Weeks ago, friends scheduled a weekend Las Vegas trip. They went a few days before me, since I wasn’t able to get time off work.
As those of you who follow my regularly know, my adventures rarely run as planned and never linearly. This adventure started early in the morning at the airport.
I was told to be at the airport 2 hours before my flight. This meant that I needed to be there at 3 am. My daughter was kind enough to drop me off. I was carrying my luggage on and already had my boarding pass, so I went directly to security. They weren’t open yet. Too early. I just stood around for a while, steering clear of the benches and edges. Too many people in those areas were coughing and I didn’t want to be involved with that.
Because I was standing in the open, people seemed to think I knew what I was doing. Suddenly, there was a random line in the middle of the area. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want all of those people to be in line in front of me once security opened.
Finally, one employee came out and said they will open at 3:15 am. So then I had information and it really looked like I knew what I was doing because I had that added confidence.
A lone security person wandered out at 3:15. No one made a move for a minute or so, so I wandered up and was sent through to have my luggage dealt with and to be searched. Other than forgetting to take off my shoes at first, it was uneventful. I had the nerve to think it, so the universe responded.
I put my shoes on and wandered off to the gate. I settled in and plugged in my phone charger, just in case. 15 minutes before the scheduled boarding time, I wandered off to the restroom and moved closer to the boarding line. So far, so good.
We started boarding, only one person attempted to get on before her number was called, so that wasn’t bad. We were informed it was a full flight. I got to my seat, stowed my belongings and waited. Everyone was on board, but no doors were closed yet. Odd. Eventually, ten minutes after we were supposed to take off, the crew announced that this would be a good time to get up and use the restroom. Odd. Then, we were told that the ground crew was checking something. Uh oh. The next thing we knew, we were told we were switching planes because it was faster than waiting for a mechanic. Great. They announced the new gate number and sent us off the plane to the next gate.
We were all hanging out there with several people dealing with connecting flights. We were now scheduled to leave at 6 am instead of 5 am. One person near me said that he was grateful that the mechanical issue was found before we left the ground. Good attitude! I wasn’t grumbling before, and his comment made me realize that most of the people waiting with me weren’t, either. No one was upset or taking it out on the staff.
By the time we got the crew back on board and all the connections dealt with, it was after 6 am. We finally started boarding. No major issues. The doors were still open. Luggage. We had to wait for the luggage to be transferred from one plane to the other. We finally took off around 6:40.
We arrived in Las Vegas right around 8 am. I stopped at the restroom and grabbed water and a very expensive soft pretzel. I wandered out to the shuttle area to buy passes to get to the hotel and for my return trip to the airport the next day. I was told that the shuttles were delayed around 40 minutes because of paramedic activity. Actually, all traffic from the airport was delayed because of it.
I went to where the shuttle would get us and found that it wasn’t just paramedics, but the police were there, too. A whole gaggle of emergency personnel were attending to a man in handcuffs with an IV running. I sent a message to the group chat with my friends, fully expecting no one to be awake at 8:15 am. I sent the message that I had landed and I wasn’t the one being arrested. Keeping positive thoughts.
The shuttle finally arrived just before 9 am. We left about 9:10 and by the time I got to the hotel, picked up the key that my roommate left for me, and got to the room, it was 9:30. I changed my clothes and got in an Uber to get to our brunch reservations by 10. I arrived as the group was being seated. Coffee. I need coffee.
I’ll write more in an upcoming post.
bookworm at the gym 