Viva Las Vegas!

I just woke up.  I'm still wearing all my clothes except my shoes.  At least I had the foresight to close the drapes and turn off the TV.  My eyes feel a bit gummy and there's mascara smeared all over my face.  For the life of me, I look like I've just come off a bender where I pulled at my hair and painted my toenails purple.

Actually, I was just tired.  So. Tired.  And apparently needed a long, hard sleep.

Monday night was a wild one.  Severe weather crossed out area overnight.  The guys slept downstairs and I slept upstairs with the weather radio.  It was going off all night, but the one that caught my attention was the one a little after 3am, which was a tornado warning - right in my neighborhood.  I got up, went downstairs and grabbed my boy.  Darling Man opted to stay where he was on the floor in the livingroom, but ZBoy came and sat next to me in the tiny hallway between the family room and the garage.  We stayed there for about half an hour until the warning went away, Boy shaking and worrying the whole time.  Me wondering if my plane would be on time the next morning.  I put the boy back on the couch and went back upstairs to try to sleep, but it was fitful at best, interrupted every few minutes by a new shriek of the weather radio.  Finally, at 5am, I got up, showered, finished packing and headed back downstairs.

Darling Man and ZBoy drove me to the airport.  The weather had passed here, but was still nasty in Atlanta.  The plane was boarded, but then we sat on the tarmack for another half hour waiting for Atlanta to give the go signal.  Finally, we were off.  It was a very bumpy ride.  And as bumpy as the flight was, the trip from runway to terminal was even bumpier - like riding a horse or a bike with a wheel out of true.  Something very lumpy about that ride.  But we got there, and of course my connecting flight was terminals away.  I didn't run, but was close to trotting and when I got there, all but two people had already gotten on.  I barely made it, but I did.  I just hoped my luggage did too.

This flight was also very rough at the beginning.  Lucky me, I got to sit next to a woman who was afraid of flying and claustrophobic.  I asked her what her flying style was:  did she like to talk or did she want to keep to herself?  Of course, chatting helped her get through flying, so I obliged.  As various noises and bumps were happening, I explained them and in between told her about my trip to Korea and the wedding.  After she relaxed a little she told me about her husband dying last year, her grandson in Afghanistan, and her son's cheating ex-wife.  Not the most scintillating conversationalist, but it made the four-hour flight pass fairly quickly.

Airport, baggage, shuttle, hotel.  Thank goodness my room was ready - I could go straight there.  Once I'd checked it out, I decided to do my LV prep-work.

  I've been here before for conferences for work, staying at the same hotel, so I already knew that I don't like the water here and that there was a drugstore a couple of blocks away with bottled water that was dirt cheap compared to buying water here or in a restaurant.  I set off in the heat and immediately recalled the experience of walking in Las Vegas.  The smell.  The noise.  The Flippers.  The flippers are mostly Mexicans who work handing out sex cards for prostitutes (they don't actually walk the streets here) and they get your attention by flipping the cards together to make noise.  Once they make eye contact, they give you cards and won't take no for an answer.  The first time I was here, I wound up with a fistful of cards despite my best efforts - which wound up in the nearest trash can.  For some reason, today they didn't bother me.  Perhaps I looked a little crazy or grumpy or overtired-and-could-snap-at-any-moment, but the Flippers actually stepped back when I walked by.  The drugstore that was a couple of blocks away was actually 6 blocks away.  I got there, got my water, some gingerale, some coke zero and toothpaste which I'd forgotten and began the journey back.  Which is when I realized I hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before.  The whole sidewalk tilted strangely so I stopped at Subway for a sandwich to take back to my room.  I did get back, ate, drank A LOT of water and made contact with home.  After FB chatting a bit, we signed off and I decided to rest my eyes for a few minutes. 

Apparently, that was the end of my day.

So, today I finish my prep.  The conference doesn't start until 1, but the registration begins at 7am.  I'll have time to get some breakfast, pull out my clothes and iron them and take a nice long bath before I have to be anywhere.  Which is kind of a relief, as I totally lost yesterday afternoon and evening!

These are the views from my room.  I'm at the corner of Tropicana and The Strip facing the Strip. 

Excalibur complex

To the far left, Mandalay Bay and the Luxor

New York New York - with a rollercoaster on the roof and Lady Liberty standing guard.