it's all random...

some bits and pieces from the trip:
-- miles driven: 3,964 (i thought it would be more) over 12 days (an average of 330 per day)
-- for the second year in a row, washington drivers get my vote as the worst in the country. folks everywhere else seem to be able to maintain some courtesy and respect -- and some of their sanity -- on the road, why not here?
-- the monterey bay aquarium is a must-do. while we were there, they had anamazing seahorse spectacular. it's pricy, though. $57 just for the two ofus to get in the door. our room at the MGM Grand on the strip in las vegas was only $30 more.
-- when my sister and i were kids, our mom took us on a road trip to southern cal and back. one day we took the 17-mile drive on the monterey peninsula, past some big-deal golf courses and stately, huge homes. i was 13 then, and that drive has always stuck with me, maybe because it was my first view of homes like that owned by people who had more money than i would have in a few hundred lifetimes. so i wanted to show olivia the homes along that drive. funny thing is, while the homes haven't changed, i guess my perspective has. there now are so many gargantuan, palatial, castlelike places everywhere that the ones along the 17-mile drive didn't seem out of the ordinary. i guess that speaks for itself as far as a statement about our culture.
-- what will we do differently next trip? have a destination. each day, we got up, got ready, packed and hit the road. next summer we'll plan to spend a few days in one place to get rid of the road grime and clear our heads --unless we go to paris.
-- the car, again, worked wonderfully. in the past year i've subjected it to two intensive road trips, 10,000 miles in 30 days last summer and nearly 4,000 miles in 12 days this summer. only downside was that the windows got sizzlingly hot when the temp outside was 105 or so, despite the air-conditioning being on. and, it was too hot on occasion to put the top down...