The Day Before Hallowe'en

I've been pretty busy, and haven't been here for a while.  It's been an eventful couple of weeks.

By now all of you faithful readers know that my middle child, Jessica, married the father of her son, which is a Good Thing, although she did take her sweet damn time about it.

There's a lot of this marrying stuff going around. This past weekend, I went to Las Vegas to help a first cousin once removed get married. It was an interesting trip.

My last trip to Las Vegas was from Los Angeles in a Mooney owned by an uncle - the very physician who delivered my son, and it occurred about four days after his delivering my son.  Phyllis and I were out there to pick up this child and bring him home, and the tradition at the time was that whenever someone came to visit, it was Uncle Jim's job to get them up very early, stuff them in the airplane, and go to Las Vegas for breakfast.  My recollection is that the food was incredible, and the choices so varied one could starve just making up one's mind what to choose.  I won a few bucks on the slots, and we flew back to San Bernardino before the air over the mountains got too rough.  I got to fly his Mooney and loved it, although one of his daughters told me this weekend I almost made her airsick.

But that was 40+ years ago.

This time when I went it was for a wedding at Caesar's Palace.  I almost did not get a rental car since I looked at the map and it appeared that everywhere I was likely to have to be was a short walk from my hotel, Harrahs.  The maps didn't have a scale anywhere and I was soon to find out why.

I have lived in towns smaller than Caesar's Palace.  It was a good half hour's walk from my hotel to the garden in which the wedding took place.  It would have been 20 minutes, but I am not 30 any more, I have recently broken a leg that is healing, my knees are probably 30 years older than I am and, of course, recovery from abdominal surgery tends to slow one down.  I never walked so damn much before in my life, nor did I ever find it needful to sit down so many times in the course of one journey to a place that looked so close by.

I out-smarted my self once by using what they call the Monorail.  It is technically interesting, and on Google Maps it looked ideal - and I guess it was ideal for someone 35 who can run a mile without breaking a sweat.  For me, it took me to a place about half a mile from my destination.  I was inside a casino all of that half mile, and it had the ceiling not flat, but curved and painted like a night sky - so well done one could believe oneself to be outside. I saw no clocks ever inside any place that I was, and it was impossible to walk anywhere without a slot machine so close you had to deviate from the planned route in order not to run into it. The hotel had no free WiFi - they suggested I go downstairs to Starbucks and use theirs - their tables are right next to about 128 new slot machines, all electronic.

These new slots are so different from the old three-reel slots (mechanical) that I soon figured  out I was too dumb to work them without 24 hours of dual - so I stayed away from them.  Didn't gamble, so I got no free booze, and wasn't buying.

The wedding was lovely, tastefully done, and not at all what I kinda expected from larger-than-life Las Vegas.  Everywhere we went, the food was the best I have ever had - and the portions far too large for me to consider eating, even before my gastric bypass.  It was hard for me to believe it, but when I got home (after I woke up) I got on my scale and found I had actually lost almost 5 pounds.  That was a truly unexpected result.

I flew in and back on Spirit Airlines. The prices were really great, I thought - at least until I started doing things like seat selection and baggage arrangements.  My checked bag was overweight, so it ended up costing near to $100 for the privilege.  There went the price advantage....

The aircraft were all A-320 Airbus aircraft - apparently a good workhorse much in the class of the old 727 (of you are old enough to remember having flown in one - I am) and they are not (or did not seem) as cramped as other flights I have taken - but they flew full aircraft, and both times I managed to request seating in the only row that did not recline, so there was no sleeping, not even on the late red-eye I took to get home. Also, I had walked so much I was in a lot of pain, and having to cross my arms to avoid molesting the person next to me wasn't much fun.

Next time I think I will take the train, if I can be sure I can get enough time to manage it.  I really do not enjoy flying any more.

It was great to see some family I seldom get to see, and to spend time with them, although it seemed as if we got together only at mealtimes - it was the only way to get us around a table that didn't have slot machines on it.

I was fortunate to have reserved a rental car, and even more fortunate to have done so when there was a mistake on their web site, allowing me to ask (successfully) that they honor a truly stupid low rate, and I got an upgrade to a Toyota 4-runner, which was nicer than I expected.  Had I not had a reservation, they would have had no cars - the PBR was in town, and that's a really Big Deal for Las Vegas.

Arriving late Friday night as I did, I drove to the hotel.  Any more, I make sure I take the car mount for my Android phone, as I like Google's Maps and GPS services better than anything else I have found, and it really works well.  It managed to find the entrance to Harrahs by the desk, which was around back and almost underground - the only trouble I had was finding a parking place, and when I did, it was free and I could park near the elevator.  Check-in was a breeze, and it was only about a mile and a half to my room (if I counted the distance the elevator had to travel to get to my floor.)  I found vending and ice - and found that snacks were cheap, but sodas and such were not (I found the same to be true on the plane, incidentally - Spirit does everything a la carte, so you get nickeled and dimed without realizing it.)  There was no in-room coffee, but Starbucks was right downstairs (next to a boatload of slot machines....) and there was noise and music all around.

A really different experience.  I am well beyond the age that I would seek excuses to go back - but I might go back just to visit people I met there.  It is always good to put faces with names of folks you 'know' from many years of meeting on-line but have never seen.

All in all I am glad I went - it was mostly a good experience, and the pain will go away in a few weeks.

Aside from that, I guess there isn't much all that new, so I'll close this down and get it posted.

Y'all take care....