, John, Ed, Clinton, Dave, Mark, and
myself. The mission: Drive To Los Angeles, hit the Tropicana
Showbar, and drive back. It was a good plan, and it
could've worked...As planned, I hooked up with Ed and Dave around noon. Wandered around the Treasure Island parking lot for a good 15 minutes or so, looking for my car. Some idiot (err, that would be 'me') parked it on the 2nd level, but was positive it was on the 3rd. One of the hazards of driving for really long times - you get stupid.
Anyway, car located (Thanks Dave!) we went off to get the van at the rental agency. A 7-passenger Ford Windstar. (marketing slogan: "It Blows!") The van acquisition phase went off pretty much without a hitch, though it somehow managed to take a good 2 hours. (Travel Tip: Don't even attempt to drive up Las Vegas Blvd. unless you have a lot of spare time...)
Met back at the Treasure Island
lobby, and with only a relatively small amount of aimless
milling-about, we were able to gather the strike team , John, Ed, Clinton, Dave, Mark, and
myself. The mission: Drive To Los Angeles, hit the Tropicana
Showbar, and drive back. It was a good plan, and it
could've worked...
Of course, no John Hagan road trip event would be complete
without some sort of freakish pre-flight requirement. At
least we didn't need to stop at a laundromat. This time he pulled
the ol' "I need a haircut" ploy - I'll say! Why, what
hair he has left was nearly a half-inch long! Suspiciously, we
headed here 
. Suspicions confirmed! Only in Vegas
will you find a barbershop with completely covered-up windows... hmm 
!
Back on the road again, with Ed
at the con 
. I amused myself by taking some
pictures. Looking at the Rand McNally road atlas, it appears that
Nevada has a number of faux lakes. There are these
lake-like things on the map, except they're only drawn in a
dotted outline, and they're labeled things like "Mesquite
Lake (Dry)". Now where I come from, a 'dry' lake isn't
called a lake, it's called a hole. But it might explain things like this 
. Which are inherently more
interesting than things like this
.
In a place where the overwhelming environmental feature is
"Christ, it's hot!", it's only natural that
thermometers would need to be bigger than normal. Like the World's Largest 
, for instance.
Anyway, most of the details of the Bachelor Party mission are
Classified, on a Need To Know basis, and I'm not going to be
responsible for a breach in security. Suffice it to say that the
mission, while prolonged several hours by the questionable
navigation of one Neil Forsythe, was on the whole a complete
success - until this 
happened.
I was driving, as is my wont. We had just stopped in Primm, NV for some used-beverage-disposal, and were back on the road for 5 minutes when the engine stopped. While I was driving at 75 mph. Now, like most of you, I've never heard of engines just stopping while you're using them. Sure, maybe they don't start, but generally, once they're running, they'll keep on doing so until you turn them off (or run out of gas).
We didn't run out of gas, nor did I turn the engine off. We
dispatched two engineers (Mark and Clinton) on the problem, and
they were able to conclude that the engine had gas, spark, and
air. On the whole that would seem to be enough, but apparently
not. After an in-depth analysis
it was determined conclusively that
the engine was Broke. And no amount of engine observation 
or standing
around 
was going to make it go again.
Needless to say, this is not
a shot from Ford's sales brochure 
.
Around this time, John had to call Leslie to explain that
"he's running a little
late..." 
.
Then, the madness 
started to kick in.
Thankfully, the rental place (at Ed's insistance) got a guy
out to rescue us before further inappropriate headgear was
improvised. Mission Complete, and we hadn't even run out of ice-cold Coca Cola 
!
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk any of the guys into joining me at Treasure Island's excellent Breakfast Buffet. Must be what happens when you get old 'n' stuff...
