Vegas, Baby!

Even though we were not scheduled to depart Seattle till 10:10 AM, we did not want to take any chances and made ourselves get up early. Well, Rich always gets up early (and with a pleasant attitude, darn him) but I am not an early riser (if I can help it). With the time change, it was after 1 AM when I went to bed. Rich asked me how I would be feeling in the morning and I said "grumpy." I was a little grumpy and had the red eyes to go with it when I stumbled into the shower (he was already up and showered and dressed, of course). The snow was falling in Seattle and apparently our shuttle driver had a minor mishap earlier because the hotel's security guard was standing by the vehicle sorta berating him that he wanted to get a "report" when he got back from this run. He then kept repeating "when you come back," irritating the driver to no end. One of the other passengers yelled out, "I dare you to say 'when you come back' one more time!" as the security dude walked away. Everyone on the van burst into laughter and our fellow traveler wished us happy holidays, adding "and keep your sense of humor."

We expected chaos at SEA-TAC after the many problems of the last several days, but we walked right up to the Southwest counter, checked our bags, got our boarding passes, went through Security quickly, got something to drink, bought magazines, and found our gate, all before 8:45 AM. So we hung out at the airport and we hung out and we hung out and 10:10 came and went and we were still hanging out. There was a plane parked at our gate and apparently the people had been waiting for four hours to leave so they ended up processing them before us and we finally took off about noon. Southwest Airlines is always lots of fun, even though it's open seating and I had to squeeze in between two people and Rich was several rows behind me. The flight attendants were playing John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and then another song that I remember from years ago which has a chorus of "the bluest skies I've ever seen are in Seattle..." Wasn't that from some goofy TV show like "Here Come the Brides" that some of us used to LOVE? And then we had Willie Nelson singing "On the Road Again." I finished reading my book Out Stealing Horses, which is one of our book club selections. I really liked it, though I wanted to know more about the characters, and more of the story. I guess that is a good thing.

Oh yeah, they bumped all the luggage to allow for people/weather/runway conditions, which really makes no sense to me but nevertheless we arrived to the strains of "Viva Las Vegas" and went to baggage claim to leave our info. We were told we could get a travel voucher if we came back to pick up our stuff vs. Southwest having to deliver it. But when it turned out that it was only a $50 voucher (each? NO), we told them they could deliver our bags to the hotel. We'd spend almost 50 bucks going back and forth, so what's the point? Of course, since we had already made the questionable trip from home to Anchorage with luggage intact, I went ahead and put my toiletries in my suitcase this morning instead of carrying them on. Hopefully the bags will get here tonight, after making a side trip to San Diego. Rich took some photos earlier today but the card reader is in the suitcase along with my toothbrush so we will upload later or tomorrow.

We're at the MGM, with a great deal on a room and Rich is out prowling the premises to figure out where to eat dinner.

It's probably in the 50's here but I was immediately struck by how WARM it was when we walked out of the terminal! Nice! How my perspective has changed.

Happy Christmas Eve and love to all.