On the gambling front, we came out ahead $30-40, which was rather fun.

This morning, Mike called the company he's been talking to locally and asked where things were, and he's got a second interview coming up on Wednesday with them.

I've already prewarned our big boss and the next week is going to be a free-for-all on the job front. Mike may be able to negotiate himself a good deal on a job as a result, so we'll see what happens. Hold us in your thoughts and prayers. We need whatever we can get.

I think that the thing that was most fun on the whole trip was that while Mike was at his interview, I drove around exploring the area and the kids and I found this vista point and started wandering around through things and it turns out that we found the homestead ruins of Dr. Geiger. You could see three chimney remains and Russell thought it was soooo cool. I used to think that kind of stuff was cool, too, so we just wandered up there and talked until I got sick of the tiny-wheeled umbrella stroller catching on each rock and twig and told him we needed to go back to the car.

On Saturday, we went to a little old-fashioned cowboy town. It was a riot.

The buildings themselves were very late 1800's period, but the Harley dudes were very 60's throwback. It was all I could do not to laugh my ass off. I guess you shouldn't take chances and laugh at Harley guys, but my husband's a big guy and while he's mild as May, he looks mean, and I just enjoyed the whole thing. I noticed what seemed to be a lot of Native American people there and thought Mike blended in pretty well, actually.

We had lousy pizza somewhere and meandered through a couple of shops and actually we won the most money gambling in this little tea cup of a town. It was actually rather nice because they had video games and slots facing the same aisle, so Russell could play while Mike and I did. I set Genny's stroller next to where I was playing on the end of a group of slots and gave her the bottle and just played for 20 minutes with Mike. We both won a little. Then, Mike took the kids on this back porch overlooking a staged gunfight, while I played poker and won even more.

I took the baby to change her while Mike cashed me out and that's when we realized we'd won about $35. I figure that covered the fudge that the guys bought, the cute little moccasins we bought Genny and the Beware of my Little Sister sign that we got for Bear.

We drove back to Reno and called Mike's grandparents to see if they could find a place for us up there, because they didn't meet us in Reno on Friday. We kept shopping to stall for time and calling and after an hour of getting a busy signal we said, "Screw it" and started home.

All that shopping worked out though, because I got a shirt and skirt at Ross and Genny got some cute clothes at Walmart. Mike was horrified to discover that daddy's little girl likes shopping with Mommy. I tried hats on her, telling her what a pretty baby she was and she giggled and I swear she was doing baby vogueing. She fingered the clothes and smiled and sat there quite placidly while I shopped.

Both Mike and Russell would rather have their fingernails extracted through their nose than shop. As a result, they didn't get much.

Hah!

I think the thing that stuck with me most about the trip, aside from my aching back from all that driving, was just east of Applegate on I-80. As we were coming down, in this deep quiet of night only interrupted by the sound of Russell snoring, I saw a car ahead of me, pull over and stop suddenly. I was watching that and then heard Mike say,"Holy Shit!" I looked up and on the opposite side of the road, there was a car totally consumed in flames. I felt like an ogre, but I was looking for some semblance of a human shape in those flames -- the way you suddenly make out human shapes in the first Star Wars movie, when Luke and Obi-Wan come back and see Luke's dead aunt and uncle. Then it occurred to me that I should stop and in the same instance, I knew I couldn't get across the freeway or do anything, once I did because there was too much fire, and I'd about driven off the road when I saw it. I crossed myself, prayed that God would have removed any people from the car and I drove to the next exit and dialed 911 to report it.

They asked if I'd seen anyone in it. I told them, no, the car was totally consumed in flames, so we really couldn't see much. I got off the phone and felt kind of shaky. I prayed again that no one was in the car.

Mike and I talked about that on the way home. I told him I felt like a Bad Samaritan, but the 911 operator had only had one other call about it, so I had served to confirm the call, said Mike. Mike said he'd felt the heat across the road from the flames. I thought he was making it up, but I was so hyper from adrenaline, that I wasn't noticing my temperature anyhow. We both felt pretty morbid, but confirmed with the other that we hadn't seen anyone in it.

And then we just drove the rest of the way home quietly listening to the heavy breathing of our sleeping children.