Unquiet Desperation

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. — Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke

The Plan

We leave Woodland Hills at 3pm, missing most of the rush hour traffic.  My wife will use the GPS, and I will use my G1 to navigate. We’ll wind up on Henderson, Nevada around 8pm. We’ll get to bed early, and be ready to continue to Grand Junction Colorado, taking the northern route through the Rockies.

The Reality

1. The landlord was late for the walkthrough on the apartment, so we lost a half an hour there.
2. Just as my father-in-law and I were mapping out our route we heard about the big storms they’ve been having in the mountains.  We check this out on my G1, only to have the hardware fail. Getting a new phone, we lose a half an hour.
3. We stop into AAA to get the skinny on what’s going on in the mountains.  It’s crowded. After 45 minutes, a very nice lady told us that, without getting chains for the tires, there’s no way we’re getting through the northern path. She gives is the option of the southern route, or going through Khazad-Dum, where Gimli’s cousin Balin will give is a kingly welcome. Having no Balrog repellent, we decide to go to Henderson and then plan for taking the I-40 across the southern route, blowing all other travel plans to hell.
4. Pee breaks, getting and extra key made for my car, coffee, updating my wife and mother-in-law in the other car. We discover that the GPS’s power cord as gone missing in the chaos. No worries, we have cellphones, and they’ll follow.
5. We leave Woodland Hills at…wait for it…5pm. Cue omnious traffic music.
6. We manage to skirt the majority of the trasffic by taking the 118 to the 210. But once we hit Pasadena, all bets are off. Traffic ensnares us.  It’s 7pm by the time we hit the I-15 north, heading toward Vegas.
7. We stop in Barstow for dinner.
8. We finally arrive in Henderson around 11:30pm.  Do we go to the hotel?  No…because like moths we are draw to the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip. We decide to go and drive down the strip, so the kids (and we) can see it all.
9. We get to the hotel at 12:45am, only to find out they do not have a reservation for us. No, wait…there are TWO Hampton Inns in Henderson, and the one we are booked at is so new, it does not show on the battery-powered GPS, and the phone number is not in 411.  We get the info from the other Hampton Inn, and drive across the city.
10. We check in at 1am. Pulling up the bare minimum from the cars, we get settled and asleep by 2am.

So…the trip we’re we were taking…is not so much the trip we thought we were taking.

Today’s plan is to try to get as far as Albequerque, New Mexico. I can hear Fate laughing at me.