Houseship trip #1

Well here we sit waiting on our fellow travelers. It is Sunday afternoon, and we are ready about 1 hour early. We have to catch a plane in Greensboro. Catch a plane that is the key phrase. Yours truly hates planes. There is so much hassle involved with flying, and they have made the coach area seats of the planes so small, I genuinely hate it. I remember when I was young, and flying was a treat. Seats were big, you could smoke, (and smoking didn’t make you a social leper) no "security", no crowds at the airport, and happy airline folks. Now that is all just a faint memory. I get my Dr. to give me what I call "flying pills", something generic in the Valium family. I take them when I leave the house and right before I get on the plane with an adult beverage of my choice. I end up blissfully unaware that I am crushed into space a midget couldn’t enjoy, hurtling through space at 560 mph. at the mercy of an air traffic control system that is precarious at best. My favorite airplane j oke is "Damn, he would have survived that 600 mph. fiery crash into the ground if only his seat back and tray table had been in their full upright and locked position." Vickie really fusses at me when I say it. (I think she’s tired of hearing it) Many of the airline folks are very nice, but the percentage of grumpy troops is much higher in this age of pay cuts and airline bankruptcy. I use the wheelchair service available from the airlines with my continuing leg issues. They are very kind (especially when you tip them well) and it makes moving through the airports and changing planes much less stressful for this old gimp. When the flight is far away, they ride you in one of those electric carts. I like to sing harmony with the beep, beep, beep the carts make. Vickie pretends she doesn’t know me.

Well now we’re here at the airport, the whole arrival check in process was made greatly less stressful by Brenda’s Delta Medallion status. Since we were traveling with her, we got to go to the special check in reserved for the Medallion and First Class passengers. One of our good friends that lives very near the airport is babysitting our cars, so Jerry and Jimmie took off to ditch the cars as soon as we checked in. I was a "Primary Alarm" at the walk through detector at the security gate. Never been called that before. It involved the usual wanding with the metal detector and body search along with rubbing my hands and knee brace with the little wipey thing that goes in the explosive detector. I wasn’t explosive and didn’t have any concealed weapons, so I got through quite nicely. In reality, it was one of the better experiences at security I’ve had. Vickie rounded me up a nice iced coffee and we’re settled down to await boarding.

Later.... all in all the flights on Delta today were uneventful. (slam ass full, but on time and well run) We arrived in Vegas, got our severely overloaded mini van, and made our way down the strip to the Stratosphere. We had booked rooms at the Stratosphere as it was the most reasonable, and we were really only crashing for one night. The stories we had read about lines at check in at the Stratosphere were true. However, we discovered an automated kiosk that let us check in with no line and very little fuss. Only problem was we were supposed to have adjoining rooms and they were the exact opposite. Each couple was in a different tower and floor. After we figured out the curious room numbering system (our room was 03-10-46, which stood for building 3 floor 10 room 46), the rooms were serviceable and we had landed. We did the Vegas night stuff till about 2 Vegas time, then crashed with plans to meet for breakfast. After breakfast it will be into the mini van for our trip to the G rand Canyon. Just discovered the Internet here costs $9.95 per day, so this may be a while going out. Good old Vegas, never any coffee in the rooms, and you pay for Internet. I’ve stayed at cheap rundown strip motels, but they still had wireless Internet and a coffee maker in the room. Jerry commented on how few channels were available on the TVs in the room. His take, "they don’t want you drinking coffee, watching TV and surfing the Internet in your room". They want you downstairs gambling. After all I added all these fancy casinos and hotels didn’t build themselves, it took a lot of folks losing a lot of money. More later.

Wes