The long, long drive to Vegas

Well friends, sorry for the late postings, but I'm just finally getting settled in Vegas after an entertaining drive (to say the least). My plans were to drive to my cousin Geoff's house in Avon, Colorado, Tuesday, stay the night, and then continue to Vegas the next day. With my Garmin GPS to help me navigate, I started the long trek from Kansas City. It would be nine hours to Geoff's. Since I hate stopping for gas, and I'm very smart, I decided to coordinate the timing of my "distance to empty" gage on my car and the nearest gas stations on I-70 so that I could stop as few times as possible. I picked a small town. It would coincide with *about* 10 miles left on the tank. I picked the wrong small town. BP station closed. Oops. I kept driving. 9 miles to Oakley. Oops. Sputter, sputter. Put, put. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. I used to pride myself on never having run out of gas. Those days are long gone. As I started the long three mile walk to Oakley, a car with a bunch of stuff in it and a small Mexican lady pulled up to ask if I needed help. I figured that if she was violent I could overpower her, but she seemed like a nice person, so I went ahead and violated my no hitchhiking rule. After climbing in the car, she explained that her name was Elana, and that she had just broken up with her cheating girlfriend. I explained my situation, told her where the next gas station was, and we drove off. Then, as we're going 70 miles per hour, she explains to me that she had been drinking, and an open bottle of vodka sitting in the cupholder was there as evidence. Good times. We made it to the station, and after paying $9 for a small gas can (they love to rip off dumb people) and filling 'er up, I hopped back in the car. We got back to my car safely. She asked if she could use my phone. I agreed, gave her some cash as a thank you, and I was off to Geoff's, albeit 40 minutes later than usual. I hung out with my cousin Geoff and his wife Jen, and we chatted for a while. In the morning we had breakfast, and then it was off to Las Vegas, baby! The canyons west of the skiing areas in Colorado are quite beautiful. I had never ventured this far west in an automobile, but I'm glad I did. But then Utah happened. Drab desert with strange mountainous formations. Desolate but pretty all at once. The "no service stations for 106 miles" sign said it all. After another eight hours that day, I whipped around a corner on I-15, and there she was. A beautiful sight indeed. The all-too-familiar Las Vegas strip could be seen from quite a distance. Every time I see it, it seems more developed. That's because it is. After carrying in a lot of stuff to my room at Fitzgerald's, I settled in. I then started scouting out tournaments on Fremont Street, where I have spent a lot of time in the past. I settled on an 11pm tournament at Binion's, and I ended up winning. Outright. Some old guy wanted no part of a deal, so I just took his money. And two other guys. But I got lucky at the final four people. I won all of these races (my hand listed first):

K-C, Q-C vs 6-C, 6-S
K-H, J-D vs A-D, 4-D
K-D, Q-C vs A-H, 6-D

And victory! Yeah! Each one of those hands took out one player. The last one was against another math whiz computer programmer type, so I was glad to have survived it in one piece. So, a great start to the Vegas trip!