A couple of weeks ago I put in a request to attend the VMWorld conference in Las Vegas, but due to a minor mix-up my trip didn’t officially get approved until Friday. Since I had already decided to drive, that meant I had less than 24 hours to make arrangements, pack, and hit the road.

Susan helped get my clothes ready (as usual), which meant all I had to do was get my electronics ready. Things get easier every trip. Instead of spending an hour going picking 200 CDs from a collection of 1,000+ into a CD binder, I just grab my iPod. Instead of picking specific games that I might want to play while I’m out of town, I just grab my laptop. Anything I forget can be obtained remotely by connecting back to the house. What I used to spend an entire evening do now literally takes 10 minutes.

My plan was to split the drive up into two medium-length drives. It’s 1,100 miles from OKC to Vegas, so two 550 mile days back-to-back aren’t bad. Problem is, I got off to a really late start on Saturday. I had lunch with family, and then had a bizarre tire issue where … well, to make a long story short I believed en electronic reading on my dash over my own common sense and ended up with one under-inflated tire and one greatly over-inflated one. After purchasing a $2 tire gauge and visiting a couple of gas stations in order to find an air compressor, I didn’t get on the road until 2:30pm. Because of that, I only got 400 miles under my belt Saturday, which left me with 700 to cover Sunday. Blech.

I had two deja vu moments during the drive. Back in 2007 on my way to the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, my friend Brian and I pulled off on some exit in search of food. The exit we took had two food choices: The Golden Dragon Chinese Buffet, and McDonald’s. As luck would have it, I ended up staying in a hotel directly across the street from the Golden Dragon, which has since gone out of business (we ate at McDonald’s last time — seemed safer). On that trip, shortly after getting back on the highway we were hammered with a storm that came out of nowhere. We blamed it on the Curse of the Golden Dragon. Just like last time, I was once again hit my a surprise storm. No hail this time, but the temperature dropped 30 degrees in a matter of seconds and the winds were so strong that I pulled over and checked my phone to see if I was driving directly into a tornado.

I lived.