Getting started proved a real nightmare; traffic out of LaGuardia to Pittsburgh was slowed by crappy weather, so I spent a few stressed-out hours freaking on the plane as we sat on the tarmac. If I missed my connection to Las Vegas, I wouldn't get in that night, and we were leaving Las Vegas at 5am. After a ridiculous amount of freaking and babbling and borrowing a seat partner's cell phone to get my mom to make some calls to the River Runner, uh, runners, we took off and I made the connection in Pittsburgh. Everything was late, which was on my side. I stumbled into Las Vegas airport and was jolted by the ca-ching of slot machines (!) in the terminal (!) mere inches from the gate (!!). I made it to the hotel by about midnight, slumped into bed by 1 and woke up at 4 to make the shuttle bus that would take us from the Hawthorne Suites to the airpark where we'd fly to the Canyon. My other stress factor, that my luggage would be lost, also proved groundless: My big maroon backpack made it safe and sound.

Clearly, I worry too much.

So! At 5 A.M. I was on a bus to an airport to board a plane so small you had to tell them how much you weighed before you got on. Waiting in the terminal until our flight was called, I met a nice couple, Liz and Dave (you can see Liz above, on the right, in a purple shirt), from Virginia. She had a funny little twang in her voice I couldn't place immediately, but it turned out she was originally from Manchester, England, and had been living here nine years. They turned out as some of the funniest people I met on the trip. Everything was quiet that early in the morning, but the sun was out and blazing already. But everyone seemed so friendly -- the bus driver who took us to the airport kept up a running patter you knew he'd told thousands of people before: Avoid the Las Vegas zoo, use the slots at 7-11, and thanks to all of us tourists, whose gambling habits have kept Nevada state-tax-free.

The plane was so small everyone had a window seat, and if you didn't want to have every thought drowned out of your head, you wore these noise-muffling headsets so thick it felt as if a marsupial had settled on your ears. During the ride they played "soothing " "Native American"-esque music, as if Pocahantas had collaborated with Enya, and occasionally the music muted so a voice could fill you in on what you were passing over. I caught some of it, and then blacked out. We landed an hour later in this remote flat -- well, obviously, desert -- landscape. On one side of an empty highway sat a cabin with cars and vans parked in a lot, and the other featured a tiny strip mall that included a laundry, a general store, a liquor store and a gas station. Last stop: Nowheresville.

It was 7:30 in the morning. It was hot.

I have no idea why this photo looks as if it was a relic from a 1920s film: The dust and gunk on the lens, thankfully, got brushed away.