We (John, Leslie, and myself) checked out of the hotel around noon. Using a variety of space-conservation techniques (squishing things) we were able to get all our luggage, her wedding gown, the wedding gifts (including the world's largest espresso machine), and everything else, jammed into the trunk (and backseat) of the car, and still have enough room to carry three people.
We were, as the saying goes, On The Way...
...to her Mom's place, for lunch. It didn't escape my attention that the house was NW of where we were, and not at all pointed back towards Philly, but hey, it was free food! After sitting around chatting for a while, we eventually got back on the road by 4pm. Already getting a Late Start On It. A quick stop at a mall ("it's on the way", I was quick to point out) for more film and 3lbs of jelly beans, (the road snack of choice) and we were now, really, On The Way.
The first stop on the way home was Hoover Dam 
. After driving over it, we took some
shots from the wrong side 
. But we agreed "that's
stupid", and went back over to the right side 
, and paid the $2 to park. Someone
really should fix these towers
, they're all bent-over like. It's
big, dam big . Like so many millions of tourists
before us, we succumbed to the need to make endless 'dam' jokes,
such as "Hurry up and take
the dam picture! 
", and "The dam ATM 
is out of order!"
Ahem. Sorry about that.
Anyway, here's a nice shot of the top of the dam 
, here's one looking down on the generators 
, here's one of the river canyon 
on the down-stream side of the dam,
and if you jumped over the edge, here's what you would see as you fell to your death 
. Here's a bunch of dam statistics.
Finally, there's the plaque commemorating the dam dog 
. Minor trivia note: the dog's name
was "Lil' Nigger", which was apparently an
acceptable dog name back in the 1930s. The plaque (put up in the
40's) referred the dog as "Lil' Nig", and so
it stood for 50-odd years. Sometime in the last few years the dam
bureaucrats finally bowed to PC pressure and put up the current
plaque, which doesn't list any name at all. You can see in the
picture that this is clearly not the original plaque - no one
used that font in the 40's, and the plaque doesn't even fit the
rectangular plaque-goes-here-hole...
We didn't have time to take the dam tour (sorry, can't stop
myself), as we were Running A Little Late. So we hopped in the
car and hit the road, headed for home. And through the miracle of
modern photo-retouching techniques, I can have the cool shades 
that I only wished I had at
the time...
The next stop was the Grand Canyon. We didn't stop there. A careful re-examination of the map and the clock proved conclusively that it would be Real Dark (okay. night) by the time we could get there. As John can attest from his previous cross-country trip with Ed, the Grand Canyon loses much of its charm when you can't see it. Besides, they close it (well, the road leading into it) at night.
Whatever - yet another reason to go back to Vegas.
So we kept driving. Stopped somewhere in the middle of Arizona, probably Flagstaff, for some authentic southwestern cuisine, then back on I-40 (Rt. 66). It's not clear exactly how someone would "get their kicks" on Rt. 66, unless you really like driving straight and fast for long stretches of time. But John and I do, so I guess we did.
Got to the New Mexico border, and kept right on going. New Mexico's nickname, the "Land of Enchantment", is the sort of name you give a state with no obvious tourist attraction. Compare it with "Arizona: The Grand Canyon State", or "Nevada: The Gambling & Hookers State", and you can immediately see New Mexico's image problem.
Not that we could immediately see New Mexico - it was dark, the all-encompassing darkness of a place where nobody lives, the sort of dark that we don't get in the Northeast. As such, my memories of New Mexico are dim, at best. I assume we passed through Albuquerque, though I don't remember doing so. (And it's not the sort of thing you could miss.) All I know is that we eventually bedded down in Tucumcari, NM, and I only remember that because it's such a ridiculous name.
