Vegas - Arrival/Day 1

Early in the morning I started off by going in at work to finish up a couple of things and the John, Heidi, and Hunter came to pick me up. We dropped of the munchkins at my parent’s house and headed towards Jacksonville to catch our flight. For some reason it felt like only a 10 minute ride – we were there in no time. Once we arrived at the airport we checked in with Southwest {where your bags fly free} and then went and sat at our departure gate. I’m not sure if you are familiar with Southwest Airlines, but it is like a cattle call boarding. No one is given a seat assignment and you board by the order you checked in and then find which ever seat you would like. We were in the “B” section and ended up sitting towards the back of the plane – me in a middle seat and John in the aisle.

Waiting for our first flight in J-ville

Keeping myself busy during the flight - catchin' up on the blog!

The first guy that we shared a row with seemed like a high school and kept to himself. He got off at our stop in Nashville and then a guy about our age joined our row. We flew awhile and then John started up a conversation with the guy. He has 3 kids and works for Callaway. So, you can imagine I loved hearing all the golf talk the guys continued for the remainder of the flight. Yay me! Our flight landed and then we headed towards the baggage claim to grab our luggage. Mine came off quickly and we waited for a while for John’s. I decided to venture around to the little office area where tons of bags were sitting and happened to see John’s bag there. It had arrived on an earlier flight. Next mission – find a taxi to take us to our hotel! We caught one – a nice Lincoln Towncar and headed toward the hotel. The driver told us a few jokes he learned from driving Bill Cosby for 8 hours. He also told us how he ended up in Vegas. 30 years ago he was a deputy sheriff in Arkansas. He came home one day and found his wife in bed with two other men. He almost shot and killed all three of them. Instead he left and stayed at a friend’s house. The next day he went to his house, packed his things, and headed to the station to turn in his badge and gun. The guy’s boss tried to convince him not to and then come to find out the entire station knew for months this was going on. He left and headed towards California to stay with his brother, stopped in Vegas and has been there ever since. Currently he has been happily married for 25 years.

We made it to the hotel, checked in and then found Brad and Rebekah. John and I took our luggage to our room and then I really needed to eat {as always, right??}. After I ate we took a walk down Fremont Street which is the old strip {also referred to as “old Vegas” and downtown}. Brad and John met a new friend, Cupid and we had to make sure to catch some photos to remember him by. There were tons of people hanging out in costumes that you can take your picture with – for a tip. Apparently so many people make their money out there this way. I definitely contemplated doing a little dance to make a little money – too bad I did not have a costume! I think we went to the Golden Nugget for our first stop – not sure. We went to all the casinos on the street trying to see what each one had to offer.

 I did find an interesting picture – can you find what is wrong here?

I don’t think we were up too terribly late. Well, I was not up too terribly late. I went to bed before anyone else. Yes, the party pooper. Oh well!