Miles. In thirteen days. You'da thought that somehow we could have made it a nice round 5,000, but what are you going to do? I knew we should have taken that turnoff to Convict Lake.

So I'm home. We made it back last night, after a glorious final leg down California's miraculous highway 395. The mini Darth Vader Mobile made it in one piece and, arguably, even in better shape than when we departed. We managed to fix the dripping A/C in eastern Nebraska, so I'm counting that as an improvement. First we did doughnuts in the dirt lot behind the gas station to force out all the accumulated water on top of the compressor. Robert drove, I attempted to catch falling water with a cup while my head banged against the dash. We stopped and mopped. Then I started rooting around on the floor, determined to find the drain pipe. Found! Then Robert yanked it off and proceeded to unclog it by ramming the car antenna through it. Magic! Working A/C drain pipe. This solved the recurring problem of the small lake that formed on the floor of the car after hours of driving with the A/C on.

So yes. The car that no one thought was sane to drive across the country drove across the country, and then some, and was fun and mostly comfortable, and I've had the most ridiculously beautiful and exciting vacation to show for it. I couldn't have dreamed it could have been this good.

No doubt there'll be some pictures and stuff up later, and maybe a few stories. Right now I'm terribly groggy and have a bunch of catching up to do. I've got to ease back into things. It's a gigantic change of gears.

Many thanks to the kind and generous people we visited along the way: Scott in Pittsburgh, Glenn in Knoxville, Sarah and John in Kansas City, and Ken and Laura in Reno. You all helped make this trip an even finer thing than it already was.

If I owe you email or a phone call, give me a few days to acclimatize myself. I've spent the last two weeks in a near vacuum, mostly ignoring the phone and almost completely ignoring the news, the net, and email, so there's some catching up to do around here.