This time, waking up and opening the window curtains is absolutely amazing.

We slept in the middle of a desert. We slept in the middle of nowhere, in one of the hottest places on earth.

And it's already 32 degrees at eight in the morning.

Today is the last day of our road trip. Today we’ll leave Death Valley and arrive at our final destination, which was where it all began: Las Vegas.

As we gaze out the windows of our jeeps at the vast emptiness of the desert, we reflect on how much we’ve seen and experienced in just a few days—days that seem like an eternity and yet, at the same time, have passed in the blink of an eye.

There are two important things to do today—the final BigTour tradition to observe.

Every journey has a mission: to follow the coordinates and find the message in the bottle hidden by the previous master.

This trip, however, is special. It’s the last one. And hiding a message in the desert without knowing who will find it or when is a gamble we’re not comfortable with. So we came up with a more romantic alternative, one that retains the charm of a time capsule but with a more open-minded approach: a travel journal, a little open book where every Bigrocker—past or future—who finds themselves in Death Valley on their journey can discover it and write down your story and a message for those who come after.

Let's go to the restaurant in Furnace Creek and convince the manager to speak on our behalf at the front desk of the nearby hotel so they'll add the book to their library. That way, anyone can go there, introduce themselves as a BigRocker, and see the book.

We are happy and excited to write the first of what we hope will be many messages. It’s a privilege, but one that also leaves us with a strong sense of melancholy, especially given that our journey is coming to an end.

We leave the Valley of Death behind, traveling along one last symbolic dirt road to remind us of the endless roads we’ve traveled together over the past ten days.

The odometer reads 2,250 miles—more than 5,000 kilometers. We've driven a lot. We've seen so much.

What a trip.

Just past Pahrump, we turn off into a small canyon to retrieve, read with emotion, and then burn the message from Master 40. We feel privileged. We feel like we’ve completed an incredible adventure.

The last few miles before reaching the skyscrapers of Vegas are almost silent, but that quietness vanishes the moment we enter the world’s most famous strip, surrounded by casinos, lights, and crazy fountains.

We arrive at the Aria, our hotel for the next two days as rich people, unload our suitcases, and take the cars to the airport.

A tear rolls down my cheek as we shut down the engines of the Enterprise, Pathfinder, Challenger, and Nebula for the last time. They made it, too. It wasn’t without its share of difficulties, but we’re all alive.

We take an Uber back to the hotel, check in for our rooms, and…

The BigTour 41 ends with these lines.

Because what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.

Because it's nice to leave you in suspense.

But don't worry, we'll be fine.

Because stories—the good ones—come to an end.

Or maybe not.