Santa Clarita, Clarita, Clarita's On Fi--yah!

It took Maria and I seven hours to make it home from Las Vegas on Sunday evening, after what should have been a nifty shortcut instead kept us stuck on a two-mile stretch of freeway for hours.

Driving to Vegas this weekend, we made good time by taking the 5 North to the 14, and then jumping on the 138 at Palmdale and taking it to Victorville, where we hopped on the 15. The drive is fast and helps you avoid the 10, which can sometimes be a parking lot as all of L.A. tries to head to Vegas for the weekend.

Great. But unfortunately, on the way back we got greedy. We didn't take into account the massive forest fires near Santa Clarita. Oops. As you know, the 15 itself is dicey on a Sunday afternoon, as all of Vegas heads back west to L.A. But by the time we got to Victorville, it was smooth sailing. We sped down the 138 (which isn't a freeway, but might as well be one) and climbed aboard the 14, heading South.

And then we stopped. And waited. The 14 was shut down from the 5 to about five miles in. CHP was diverting traffic to various canyon roads as we inched along, ever so slowly. Flames were visible high above in the mountains, and smoke was in the air. Finally, after two hours of inching along at 0.05 miles per hour (and giving the new Volvo's brakes a real workout), we were close to the canyon road off ramp -- but the CHP instead decided to slowly reopen the freeway. We finally made it home -- about three hours later than when Maria predicted.

We left Vegas at 4:15; Maria predicted an 8:30 arrival time, while I decided to factor in the horrible Sunday night Vegas-to-LA traffic and instead overcompensated, throwing out 10:30 pm. Of course, we were both wrong. We finally walked in the door at about 11:20.

We were in Vegas for a mini reunion of many of Maria's grade school/high school pals (from the all-girls Poveda Learning Center, in Quezon City) who now live in the States. We left $5.75 richer, and tried out the new Las Vegas Monorail (a nice idea in the 110-degree heat, but not a bargain at $3/ride... keep walking).