HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing my Browns again
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Saying goodbye to my McElhinny’s
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 424km
I say goodbye to Miss Tippett, the McElhinny boys and Las Vegas today. This week has gone so quick and I now find myself looking at my last week ahead on my Odyssey. It is quite ironic that I started my trip 15 months ago travelling on the Trans Mongolian where I met a couple from LA, The Browns, and we just clicked from day 1. They were the first people I said that I would come and see the following year on my way home as I knew that I would be coming through the US, that much I did know, and now I find myself heading to them today as my last stop.
I was up at 6.30am as I hadn’t packed yet. This is the first flight I have had in a long time that was an afternoon flight at 4.10pm. It felt a little strange packing in the morning of the day I was leaving as I always like to do it the night before, but I had plenty of time this morning and got it all done before Tippy left for work leaving me in charge of the kids-look out Aunty Bernie was on the case. I didn’t buy anything in Vegas, so I didn’t need to worry about things fitting back in; I just had to keep an eye on the weight of the big backpack. I wanted to get some Vegas rays one last time, so I was poolside by 9.45am. Luke and Jake followed me out 30 minutes later and this is where I spent the last 1.5 hours playing with the kids in the pool. I’m going to miss the ankle biters aka little people. I have promised them I will send some Tim Tams and Mint Slices to them when I get back to OZ and I will be true to my word.
Tips got home at 12 and then we piled my entire luggage and the kids into the car and we were on our way to have lunch with some football moms before taking me to the airport. It was interesting to get an inside look into the lives of soccer moms and the trials and tribulations of coaches, other mom and dads and the new team selections. I guess there is no getting away from the politics of sports no matter what age or level. It was nice when it was time to leave that the moms said they would pay for our lunches as a farewell and good luck to us both and after I tried to give them cash they would have nothing of it. I have only met nice and generous people while I have been here and it is nice to know that these people still exist in the world. I found some people on my trips that would be chasing that dollar change or the better exchange rate for the extra 3 dollars, sometimes it is just not worth the hassle and here people are in Vegas giving us free meals, free cocktails, free show tickets and free lunches. I am extremely lucky, that is all that I can say.
Luke and Jake stayed with the soccer moms and their kids to hang for the afternoon, so with hugs and kisses goodbye from those 2 it was time to head to the airport. The goodbyes don’t get any easier as my stops go on and if anything it gets harder. I can’t imagine what I will be like when I leave Australia in August saying goodbye to my god-daughters and Shelly again. It won’t be too bad as I know I will be back at the end of November but even so good-byes still suck. So with BIG bear hugs from Tips and Nick, it was time to for me to leave. Sometimes it can take a trip like this to make you realize what a great friendship you have with people and to be able to rekindle that again is a real joy and I hope that we can keep in touch more now that we have caught up on the last 2 years of our lives. 21 years of being friends with Miss Tippett is a credit to us both, as everyone knows sometimes life can just pass you by, but with a little effort and a catch up every few years is all we need to keep it nurtured. I am proud to have Miss Tippet aka Tips aka Tarsh aka Mrs McElhinny as my friend and look forward to a trip to Oklahoma in the next year or two. We both have exciting new ventures to head to with my arrival back home and then my move to Ethiopia and her family moving to another state in a few weeks’ time I have a feeling we may be sending each other messages more than we think we are going to as we adjust to our new lives. Love ya McElhinnys and thank-you so much for opening your home and your family for my visit.
Thank goodness this is my last domestic flight in the US. Their airports are really quite stressful to go through, with the self-check-in process, the Nazi’s on the check-in counters and then the security measures. You think I would be used to it by now but for some reason it just takes longer and they are so much more thorough and just ‘mean’ looking. I guess if you process hundreds of people every day which 90% of them are jackasses, I probably wouldn’t be too happy either. I proceeded to the self-check-in counter to get my boarding pass and United ask how many bags you have and also you pay at this stage as well. As I had purchased a cheap arse ticket I had no free bag allowance and again paid my 60USD to get them to LA. This is the last time I will have to pay for my baggage as I will then be back to my international ticket for my flight home in 7 days where I am back to having 2 free pieces of luggage. The sweat out was now how heavy my big back was going to be and I was hoping if I was over, since I had paid for my bag, they would go lightly on me as I had paid for the checked bag…but would they? Maybe they really wouldn’t care and be happy to double dip me and get more money. Well I didn’t have to worry as my big backpack was 20.1kg and my other checked in bag was 13.2kg. I would hate to think what my rolly bag would weigh, but it would have to be over 10kg, plus my handbag and my Frank Lloyd Wright glass picture I am now carrying around 45-50kg of luggage- wowzers…. Imagine carrying that for my whole trip?
McCarran International Airport is ranked 22nd in the world for passenger traffic, with 39,757,359 passengers passing through the terminal and is ranked 9th in the world for aircraft movements with 505,591 takeoffs and landings. It is a busy airport and security was a shambles. There were so many people passing through and they only had a few screening stations open. The lines were all skewed, there were hundreds of us and it was just a mess. I made it finally to the front of the line and for the first time all trip my Ethiopian bangles were an issue. I beeped through the x-ray machine as I always do, but this time they weren’t going to just wave me through like all other airports have on the last 20 odd flights. They did ask if I could take them off which I can’t as they are bent onto my arm, so a female officer was called. As we waited for her, the male officer told me next time I should go through the standing machine scanner and this is the only time I have talked back to these guys when I said it is a shambles on the other side, and even if I was aiming for the standing machine I would have been hard pressed to get it and with a shrug from him the female officer arrived and I went through what was the most vigorous body search ever. I was told not to touch anyone or anything and we had to get all my stuff off the security belt to a section at the end of the belt. So I wasn’t supposed to help and the lady who had the job of frisking me dropped my Frank Lloyd Wright glass picture as she tried to juggle all my crap. I was alarmed to say the least, but she was so apologetic and told me she would check it after she had rubbed her hands all over me. She had to tell me exactly what she would be doing, running her hand over and under my boobs, up and down my legs, on the inside of my pants I was wearing (front and back), the soles of my feet etc. I was offered to go into a room, but I declined and just wanted to get it done….. To finish it all off I got swabbed for drugs and was finally allowed on my way. We checked my picture and it all looked okay, she really was apologetic and I am not sure what she would have done had it been broken, but she was just doing her job, so I told her no harm done and with a wave I was on my way.
McCarran has added a new terminal since I was last here and I had to catch a train to my departure gate, which is just as well as it was at least an eight minute ride to get there. It has more than 1,234 slot machines throughout the airport terminals and also has 251 gambling machines both airside and landside. I thought for a mini second to pop in a quarter but didn’t and continued on to my gate. When I got to my gate United were making announcements that the flight was 12 seats over sold and they were asking for volunteers to stay an extra night in Las Vegas, with a night’s accommodation, meal vouchers and a 150USD credit. Needless to say there were no takers, not a single one that walked up to the counter. This is the first time I have heard an oversold announcement. I had Eric coming to get me, so it wasn’t even an option for me. The departure lounge filled and then another announcement was made that they were upping the ante and they had found a flight with seats an hour later on an American Airlines and they were offering people 300USD to change to that. Well that got people out of their seats and there was a line-up of over 20 people ready to take up that offer. Even if I wanted to a 300USD credit was probably useless to me as I am not sure when I would be back to the States and it wasn’t transferable. So I just watched the people as one by one they got new boarding passes and made their way to their new departure gate. I was in section 7 boarding, the last one to be called, when United made another announcement that if people had rolly bags they wanted to check at the air-bridge they would take peoples bags for free. Being in the last boarding section I was guessing that there wouldn’t be a lot of room left for my bag as it was a full flight, so I walked up to ask about it thinking that it was going to go valet like my Ottawa flights but he said that it goes as checked luggage (I had stuff that was breakable and stuff I didn’t want to lose) so with his advice that there would be room, I kept my bag and waited patiently for my section to be called, and with my handbag, my glass picture and rolly bag just hoped there would be space left. We were 20 minutes late in boarding when they finally started to call the sections from 1-7. There were 3 people in front of me that had 2 bags each and they were seated in the row 28, the row after me, as I had peeked at their boarding passes. They were obviously as worried as I was about available space because as soon as we walked on the flight they started to put their bags in any available overhead space starting at row 5 and the people who were belted in had complainy faces on even though their row was full and all their bags were stored. I can see it was a bit ballsy but what harm is it doing them and it would hopefully give me room when we finally made it to our row. So with 3 of their bags in row 5, 11 and 20 there were two obvious spots that I could see at our rows with 4 bags to go in, so while they farted around I moved like lightening and slipped my rolly bag into one of the free spaces and took my seat. They had to fluff around depositing their bags in row 29 and 30 and then we were finally all seated. The next best thing to having an empty seat next to you is being seated next to a child, and this was my only positive for the whole day so far, that and getting my bag into the overheads. I do hate that part of travelling, the bag fiasco, but I got there and for some reason this flight took for-ever to board. Americans are the worst plane borders that is for sure.
We pulled out from the gate and then sat there for another 20 minutes as apparently we had to be weighed before we could taxi off and then finally we were on our way. Talk about a right old rig ma role for a 44 minute flight. The aircraft was a 737-800 with a seating configuration of 3x3. The view we had as we flew the 424km was desert, valleys and mountains. It was quite a scenic flight and I took a lot of photos (as I always do) and this is really the last flight I will be able to do so. My flight from LA to Brisbane is a night service arriving in at 6.30am, so there really won’t be too much for me to take photos of at night. As the flight was so short there wasn’t even a drink trolley to come through, but the hostee’s did walk down with some trays of water for us and before you knew it we were starting our descent in to LA. The last of the view was the urban sprawl they call LA and it stretched as far as the eye could see, the flatness and the grid looking of the city just making it quite clear just how massive the city Los Angeles really is.
We ended up arriving 20 minutes late and as soon as we started our taxi I texted Eric and filled him on where I was at. Along with everyone else who has come to collect me from the airport I have told them not to park the car and to just drive by and pick me up so we don’t have to pay the exuberant airport parking fees. I arrived into terminal 7 and it all looked quite new as I found my way to the baggage carousel. We only had to wait around 15 minutes for the bags to start arriving and my 2 were one of the first ones to come out, so with a text to Eric that I was ready, I went outside to wait for my ride. After another text asking what Eric was driving, and then another to tell him I was under the United sign, to send another one when he missed me on his first pass, we finally got it right and I got a massively big bear hug and a welcome to California smile. It’s good to see my Brown’s. Well Eric so far, Christine had just wrapped a shoot and was at home waiting for my arrival.
LA traffic is busy. All the time. 24 hours a day with just a few pockets of relief between certain times of the day. Unfortunately we were not in one of those pockets and it took us just over an hour to get to the Browns who have a house in Hollywood. How fancy and romantic to say I’m staying in Hollywood for the next week. My timing fitting into the Browns schedule has been exceptional as they both work crazy hours in the advertising industry, but as luck would have it Eric is off to Canne next week for the film festival and Christine just finished a massive shoot and gets to have tomorrow off and then will be in town at least for Monday-Wednesday next week. I know how precious their time is and makes this visit that much more special to me. Their home in Hollywood is beautiful and straight out of a House and Home magazine. I am so lucky to be here AND with Eric cooking us dinner of steak and salad, this is a magnificent way for me to finish off my world odyssey in great company and a little style.
Welcome to Los Angeles and the state of California
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