Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas ~ in Austin, Texas Part 1

Trip Journal Day 1

I hate to fly.  Flying makes me absolutely nauseous.  There are few pros  that outweigh the cons for flying.  The best thing about flying is that one gets to where they are going a lot quicker.  Big deal.  I would rather take two day to travel this beautiful country by car and see all that I could in the time I have.  Granted, the scenery between Reno, NV and Austin, TX is not the best, but I have taken many car trips where the scenery was definitely worth the drive.  

The only other pro about this trip was the fact that I didn’t have to pay for it.   That’s certainly a plus.  It probably would have cost around $500 in gas money to get from here to there.  Even though that is cheaper than flying, I couldn’t have come up with that kind of money.  Thank you, Mom.

I really don’t like to fly.  My stomach gets queasy and I feel dizzy long after the plane lands.  I never get that way when I’m driving.  Sometimes I do if I’m a passenger, but otherwise I fair really well in cars.  

This trip has been interesting so far.  My brother and I checked in more than a few hours early and the check in gate person said that the flight we were supposed to be on was delayed which meant that we would have missed our connecting flight to Austin.  They booked us on an earilier flight although we lost our really sweet boarding numbers for this first flight.  We were among the last to board so we both got stuck in middle seats.  The saving grace is that this flight is less than an hour long.  And, the ladies I’m sitting with are quiet and that’s good for an introvert like me.  I don’t like having conversations with people I don’t know.  They are probably wondering what I’m doing.  

It’s hot and stuffy in here.  I’d really like to roll down one of the windows right now.  The air from the above head area is okay, but it isn’t cooling me down any at all. 

I’ll be glad when we land in Vegas.  Since we are going to be there early, we have more time to spend doing whatever.  Perhaps we’ll win some money at a slot machine.  I ended up seventy-five cents ahead just before we left.  That’s not bad for an airport slot machine.

Are we there yet?       

***********************************************************************************

Phew!  We made it to Las Vegas.  When we got off the plane we checked the arrival/departure screens and found that our connecting plane was going to be delayed about 50 minutes.  Okay, no problem.  We went to find some food. I don’t think I’ve ever paid over $10 for a small combo meal from any place.  The airport is definitely not the place to eat lunch, but what did we know.  Even after that we found a few other places as we were walking toward the gate where we were to catch our fight…later than we hoped.  

Instead, we decided to take a walk out of the airport to see what we could see.  We were on the side of the airport that was lined with not taxis, but LIMOS and shuttles.  I’d never seen that before, and here I was joking with my brother about commandeering a limo for a ride.  One could actually pay for the driver to take them to the strip or to the airport.  If I ever visit Vegas for a trip, I would totally do that!  

My brother had the idea of going to the hotel that had the roller coaster, the New York New York.  We got some information from one of the shuttle services who told us that we should only get a one way ticket (knowing that we were only here for a few hour layover) and that we could catch a free shuttle from any of the hotels back to the airport.  We got to the New York New York at 2:30. I didn’t realize that it was already that late.  We arrived at the roller coaster area only to find that there was about a 20 minute wait, which probably would have been more like a half hour, and then the time for the ride itself.  I advised that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to stay because we needed to go through airport security again once we got back to the airport.  My brother was disappointed, but also didn’t want to pay the $14 for the roller coaster ride. 

We went down to the airport shuttle area outside the hotel to wait for a shuttle.  One pulled up.  It was a different company than the one that dropped us off.  The driver was really nice, but informed us that there was only one hotel in Vegas that actually had a free shuttle.  We ended up paying full price for a trip back to the airport.  At first, it was disappointing.  The driver made it better.  Elmer was his name and he was awesome.  He told us a story of a time when he and his wife visited friends in Reno and he got totally plowed.  He was funny.

We arrived back to the airport at 3:01.  I remember clearly because my brother said that if we got back to the airport by 3:00, he’d be really upset.  It was a minute later, so I told him he wasn’t allowed to be that upset.  We walked into the terminal and when we looked at the arrival/departure screen, we were in for a shock.  The flight that by the time we had left the airport was over an hour delayed was scheduled to leave now at 3:20!  How cruddy was that?!  

We raced through airport security.  I made sure to take my laptop out of my bag this time so that we weren’t delayed going through.  I didn’t know about that and it took forever to get through security in Reno.  After we finished with that we hoofed it for what seemed like forever to make it to our gate in time.  We were at C24.  We needed to be at C9.  Ugh!  My brother is a really fast walker, but I’m out of shape and I could barely keep up with him.  We made it with only five minutes to spare.  Our bad ass boarding numbers went to waste AGAIN!!!  We were of the last to board the plane and ended up sitting in the middle seats again.  Ugh!  

It’s a good thing that we didn’t pay for round trip tickets from the airport to the hotel.  We would not have gotten to ride back with the same company and ended up having to pay more just to get back.  The Universe works in mysterious ways.

When we got off the plane in Vegas I had nearly thrown up.  My stomach was really nauseated, so we went and tried to find a place that sold Dramamine.  I couldn’t believe how much it cost!  I wasn’t about to fork over $11 for a small bottle just so that I wouldn’t feel the need to puke when we landed in Austin.  I ended up paying $8 for Bonine, which worked just as well.  Although my head was dizzy when we landed in Austin, I didn’t feel the need to puke. 

 While in flight to Austin I broke out my laptop and tried to watch some free Dish TV that they had available.  It was making me dizzy so I decided to turn it off and listen to music instead.  That really helped me focus on the fact that the ground was several thousand feet below us.  I sat in between two averaged aged gentlemen.  The one on my left was not much of a talker at all.  The one on my right spoke a bit, but mostly it was to complain about the guy behind us who didn’t shut up the entire trip.  We both complained to each other about that. I made a reference to duct tape or something and we both chuckled. 

We finally arrived in Austin just as I was changing my music set list to stuff I hadn’t listened to in a while.  I was very happy to be on the ground.  I borrowed Titan’s duffle bag because the stuff I was bringing for my mom didn’t fit in my Adidas bag. I didn’t recognize it as it was coming off the luggage wheel.  

My mom and Gary picked us up and we took the trip 50 minutes to their house.  It seemed like a long trip.  My right knee got cramped on the way, but then it has been acting up again due to the last time I worked.  I hurt it and had to wrap it the next day.  But the drive to their house was well worth it.  It is a beautiful brand new home that they waited a long time for.  It has several rooms including 4 bedrooms, a magnificent kitchen and formal dining room, living room, upstairs area they call the playroom.  It has a television that my brother is currently playing video games on.  It’s a really amazing house.   

I gave my mom her birthday gift after the house tour and before we ate dinner.  It is a butterfly stylus that I had engraved from Things Remembered.  She really loved it.  I showed her what it was used for.  She really liked it a lot.  I told her that I wasn’t going to let her celebrate her 60^th birthday without a gift from at least one of her children.  

So far the trip is really good.  The plan is to go to some race track tomorrow.  Big deal for me really, I’m not all that interested, but my brother really enjoys racing and he is looking forward to it.  I tried to see if there were any karaoke bars in the area, but since I don’t have my own car it doesn’t really make sense for me to even ponder that. 

 

We’ll see what tomorrow holds.  For now, it’s getting late and I’m rather tired.  Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.  

To be continued....