Once it was made clear that there would be more than four people going on the road trip (actually long before then since everybody was so uncertain), I rented a minivan from Hertz. The original (and so very tentative) plan had been to take Dave's van out to Milwaukee. But then some family get-together in Oregon was planned for Gen Con so Julie was going to take the van. Dave suggested renting an RV one way which would cost $1000 (so he claimed at the time). Other than the fact that it would leave us stranded in Milwaukee, that was probably too expensive since at the time we didn't know if we needed it.

In any case, I rented the van a couple of months before Gen Con. Looking around (a little) Hertz did have some luxury and bigger vans at some locations. Unfortunately, their web site doesn't have a search for "nearest location with this type of vehicle", so I only looked at our two major airports. San Francisco had the van but not available for the two weeks I needed it. So I rented the "Ford Windstar or equivalent" from the Concord Hertz since that is a 30 minute walk from my apartment. Once again Dave surprised me by assuming I'd rent a van that he could pick up at the airport. Uh, I don't think I can rent a van for someone else for one and the second is that we can save a good hour by all going to the airport rather than waiting for Dave.

It was a nice van. Seats seven, four doors (the two rear doors are sliding doors), did have enough room for luggage for six people, sectional climate control, and the usual mix of cruise control, radio, power windows, etc. We drove the heck out of the van though, averaging 80 MPG for hours on end and 70 MPH the rest of the time. Bug bodies accumulated on the windshield. The low tire pressure warning lit on the way back and wouldn't turn off (reading the manual I think that the system goes out of calibration if you drive over 70 MPH for an extended period). There were a couple of chips on the wind shield (which Van Horn mysteriously attributed to "it just cracked by itself, must not be rated for 80 MPH"; yeah, as if wind shields crack that way from air pressure).

For a while I was worried about Chris and Troy driving it. But once I got behind the wheel I found out that it handled smoothly. The only problem being that you don't have a good view of the right side of the car, a slight problem when changing lanes to the right. Speaking of which, Van Horn has gotten better at driving since we drove with him 10 years ago. Still quite jerky at times -- for some reason he can't get the hang of micro-adjustments to the steering wheel. Although he accused everyone else of also being bad drivers, I think it's safe for me to speak for all of us and say that Van Horn is one scary driver behind the wheel and quite a bit worse than any of us.

Anyway, I picked up Chris in Sacramento then we drove back to my place. It was only like 16:00 so we went and saw a movie. At 22:30 we left to pick up Van Horn. Now, it's probably just me but when the front door opened and I witnessed this group of people slouching on anything that resembled a chair, watching something on tv, with food and debris everywhere, it just brought to mind how glad I am that I don't associate with him that much. Not to say that he keeps with a bad crowd, but chaos gamers give me the creeps.

We got to the airport right about when the plane was supposed to land. Even at midnight San Francisco International is a bustling place, though most of the shops are closed. Dave's plane was a bit late, more really like right on time with the schedule, though it had been ahead of schedule throughout its flight. Slight hiccup, Dave had to pick up luggage (they made him check it in). That took half an hour. But eventually we were off about half an hour after midnight with myself driving. Our road trip had begun.