We passed yellow signs near dry earth that read "Congress created dustbowl." I snapped photos of what I guessed was the pipeline carrying water over the Tehachapi Mountains. We passed Palmdale, the community that has twice bought water from Butte County.

After the dusty journey, the city of Las Vegas appeared out of nowhere.
I wish I had taken the time to catch up on sleep in the car, but as soon as we reached the hotel room I crammed my bloodstream with instant coffee and we set out to see as much as we could in three nights and a miscellaneous number of days.
I like to view life as if it is a movie.
In real life, we have many moments, hours and even days when events are not memorable.
Then, there are the "movie moments." These are the times in between the mundane, where something magical happens. These are the adventures you retell to your friends.

• For some reason, the Las Vegas "Pinball Hall of Fame" showed up when I did a Google search before the trip.
Tommy and I are pretty much pinball-playing freaks. There are only a handful of pinball games in excellent playing condition in the Chico area, and we've done our best to add to their wear and tear.
When I read about the Vegas pinball collection, Dad agreed it could be added to the "must-see" list.

Located at 1610 E. Tropicana, the Pinball Hall of Fame hosts more than 150 pinball games from the 1950s through 1990s, all playable, in a 10,000-square-foot building that opened last month. (http://www.pinballmuseum.org).
Other folks at the Hall of Fame were very into their pinball, and nobody noticed when I took umpteen pictures of my dad and Tommy and the rubber chicken.
At one point during our perusal, I saw a guy energetically playing a pinball game. Next to him was a young woman sitting on the floor and reading a book.
After a spirited conversation about pinball and the rubber chicken, I told the boyfriend how he needed to give his girlfriend kudos for quietly letting him have his pinball fix.
They were from Holland, and if we did not have so many other places to see and touch, I think I would have liked to spend some of our days with these two.

• Before the trip, a friend named Bette e-mailed and said I needed to go see her son Ray Jon Narbaitz at the Hilton Hotel, in the Shimmer Room, where he is the guitar player and singer in the "Sin City Bad Girls" show.
http://www.rayjonmusic.com
For some reason it wasn't that strange going to a risqué show with my dad and step-mom, even when the lead singer, Lorena Peril, draped my dad's shoulders with her white feather boa and stuck the rubber chicken down her barely-there top.
I was impressed by the talent of the cast, and Ray, who told us afterwards how he practiced his guitar licks on the lawn at Pleasant Valley High School in Chico.
In Vegas, probably like most entertainment Meccas, you not only have to be able to belt out great tunes, but you need to be beautiful, dance like a Fosse protégé and have Gwen Stefani abs.

(Ray meets rubber chicken).

• We had found a 2-for-1 coupon for the elevator ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel.

Dad opted not to take the ride, hoping it would be a special moment for us.
As we were in the glass elevator heading skyward, with my tweed cap pulled partially over my eyes, I remembered I have this little thing about heights.
The Vegas tower is only half the height of the one in Paris, but I get the heebie-jeebies when I ride a Ferris wheel at the Silver Dollar Fair.
Tommy was near the edge of the metal mesh that surrounds the observation deck, and foreign parents were holding their toddlers up onto the railings.
Meanwhile, I slunk back against the wall, periodically peeking my head the several feet across the walkway to peer down.

I was not the only one in abject fear. There was a man, again from Holland, whose butt was firmly glued to the inside railing. I noted how his jaw was tight when he smiled at his partner, who was, like Tommy, gliding effortlessly along the outside railing. "Good for you for coming up here," I said to the man, as well as to myself.

Another woman in a red sweater walked off the elevator, slunk along the inside railing, and headed directly to the line of people waiting in the line to ride the first elevator down.
The elevator operator, who took a photo of Tommy and me with the rubber chicken, quietly told us that the Bellagio fountains would begin at 3 p.m. Somehow I waited while several elevator loads of people came and went, and Tommy hogged the part of the railing with the perfect view of the fountains below.

(This is the view from the top of the 1/2-size copy of the Eiffel Tower. If you check out the lake, there are a series of adjoining buildings with balconies along the water. The second balcony from the left is where we watched the Bellagio fountains that night, as well as caught another performance by Ray and his band).

• On gambling -- When you don't have much money to lose, you're likely not going to win big. My theory on gambling is you make at least one attempt to let the universe and/or blind luck fill your suitcase with dough. That did not happen, so I considered my $20 loss as a donation to the upkeep of the Vegas extravagant lifestyle. Someone needs to help pay those electricity bills.
There are many more stories -- The Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur, collecting Mardi Gras beads at Fremont Street, the Bellagio garden and driving through rush-hour traffic in Pasadena, but I don't want to brag.

Somehow at the end of all this, I felt like one of those children who gets seizures from playing too many video games. My brain was overwhelmed by the jingle of slot machines, deep-fried Twinkies, Elvis impersonators and vulturous time-share peddlers.
The day after we got home, there was a pressing need to feel grounded to the planet.
Tommy and I drove to 7 Mile Lane to the Llano Seco Wildlife Refuge, where there was a different kind of cacophony going on -- thousand of birds using the big patch of water as a stopping spot for their own adventures.