desert panic
More tomorrow, including the desert panic, the mistake in Los Angeles and the incredible flight home.
Well ok then. The desert panic is my favourite story, so I’ll start with that.
After a detour after Las Vegas to check out a place mentioned reasonably extensively on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - the delightfully named “Pahrump, NV”. Unfortunately, it sucked, and I probably could’ve saved myself some time by reading the Wikipedia entry first and sticking to the interstate, but I didn’t, and so became the desert panic.
R&N had lent me their TomTom GPS unit, to use my US map card in. Without it, I would probably be dead by the side of the road, or worse yet, still in Nevada. Although I probably wouldn’t have bothered checking out stupid Pahrump if it weren’t for the GPS safety blanket, so in a classic chicken-or-the-egg scenario, I don’t know which inspired which.
After wanting to get the hell out of Pahrump, I faithfully followed TomTom’s advice on the most direct route, even when a certain National Highway looked like a dirt road. I figured it was just a small section of dirt road, like an “under construction” section, and then it would return to paved. After about 10km, when the road suddenly became a 4WD track, I considered turning back, but didn’t want to go back to Pahrump, or admit that I was wrong. The next 20km, at speeds in excess of 10mph, was slow work, and I kept wondering when outlaws would swoop in on a 4WD and shoot me to steal the car. At one point, TomTom suddenly realized I was 40m off the “road” and directed me to “return to the highlighted route” which pretty much involved just holding the wheel “right” until it said I was back on the track again. I note that there were no visual aids at all to mark the differentiation between “road” and “not road”.
If this happened at night, it would’ve taken MUCH longer. So yeah. Desert panic. Never again will a passing reference in a TV show inspire such a deluded detour.
The mistake I made in Los Angeles was smaller, but more annoying. I returned the rental car early, which then meant I had to physically handle my bags for the 3 hours more before the checkin counters opened. If I kept the car, they could’ve happily stayed in the car without bothering me in the slightest, but I knew best: “return the car, and enjoy the internet in the lounge for longer,” I thought.
And part three: the fabulous flight home, which was long and crap. I did sleep some, however, which made it less painful. I was kinda excited about the stopover in Japan, but we weren’t allowed out of the plane, it was for refuelling and crew change only. Bummer! I slept for a few hours when I got home, and then Mint woke me for lunch. We went to the movies last night and saw Shutter, which was average and kinda stupid, but popcorn solves most movie problems, and it did again.