Las Vegas: Departure (hopefully) & Arrival (hopefully)

When we woke up Wednesday morning, there was snow on the ground.

Snow… in Mid-April… wtf?

Later in the morning, the snow became this combination of quickly-changing and ever-changing snow/sleet/rain.

Usually it takes about an hour to get to Midway from our house, but because of the weather… and knowing that people can’t drive if they see a flake of snow fall from the sky, we decided to leave for the airport a little earlier.

We dropped The Peanut Butter and The Jelly off at HoMu’s parents house and hit the road.

Lo and behold, the traffic was fine and we arrived at the airport about three and a half hours before our flight was scheduled to depart.

Son of a…

We checked our bags and then checked the monitor to see the status of our flight:

“On Time.”

Excellent.

We then had two and a half hours to kill but that was not a problem as it gave us a chance to eat dinner at Harry Carry’s Seventh Inning Stretch and have a calming alcohol-based drink before boarding.

After that, we went to our gate and checked the status of our flight…

“Delayed.”

Son of a...

Did I mention it started snowing again… harder? And that the wind picked up… and that the temperature started to drop?

We were supposed to leave at 4:35, but at 4:45, they put a sign on the board that still said delayed… but listed no time.

Hmmmmm…

Being the inquisitive one that she is, HoMu went up and asked them approximately what time our flight would be leaving… the conversation went something like this:

“We don’t know, we can’t find the plan.”

“I’m sorry, what? Are you being funny?”

“No unfortunately I’m not…”

“Oh. Shit.”

That’s right, you heard me (sorry Sarah); they couldn’t find the plane.

Gotta love Southwest…

About 20 minutes later, they announced that they found the plane (it must have been in another pair of pants or something…) and that it was on its way to Midway.

A joyous applause was heard throughout the terminal… which was quickly beat-out by shouts of anger and frustration as the flight in the next gate was pushed back an additional hour.

So, we boarded the plane about 5:50 and they tell us we should be taking off within the next 10 minutes.

Needless to say, that was wrong.

We left the gate in ten minutes, but we sat on the tarmac for an additional 40 minutes before taking off…

We landed about 8:45 Vegas time and were told that our luggage would be on carousel 14.

We waited… and waited… and waited… and waited…

Finally, I saw a Southwest desk in the corner of the baggage area and went over to ask when our luggage would be unloaded and put on carousel 14, that conversation went something like this:

“When will the bags from Chicago be unloaded?”

“They already have been. They’re right here. We have our own luggage carousel.”

“We weren’t told that, the sign said carousel 14. I mean, didn’t you think it was odd that no one was claiming their luggage.”

“Actually I did. I thought about making an announcement, but didn’t.”

“You’re an idiot, do you know that?”

So HoMu and I got our bags and, since Southwest wasn’t doing a damn thing, we walked over to the luggage carousel where everyone on our flight was waiting and told them where to go and whom to yell at.

They obliged.

We quickly found the shuttle to The Flamingo, arrived, checked in and, seeing as how we hadn’t eaten since 2:00 Chicago time and it was now 11:30 Chicago time (9:30 LV), we grabbed a bite to eat before hitting the casino for a quick drink and some quick gambling before hitting the strip and getting to bed early so we could start early the next morning.

We ended up going to bed around 3:00.

Tomorrow; “Day One” or “How We Ended Up Getting Sand in Every Orifice of our Bodies”