That's a lot of driving. I'm not sure I want to do it again next year, I may take a plane. After my last phone update, we arrived in Fort Collins at around 5:30pm on Monday. We pretty much vegged the rest of the night, and ordered a pizza. While at the beach dealing with non-stop technical difficulties with my PC, I bought a new one online pretty much on a whim. More on that later. But, since I'd have a new PC waiting for me at home, I decided to give my old PC, and my Aardvark Q10 recording interface, to Mike. Why am I so generous? Well, I have selfish reasons, as well. Mike has always been my favorite musician to collaborate with, and I haven't been able to do that with him having a non-functional PC. And the Q10 won't work with my new PC. So... there. I did salvage my vid card. After a decent night's sleep on Mike's couch, I awoke at 6:45am and packed the car back up for the home stretch, which would by far be the toughest stretch of driving yet, since it was 1200 or so miles I'd have to cover alone. I bid Mike farewell, and headed out. I drove pretty much non-stop save for fuel and bathroom stops, but I couldn't help making a couple of stops for scenery shots, as well.


The drive through southern Utah and the little sliver of Arizona's corner hit by I-15 had an unusually high population of storm clouds, which always look spectacular in the desert.

Their presence created an equally uncommon sight, which I was lucky enough to catch between two rocky outcroppings.

I hit Vegas at just before sunset, which means all my dark driving would be on familiar roads. Still, clouds, desert and sunset always conjure some magic.


Despite doing 18 hours straight of driving alone, I never really started to get sleepy. Good thing. Still, I was ready to collapse when I finally got home around 1am on Tuesday night. I partially unloaded the car, and got in bed with my laptop next to me. I checked my email....and the next thing I remember it's 5am, and I come to, still holding the laptop. I closed it and turned out the light.

Waiting in my mailbox was a note from my neighbor, Hope, who was kind enough to take in my new PC when she saw it unattended on my doorstep during my marathon drive. So, as soon as I deemed it not too early, I knocked on her door Wednesday morning and retrieved it. I spent the rest of the day setting it up and installing things. Here's the specs:
AMD Quad Core 2.2 GHZ
6 GB Ram
640 GB Hard Drive
3 PCIE slots, 1 16X PCIE slot
Light-scribe DVD-R drive, with multi-card reader.
More stuff I don't care to type here.
and, unfortunately, Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit.
I'll be upgrading to W7 ASAP.

Today, Thursday, it was back to work, and also back to the Federal campus, after 6 months in the quiet of the Gillespie building. I am able to resume my carpooling, which is nice.

Now, the next adventure starts on 7/26, when I'll be heading to Alaska! More on that later.