Saturday, 26 April
After a productive 10 day stint with us, Gary has to fly back to Australia. He walks out to the train station with his bags to catch a train to National Airport (I won’t call it Reagan). We find out later that there are various delays and it takes him around 33 hours to get home.
We, on the other hand, are flying out of Baltimore International. I had booked a taxi online using a system I had never used before but it worked fine with the driver arriving early. It is a pleasant drive to BWI until we run into massive traffic jam which turns out to be caused by freeway road construction. Still we reach BWI in plenty of time. Advice: always allow much more time than you think you need in the USA, probably elsewhere too.
BWI is a pleasant enough airport. We get some food through a food court because it is going to be a long day. My Chinese was quite ordinary. We are flying to Las Vegas with a stopover in Houston. First flight is OK but there is excitement at Houston when our plane lands after boarding time for the next flight and our departure gate is a long way away. We are sprinting around the airport as the best that I can, which is not very best, when JV hijacks one of the airport carts which takes us directly to the gate. We board with some but not much time to spare. Whew!
The plane is large and not particularly full so it is a pleasant enough flight to Las Vegas. We land at the new (to me) terminal 3 and are pleasantly surprised when our baggage has made the tight transfer in Houston and comes off on the carousel. We take the car rental bus to the universal centre on Gillespie street. Then our troubles start. We are renting through Europcar, which I have used in England and Europe many times before. Oops, the bus driver has never heard of it before and others that we ask when we get to the Rental Car Centre say the same. We see one Agent who says he thinks it is represented there somewhere but not sure where. We wander around for a while until we are helped by Hannah from Alamo Car Rental. We eventually work out that we should go to Advantage Rental Car company – Expedia, you could have told us that!
We are to stay at the house of my long time friends John and Phyllis. We drive North up the congested I15 and then US95. We go past the many Strip hotels – a pity Julie never got to see them in the night time with the amazing lights. So, I have extracted a few photos from the Web courtesy of Photobucket
As we get near, we decide we need to bring in some wine. We stop at a grocery store but the selection is scheis. Julie asks an employee there if there is a better store around and he directs us to a Lee’s. I had had a lot of experience with Lee’s when I lived there and was happy to go there. I pick up some water and a couple of bottles of wine, Julie a number of small bottles of spirits. J&P are away for the weekend so we arrive at their place before they do. They have left a key so we go in and settle, no sign of the cats that live there. In a while we receive a phone call, they are still on the road. They arrive about an hour later and it is great to reacquaint with good friends.
After a couple of wines, we go out to a local French place which is a combination Wine Shop and Restaurant. There is a fair bit of noise as there is a wedding in one part and a major birthday in another part. We pcik a wine from the shop racks and have some food:
We go back after a long day. A bit of wine and bed beckons.