The Garden of the Blind

While driving through the Nevada desert on my way back from Vegas, I made some observations:

It’s really boring to drive that stretch of road at night. It’s almost as bad during the day, and then it’s usually also too hot.

There’s a lot of information that’s available to the driver. I had about 14 sources of data about the car and the surrounding environment, most of which weren’t really accessible by the other passengers. For example, I was often blinded by the headlights behind me that were being reflected onto my face from three different mirrors, while my passengers were all sleeping and unaware of the lights.

The Virgin River Gorge is only fun if the passengers in the car aren’t nagging you about your speed.

While the streets in St. George are empty after midnight, Denny’s is quite busy at 11:30. Also, Moons over My Hammy isn’t as good without swiss cheese (I was in the bathroom when we ordered, and while I had left instructions for my order, they got misinterpreted).

Traveling with a bunch of morning people can really mess up a night owl’s body clock.

Also, the last time I had been to St. George, I came back engaged. I think there was some expectations that I’d do something like that this time. Somehow, I managed to go the entire trip without getting married, although while at the visitor’s center for the St. George Temple, I was tempted to say, “We’re getting married soon, and so we’ve been to Vegas scouting out wedding chapels, and they told us that there was this place up here that would be a beautiful place to have a wedding.” Instead, I reminded our guide that Joseph Smith was killed in the Carthage jail and not the Liberty jail.