ABOARD XTRA AIRWAYS FLIGHT 113 -- Don't say Mitt Romney won't go the extra mile for a vote.

The Republican presidential contender was logging more than 5,000 of them as he undertook a 37-hour, coast-to-coast-to-coast dash while trying to better rival John McCain in the 21 Super Tuesday nominating contests.

After flitting from Nashville, Tenn., to Atlanta to Oklahoma City to Long Beach, Calif., on Monday, Romney was turning around and flying a red-eye to Charleston, W.Va., in time to address the GOP state convention Tuesday morning.

Romney hoped not only to win there, but also in California's pivotal primary.

"I think it communicates to people in California that the entire nation is watching California and what they're going to do," he said in Tennessee after setting off on his journey at 7 a.m. EST Monday. "If I win California, that means you're going to have a conservative in the White House."

About 13 hours later, as he flew toward the Rocky Mountains, Romney came back to joke with his traveling press corps before settling into a seat at the front of his chartered Boeing 737 for the remainder of the flight to the West Coast.

The former Massachusetts governor, who tries to keep his body clock on East Coast time wherever he travels in the country, planned to sleep on the return flight, aided by a pillow, pink fleece blanket and inflatable mattress his campaign Staff brought aboard in Oklahoma.

"I want to sleep on the floor as long as the flight attendants say it's OK, because they need to go up and down the aisle," Romney said. "My feet will hang out into the aisle, but I'd rather sleep on the floor."

His entourage, including his brother, Scott, and longtime friend, Bob White, spread out through the rest of the plane, one person on each side of the aisle across the 26 rows of seats. All were given blankets and pillows, along with a takeout dinner from the Outback steakhouse.

Romney joked: "It's been a while since I slept on the floor; usually if I'm in trouble, I sleep on the sofa." He said his last actual floor slumber occurred about a decade ago when he went camping with one of his five sons.

After addressing convention delegates in West Virginia, Romney planned to fly to Massachusetts to vote in his hometown, the Boston suburb of Belmont.

He said he and his wife, Ann, had talked Sunday night about the prospect of walking into the voting booth and seeing his name listed as a candidate for president.

"It's something I would have never imagined," said the 60-year-old, whose late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, sought the presidency in 1968.

"I mean, it's an honor, obviously, it's an enormous honor to even be considered as a candidate for president and to know that there will be hundreds of thousands and hopefully millions who will say, `You're the guy we'd like as our next president.' It's a very humbling honor," he added.

Romney then hoped to relax at home for the first time since he awoke there Jan. 8 -- the morning of the New Hampshire primary -- before attending a campaign party at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

"I feel excited," he said as he flew west, "very eager for the day to come and to start counting results. It's going to be hard to go to sleep tomorrow night, because we won't hear from California probably until very, very late."