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Day One, London to Las Vegas
I have no idea where I am.. and thanks to a botched watch re-setting somewhere between New York & now I don't even know what time it is...
This travelog is not full of holiday joy.. but I had to live it so you're going to have to read about it!
Today I learned a valuable life lesson "Never travel close to an American National Holiday", I left London at 3pm this afternoon, ontime and perfectly unaware of this fact, however once we got to New York things took a turn for the worse, let me explain.. we didn't land at the first attempt because the runway was busy, this put us in a holding pattern that extended the flight time from 7 hours to 8.. then once on the ground we wern't where we should be so we had to "park up" for a while on the tarmac, the plane got uncomfortably hot during the hour we waited to be attached to the terminal.
At this point I wasn't overly concerned, and infact on finding a mere 2 people in front of me at immigration figured I'd caught up with my schedule timewise.. my next task was to locate the gate for my onward flight to Las Vegas, the banks of TV's were all showing about 100 flights.. none of them were going to Vegas... it was now 7:30 and my flight was due to leave at 8.. I decided to go to the main part of the terminal and look at the masterTV's, this paid off.. there I am.. gate 103..
So 5 minutes later I'm sat in the gate next to a middle aged woman discussing art theory and the impact having to be commercial makes on an artists work, she seemed to be an artist herself but wouldn't be specific in what field, it's quite amazing the turns a conversation can make in 10 minutes isn't it.. Anyway the screen in the actual gate wasn't showing my flight so I started to get worried.. the flight was due to leave in 5 minues now and I wasn't 100% sure I was in the right place another trip to the master TVs assured me that 103 was the gate for me..
I returned to the gate and found an airline employee who assured me that the flight would be from this gate "when we have an aeroplane" ..uh-oh..
After about 30 minutes a tannoy announcement said that there were 2 flights scheduled to leave from this gate, one to Detroit and my flight to Vegas, but they weren't sure which one would arrive first.. 45 minutes later and things had changed.. The Detroit flight had arrived, but it couldn't pick anyone up as it had "bounced" and had to go back to Detroit and then come back here before it could go back to Detroit.. hard luck Detroit people.. the Vegas plane is here.. but it needs to be towed to the gate.. ok, thinks I, now we're moving.. 30 mins later we started to board..
I got into my seat at 10pm, 2 hours behind schedule.. the pilot was frank with us.. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you, there are 110 planes waiting to take off and we're somewhere in the 80's.. so we'll be staying here for an hour or so, then we'll taxi out to the runway where we'll get in the conga line for the runway, that will take another 45 minutes then we'll be on our way... so we settled in for the wait, sure enough after an hour we started to taxi. We endured many repeated warnings that during taxi-ing we had to remain in our seats with our seat belts on... after 30 minutes on the taxiway one enterprising passenger decided his bladder was more important that FAA regulations and headed for the toilet... accompanied by what sounded like a man close to breaking.. it was the pilot with one more warning "PLEASE remain in your seats, DO NOT use the toilets.." a steward asked the passenger to return to his seat, the passenger brushed him aside and had his visit to the loo...
15 minutes later we really start moving.. Ok, thinks I, now we're really going somewhere.. hang on what's that outside.. it's the bloody terminal!! why are we back here??! ..on came security, and they removed bladder boy from the flight.. seems they take the FAA seriously 'round these parts.. the excuse given was that he'd threatened a flight attendant on his way to the toilet and they knew we'd be in for more delays and didn't want to risk him becoming more aggressive in the air.. ok... if you say so.. "The good news ladies and gentlemen is that we still have our place in the line.." applause.
"This is your captain speaking, we just lost our place in the line, we'll be here another 30 minutes then we'll rejoin the queue for the runway and will be in the air in about 30 minutes... " 30 minutes later he said it would be 20 more minutes, 20 minutes later it would be 2 more minutes, 20 minutes later it was 10 more minutes.. we gave up listening to the man, he was obviously a pathological liar.. we took off 4 hours late at about midnight, it was at this point I adjusted my watch and lost track of all time... it must be around 10am on Friday at home, so I've been travelling 23 hours now, and as I write I'm waiting for the lights of Vegas to show up through the window, we're landing in 30 minutes.. I want to go to bed.
1 hour later:
Wa-hay!! got met at the airport by my roadtrip Buddy RK, she'd hired the US equivalent of my car as our personal transport!.. so a Mitsubishi Eclipse Convertible took us from the airport, oh boy, I'm going to enjoy wringing this puppy out when we drive to the desert.. :)
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Vegas was looking great all lit up at 4am.. we went straight to the Mirage found our room at the end of the world's longest corridor & went to bed.. I of course found my 2nd wind as soon as my head hit the pillow and had a 4 hour sleepless night...
-S.