Who's gonna sell you your tacky stuff...tonight...

I overcame my boredom with driving to pull an all-dayer - leaving Ontario at 8:30 am on Friday morning, driving to Las Vegas, and returning at 1:30 in the morning. (I've done a quick turnaround before, but never to Vegas.)

That translated to approximately 8 hours in Las Vegas and Henderson. And, in case you're wondering what my wild Vegas party life is like, here's where I went:

• A relative's house in Henderson.


• The relative's hairdresser.


• An Office Depot on east Tropicana, for a quick copy job.


• A bank.


• Sunset Station, for the 5:00 pm bingo, six bucks of video poker, and dinner.


• Trader Joe's, for cookies.


• The relative's house.


• Another relative's house.


• The Terrible Herbst/Arco at Nellis and Charleston.

Wild, huh?

Back to the drive. I wasn't driving alone, which helped matters. But at midnight on Friday night I discovered something that I didn't know -

Barstow Station is not open 24 hours a day.

I had always had a vision of people in Barstow Station at 3:00 am, picking up tacky stuff on their way to wherever. But when we got to Barstow Station at 11:45 pm on a Friday night, the doors were locked shut and you couldn't get inside. The drive thru for the McDonalds was open, but that was it.

That was when I remember that Barstow (or, as Bloose affectionately calls it, Barfstow) is a very small town.

But at least the drive was quick, unlike my July 2006 drive.

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