Well, it wasn’t a good end to the trip… We parked at the last location, behind the gas station where #ClarkGriswold rips his own license plate off… We arrived late at night, so I figured we would take pictures in the morning…

Well, my battery gauge on #TheMillenniumFalcon was jumping from 14 volts of full voltage down to the minimum which is below 9 volts… I knew there was a battery connection issue… So I went under the hood to address it right away, first thing in the morning…

When I tried to tighten the connection, the whole terminal snapped off… Just as I thought, I was having a connection issue on my negative terminal… #TheFalcon bounces around a lot, so you have to constantly keep an eye on the battery connections… They come loose all of the time…

Luckily the gas station we stayed behind, the same location where Clark rips off his own license plate, had a mechanics garage… I brought the terminal in with me and they found a bolt and nut that could work just as well… Actually this nut and bolt method makes a lot more sense to me considering you can adjust the nut to create additional tension against the battery, which prevents the bolt from snapping in the first place… But I’m sure this is not as cost effective as the cheap, crappy terminals they use… lol…

Here’s the back of the gas station where Clark rips off his own license plate, above… Sorry, I didn’t get the actual location shot…

Ellen:	clark?
	Isn’t this the gas tank?
Clark:	Yes, I know, honey.
	I’m just fixing the, uh, the license plate here.

But after I finally got the terminal fixed, I go to get back into #TheMillenniumFalcon only to find the door wouldn’t open… It was locked shut… I had just put a new lock on this thing and the god damn locking mechanism locked me out once again… Thank god Tracey was inside and was able to open my driver’s side door…

Now folks, anyone who knows me knows I am a bit of a hot head… I am very passionate about my views and very passionate about keeping a tight ship when #traveling… and nothing aggravates me more than a defective lock I paid more than a $100 for… Especially considering I replaced the lock to correct the same exact fault I bought the new lock for in the first place…

So needles to say, I lost my shit and I lost it bad… It’s hard enough traveling on a schedule and living in such a tight space, then two major things go wrong before I finish my first cup of coffee in the morning… God I hate mornings like these!

Needless to say, it took me quite awhile to get the door back open and I even tried to kick it open, which didn’t help the condition of the door… Then when I had finally removed the lock, I had to hold the door closed with a bungee cord… Not the type of security you want on the road… Thank god we were close to #DeathValley… I planned to just keep the door closed with the bungee cord until I could order another one…

This is unfortunately why I didn’t get my last location shot at the gas station #ClarkGriswold visited… I had had enough folks and totally forgot to take the last location shot… Now looking back, I wish I didn’t over react but also realize, just like Clark Griswold, I set my expectations way too high when it comes to projects like these… And what would a #NationalLampoonsVacationTour be without #Griswold losing his shit?

After this huge debacle was over, Tracey and I decided to stay at a #RVPark close by and take the day off to relax and do laundry… Folks, we are all human and we all have our breaking point… And sometimes when it rains, it pours… Remember no expectations folks… Or at least don’t set them too high…

So we headed back to #DeathValley to start our new job… We were all set to work at a new place called #FurnaceCreek but as usual, a big #corporate conglomerate advertised themselves as something they were not… I had a huge problem with this and decided I couldn’t work there…

So, Tracey and I were jobless once again thanks to me… I felt so bad but couldn’t bend on this one issue I had with this company… When a company hires you, it should be completely transparent on what it requires before it drags people across states to come work there… This issue was over something perfectly legal that clashed with their policies… If I had known the policies before I traveled there, I would have never taken the job… But once again, Corporate can knowingly dick everyone around and they expect you to break the law while they turn a blind eye… Well, I’m not breaking the law by lying just so I can work a job that doesn’t accept my perfectly legal habit and obviously wants me to cheat or they would have let me know about this policy before I arrived! Real slimy #Corporate shit folks! Now I have yet another reason to back up my horrible beliefs about these gigantic greedy bastards!

We stopped in Needles,CA for a quick bite…

We found this gorgeous cafe, #TheRiverFrontCafe, which was apart of a #RVPark right along the #ColoradoRiver…

They were having a wedding right across the river… What a beautiful place to get married…

The food was awesome… Tracey and I talked about working here in the future… What a great place to spend a warm winter… The RV Park was only like $200-$400 a month and we could walk to work…

Well, we were jobless for about a day when I decided to text Eddie, a friend of ours who we worked with at #StovePipeWellsVillage… Well, I guess he was now manager at the same resort and he jumped at the chance to hire us once again… I guess that’s why you never burn bridges folks… You never know when you are going to need someone or something…

So, Tracey and I decided to head to #LasVegas and spend a couple of days relaxing before we started our new job… I finally got to experience my first #Drive-inMovie… I had never been to one before… We went to see the movie #Don’tBreathe which was pretty good…. It was a really good concept which was executed pretty well… I would have gone a lot further if I was the director, but that’s me…

Tracey was not too thrilled with the scary movies but went with me to celebrate upcoming #Halloween… We got to see a double feature ending with #TheBlairWitchProject, which sucked as I predicted…

We parked for $17 a night right near #FremontStreet,LasVegas…  We partied on Fremont Street, rented a bed all day at the pool with a Shark Tank in the middle… basically we got to swim with the sharks… well, with a huge tank separating us of course… lol…

Then it was back to Death Valley… Not what we planned out but will do the job for now… We have a job until the summer, which was basically what we were trying to accomplish in the first place…

You see kids, it’s harder to find a job in the winter if you don’t want to work in the cold or at ski resorts… So if you find a place to buckle down for the winter and make some decent money, then you are doing well…

Not that we weren’t aggravated by the whole situation but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles when you are on the road… I am learning slowly but surely that you just have to give up all control and let the world take you where it wants… This type of life isn’t like the regular life which most get to enjoy… You don’t have a set schedule or a permanent job… And when you don’t have such security, sometimes things get all muddled up… The Traveling Mac can let this get to him and flip out… Or he can learn to go with the flow and control only what he knows he can control…

We are all going to have our Clark Griswold breakdowns in life… It happens… We are all human… Calm and patience in such situations is something I am definitely working on and need to work on… But hell, if I was perfect I wouldn’t be on the road trying to figure things out in the first place…

One day and one problem at a time, folks…