use it, we will.

If Tonopah wins its Westercon bid, there will be a free membership to Westercon 74 in the prize packages for Friday's game. As it is, we have some small prizes that we got from the Mizpah to give away on Wednesday night, and have developed a few questions that tie in to that sponsorship.