Return to Vegas: Part II

Sunday, March 7, 2009—Hitting the Ground Sitting

The thing about returning to a travel destination where we've been before is that there really isn't much story in the trip itself. We took advantage of Jennifer's parents' generosity the night before our plane left, and spent the evening with them socializing and eating homemade enchiladas. It ended with our viewing a classic movie called Zulu (1964), a tale about the soldiers of the British Empire standing against the marauding Zulu tribe in Africa, 1879. My favorite line from the movie? "Shut up, you cripple!" Say it a few dozen times like I did, and it starts to sound really funny. At least until your partner pummels you. *Hee*

Anyway, we rose the next morning, partook of a delicious breakfast, courtesy of Jennifer's mother, and then got on the road to the airport.

The Usual Plethora of Airport Hassles

Spend any time with one of our travel narratives, and you'll find this category is in about every one of them. No trip is without suffering of some kind, alas.

Most of the hassles these days fail to surprise us, so ubiquitous are they. This time, however, we were struck by the fact that the escalators weren't working. I was dragging a weighty check bag behind me as we entered the airport building, and did not particularly enjoy having to heave it up forty or more inert metal steps. More, the retractable handle on the bag kept jamming, and I had to pound it down with my hand in order to manhandle the damn thing. Apparently, I bruised a nerve in my thumb at some point, because it developed an unpleasant "shocky" sensation when I flexed the digit. Luckily, Jennifer gave me a small hand massage that made it go away. Such are the occasions one has to be thankful for having a supportive life partner. :) As a bit of foreshadowing, I'll point out that dead escalators were a pattern this trip; we would find them at the airport in Las Vegas, as well as at almost all of the casinos and street crossings. What the hell? Was there a nationwide strike among rebellious escalators? I could almost picture the scenario: Tired of being walked on, feeling like they were running in place in their careers, and resenting that they have no upward mobility, proletariat escalators fall into lock-step unity, lift off their shackles and stop bearing the weight of the world. Instead, they just sit and stair. [Sigh].

For all that, the baggage and security checks weren't too difficult this time, and we got through with minimal hassle. By this point, a couple of hours had elapsed since our hearty breakfast, and Jennifer was hungry for a hearty lunch. We stopped at a Quizno's, where we encountered our first character listed in the dramatis personae above: the Byzantine. He didn't appear all that unusual at first, but when he spoke, it was with an old Byzantine accent so thick he sounded like he was trying to talk while gnawing on a mouthful of car seat. Still, his English was passable, and the exchange would have been fine, but for the fact that he didn't seem to understand us. All Jennifer wanted was a sandwich with the tomato left off. But our Byzantine seemed to think she didn't want any vegetables on the sandwich. We both tried several different ways to tell him, "just take off the tomato." Finally, Jennifer gave up, told him to leave it as-is, and planned to qualify the order to the line worker actually making the sandwich. Well, they must have had some little elves back there working surreptitiously, because we got to the end of the line where she could talk to the employee, and the sandwich was somehow already made...made wrong. Tomato intact, and with melted cheese to cement it firmly to the bread. [Sigh]. Luckily, the girl was a good egg, and conjured a new sandwich without complaint. Jennifer patted the girl's pasty white shell, and we bid her "valeat." That's Latin for, "May she be well."

We'd timed our arrival well this time, and were able to board our plane only a few minutes after finding our gate. The trip, other than being a long four hours of unbroken sitting in a plane seat, was uneventful. We'd hoped to find an aisle seat, having learned last time that if we sat against the window, we'd probably get corked into our spots by a fat guy sitting on the outside. That makes it hard to get up and go to the plane's restroom. Unfortunately, passengers seem to have this need to sit in their seats, then hunker forward in them like they're preparing for one of those nuclear holocaust drills elementary school kids used to have to do back in the 1950s and 1960s. So every time Jennifer thought she spotted two aisle seats together, she'd then find one of them occupied by a huncher. What the hell, are they trying to hide their looking at porn on their little Blackberries? Jennifer gave up and settled for two adjacent window seats. Minutes later, we were corked in by a fat guy. More, he fell into a catatonic slumber throughout most of the trip, in which he emitted noises like he was snorkeling in gelatin. Ew!

Here's a bit of video showing the view from outside our window:



Four hours and a couple of full bladders later, the flight attendant announced, "We're coming in for a landing in Las Vegas; au-huh!" That last part was her comical little Elvis Presley addition, likely an homage to the King's legendary presence in the Sin Capital of the world. When we stood, our distended bladders sloshed, our legs creaked audibly and our spines made sounds like ratchets. I was just glad my knees were in optimal working condition and would bear my weight without protest after sitting that long.

As we moved toward the baggage claim area, we encountered the Chickadees. These were a trio of giggling young college girls from our flight, probably sorority members, who were clearly in Las Vegas to party, perhaps warm their ankles with their knickers, and have a good time. Their energy was infectious, and we found ourselves behind them throughout the airport. Luckily, they set a fast pace much like ours, which means they weren't "cows." It was funny to watch them avoid looking out the airport windows and seeing the city before they left the building; they were obviously cultivating suspense, and we appreciated the chance to fondly recall what it was like being young. Or at very least, to have our Vegas cherry unpopped.

After we reclaimed our bag and exited the building, both of us were struck by how cloudy and cold it was in Nevada! Last May, the desert weather was more than 20 degrees hotter than back home, while this time, it felt cooler. On top of this chilly reception, we then met our third character . From our first trip to Las Vegas, we remembered we could get to our hotel--the New York-New York--via shuttle. Spotting the booth that sold the tickets, we hurried forth and rotted in line, while waiting for perhaps the most glacial register person in all of Nevada. When our turn came, and Jennifer asked to buy tickets (the purpose of her workspace, after all), this half-decomposed Crypt "Cow" just stared at Jennifer like she'd never seen skin on a human being before. Jennifer had to qualify that she wanted a couple of tickets for a moving vehicle that traversed the space between here, the airport, and there, the Las Vegas Strip. The woman seemed a little dazed, especially when she looked down to discover she had fingers. Learning how to operate said fingers on the fly, the crizzled Crypt "Cow" finally punched a few mysterious buttons on her console, asked the two of us how many tickets we needed and whether or not we wanted a round trip. She then puckered her cigarette-moldered face, spent a few seconds we'll never get back to learn the principles of counting in single digits, and gave us our change. Free of her at last, we caught the transport and without incident, arrived at our casino.

Once we registered at the front desk of the New York-New York Casino, we went the elevators to our room in the Century Tower, 27th floor. The view was awesome, and we rejoiced that we'd arrived safely for our second Las Vegas experience!

The view of Las Vegas through our 27th story window.

NEXT TIME: The Travelin' Thornberries do battle with climactic anomalies, in their quest to bask in the presence of the idealized female form.

Click for Part III