I wrote up my experiences at TusCon, but left out the things I saw along the way. And yes, there are things to see and contemplate on a 800 mile round trip through the desert. I only regret that I took no pictures, but navigating my cell phone to picture mode while driving 80 mph is not a safe (or legal) task.
So, what’s to see on the way from San Diego to Tucson? First there’s the ear-popping climb from sea level to 4,000 feet, bringing back memories of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Then the long descent back down to sea level. Along the way down there’s the canyon of rocks. No, it’s not simply large granite slabs that one frequently sees in the Southern California mountains. This was about a mile of highway where loose boulders were piled hundreds of feet high on top of one another with no connecting vegetation or even soil in sight. It seemed like the slightest tremble of the earth would send dozens rolling down towards you in a horrific bowling alley storm of demolition. I couldn’t help thinking about Galaxy Quest’s rock monster. I guess I was already in the mood for my SF convention.
Yuma, just across the border, was the place to gas up at almost $2 less per gallon than in Crazy California. Like isolated gas stations I have come across on my drives to Las Vegas, this one accepted cash only. Were their computers not working, or was there something more nefarious going on? I shrugged, but was only able to estimate how much I needed to fill the tank, so I wasn’t confident of making it all the way to Tucson.
Now back on the road, I noticed the low, evenly spaced shrubs. Not precisely evenly spaced as if laid out by man, but I imagined each shrub had long roots, taking up much more space below ground than the plants did above ground. No doubt they needed much more area to supply each shrub with the sparse desert moisture. Did each bush’s roots engage in slow motion border disputes with their neighbors’, naturally claiming their territory and leaving empty above-ground areas between each plant?
I’m no botanist, so I can’t tell you which shrub or bush I was seeing. I suppose I could have pulled over and taken a picture for Google’s AI to find out for me, but I was confident I could look it up when I got home. Not really, it turns out. Oh well.
Heading home on a Monday seemed surreal. At one point I went a hundred miles without seeing another car. Yes, there was the occasional truck shimmering in the distance ahead like mirage but no cars. I sometimes noticed my speedometer bumping 80 mph, and it didn’t seem that fast. My only real concern was my fuel level. Even though it was scores of miles between gas stations, I needn’t have worried. In the city my 4-cylinder Honda Element gets between 19 and 20 mpg giving me a range of about 260 miles on a tank of gas. Driving to Las Vegas, I normally get 25 mpg, but that route takes me through lots of urban areas, albeit via freeway, before I get to the desert. When I got home I calculated my gas mileage as over 29 mpg. That was despite hitting sustained speeds of around 80 for large parts of the trip.
The last half of the way home I contemplated what to eat when I got back about 2pm as I calculated it. No longer restrained by a religious fast, I envisioned a steak, but my refrigerator was empty, so I’d have to buy it first, then go home. Of course I could hit that new Indian restaurant in my neighborhood. As I approached the California border, I saw a sign advertising $14.99 prime rib at the Golden Acorn Casino. The sign didn’t say how far ahead I had to go, only mentioning exit 61. Once back to the Golden State, I realized from the passing exit numbers that I had quite a ways to go. Still, I hadn’t had prime rib for a long time, so when I eventually came to exit 61, I took it. The casino security guard inside the front door cheerfully pointed me to both the restrooms and the restaurant.
The waitress asked me how I wanted my steak, and the menu had a nice illustration of the terms and the shade of meat you could expect from rare to well-done. A nice touch although I already knew from experience that I enjoy medium rare. She also noted that the $14.99 price was for those with a player’s card, but she pointed out that I could just walk a few yards to the cashier and get one by just showing my ID, so I did that.
First came a full salad, then eventually my rib-eye, done just right. Along with the steak, there were perfectly steamed vegetables. Even at home I struggle to steam my baby carrots to where they’re soft but not limp. What I found most amazing however was the baked potato. It was served split open with two ice cream sized scoops of soft butter. I was tempted to go for dessert, but that would really be pushing it after I finished off that sumptuous meal.
My player’s card entitles me to a complimentary $10 on the slots (if you can still call those giant pinball-looking video displays slot machines). They told me I had to put in a dollar to prime the pump so to speak, but gambling’s not my thing. I trained myself not to gamble at a young age. As kids we had a toy roulette wheel, and I spent endless hours trying to break the bank with it. My ego told me I should be able to win because I was really smart! What I learned instead was that no matter how successful I was, eventually I lost it all. I could not devise a strategy where I didn’t, so I decided gambling for money was stupid. Learning math eventually taught me why the house always wins, but I had already learned my lesson. Gambling is for the math illiterate and designed to fool people’s innate risk-taking algorithms. The lottery tempted me with its lure of, “It’s only a buck or two to play, and you can win a hundred million!” Of course your odds of winning that amount are, approximately, zero and doubling your buys of lottery tickets only leads to, as Trader Jones from Star Trek put it, “Twice nothing is still nothing.”
The best argument I had against playing the lottery though is that I asked myself what would I do with all that money if I did win? Oddly enough one young lady at the Con Suite at TusCon was asking me and others the same question, “If you had unlimited money, what would you do?” My answer was there was nothing I would do, because I already have enough to live comfortably and enjoy myself. I have neither the need nor the desire for a million dollars or even a hundred million dollars. One of my collected quotes of wisdom is from Robert Louis Stevenson, “I know what pleasure is, for I have done good work.”
Musings of a Restless Mind 