AFPF Travelogue

Mick and Wendy's trip to the USA

This trip is in multiple parts. The first section is on this page. Please click here for the different sections.

• The rest of the first day
• Americans can't count
• The Big Hole
• We drove The Mother Road
• Las Vegas Return
  
  
  Las Vegas.
  ARRIVAL
  
  
  What thoughts that name evoked. I‘d seen and heard enough to think that I might enjoy a few days there, wandering around, slack jawed in amazement, and having read of previous meets in that city of finest dreams and worst nightmares, I hoped for the chance to attend one, preferably the very next one.
  As luck would have it my sweet wife shared my desire to see the lights of LV so little in the way of pleading and cajoling was needed in that direction. All that was needed was money, enough at least to buy plane tickets. I may have mentioned that, sometime in my recent past, the realisation had dawned on me, and by extension, the fair Wendy, that waiting until later to do the things that we really really want to do could very easily result in them remaining undone. This thought found us in New England in 1999 and was about to find us in Las Vegas in 2001. The inspiration was provided by the idea of an afpf meet, and the money was provided by a nice little payout by an insurance company.
  
  For the first time in my life I decided that the job could go to hell if needs be and I was going to have three weeks off. This turns into nearly four weeks because we flew out on a Thursday but that can‘t be helped, only enjoyed even more.
  
  We bought new luggage. Large luggage. Large luggage with wheels so that we could get through huge chunks of our three weeks between visits to the laundry. The new luggage had another, altogether more impressive feature, but more of that later.
  
  We had bought our Virgin tickets from a travel agent, but from that moment on, everything that we did was booked over the net. Add to that the fact that everywhere we would go we would meet net friends and you have the internet holiday of a lifetime.
  We have become reasonably seasoned travellers over the years and there was little of the frantic checking for passports and tickets that started our last big trip. Even so, when I mentioned at one point that it was about here, on that last great excursion, that Wendy checked everything for the 'nth' time, she promptly went into panic mode and checked everything again. Hey ho!
  
  We were nearly three hours early for the flight because last time, due to the vagaries of the Virgin check in system we came close to not flying - and that was from two hours early. Wouldn‘t you know it, there was hardly any queue. Still, better that than the monster from before. All that remained was to await the arrival of Mrs Barbara Smith so that we could plead for complementary upgrades (pleading came to nought, sadly) and we were soon on our way to the Home of the brave and the land of the free.
  Incidentally, Mrs Smith is, I feel, one brave lady attempting a trip like this single handed - even with the Fanners to hold her hand on the first leg.
  
  My niece, Tracy, did Vegas back in January and made it all seem so exciting but one thing that I desperately wanted to see was Iceland. She had told me how lovely the island looked as she flew just off the coast and she had said that Scotland looked good from the air. I couldn‘t wait. I had a window seat that no-one, but no-one, was getting me out of until I had at least seen these two sights. I settled down and waited as the plane took off. We flew into cloud.
  
  I did see the Thames estuary from the air, with a view of the Dartford crossing bridge and on towards London but that was it. The next time that the clouds parted Scotland lay behind us and Iceland in front somewhere. I knew this from studying the little video image of the plane flying across the North Atlantic. I also knew the speed of the thing, the outside air temperature and the fact that my window seat, jealously guarded against all comers since take off, was on the wrong side of the plane. I never did see Iceland. But I did see Greenland.
  At some point I grew bored with the little plane flying across the back of the seat in front of me and fell asleep. How long I slept, I don‘t know, but I awoke just in time to see the last few miles of Greenland moving sedately beneath us. Of course I didn‘t see much of Greenland, what I saw were Ice covered mountains (ice mountains, perhaps) thrusting up through the cloud below. I was captivated by this as I was by the sight of the frozen Hudson Bay. This was turning into the best flight of my life as far as views from the window were concerned, despite the icelandic disappointment.
  
  I watched as Canada unfolded 'down there' and then we were over the US. I followed the route on my miniscreen, passing over towns and cities. Some I had heard of, many were mysterious places. Passing over the Rockies was a bit disappointing because the pilot seemed to find the only flat place to cross.
  Of course this might have been the normal route into Nevada but I swear he did it to annoy me.
  I could see Rockies to the North and rockies to the South but the full splendour of North America‘s spine was lost on me. The splendour of the big hole was not lost on me at all, however.
  We flew over Lake Mead and the northern part of the Grand Canyon and I have to say that it is impressive. The shear scale of the thing, seen from above, almost defies belief. It stretches from, well, there all the way to there. Take my word for it, it‘s big.
  I have a feeling that we flew over Red Rock canyon as well, although there were no signs so I can‘t be sure, but there were some very red rocks.
  I was gazing out of the window of the plane when I was struck by the sight of several patches of red, looking for all the world as though they had been painted onto the surface of the rock. Vaguely eerie and quite beautiful, I was left feeling slightly sad when I could no longer see them. If that was Red Rock canyon then I can see why it would be called that, if it wasn‘t, it damned well should be.
  
  And so we landed. I was on the wrong side of the plane to see the sights of Las Vegas as the plane dropped onto the runway at McCarron airport.
  
  American soil at last. Well hardly soil, not yet anyway, but at least we were off the plane. If you‘ve travelled on a plane, even a fairly good one like a Virgin 747, for any length of time you‘ll know how bad your legs can feel after even a couple of hours stuck in your seat. You may also fear deep vein thrombosis and if you do, let me offer this advice. Get up and walk around. We did and the relief one feels when the circulation returns to the legs is immense. Ten and a half hours is a long time in the air but for us it was made easier by being part of a threesome for this flight. There are many reasons why this should be so good but not the least was being able to get up and move around without irritating the hell out of a total stranger. Mrs Smith is a lot more tolerant than the average 'third' person. Besides she got up and walked around as much as we did.
  
  Anyway, all that was in the past as we made our way to immigration, which was surprisingly simple this time. No questions about where we were staying and no third degree about whether we were attempting to smuggle fruit and veg into the country. We made our way to the baggage reclaim area.
  Now, I hate baggage reclaim. I‘ve said it before, the baggage carousel at any major airport is a dehumanising experience, it turns the best of us into savages. You stand there in a crush of people all trying to get a glimpse of some familiar suitcase and the fat guy next to you grabs his case and spins round to leave, cracking you a beaut across the knees. Tears fill your eyes and you can‘t see your case. By the time your eyes have stopped watering and the pain subsides, you spot your case - at least I think it‘s my case - vanishing into the maw at the other end of the conveyor.
  However this time things were going to be different. This time we had new cases. We bought these new cases because we wanted larger luggage. We studied many examples of giant suitcases with wheels and handles and these were about the most expensive on offer. They were also the most brightly coloured. I fell in love with them. I stood back from the conveyor at McCarron knowing full well that I was going to spot these babies if they turned up in Reno by mistake. No shoving, no banging, there they were, my cases, and pretty quickly they appeared. Now all we had to do was wait for Bobbie‘s.
  Bobbie‘s was black - I think, a dark colour anyway - and pretty indistinguishable from a lot of other suitcases. So it was into the ruck and check labels. It arrived nearly last, but at least it arrived. We were finally on our way. Out through customs, Nothing to Declare, and out into the outside world.
  
  The outside world, in the shape of Donna and Norma greeted us warmly. Introductions were made and they were gone, taking Bobbie with them.
  Wendy and I were alone. We‘d booked a car with 'Thrifty Car Rental' and the confirmation slip told us that the desk was inside 'baggage reclaim'. Oh no it wasn‘t.
  We had just come from there and all there was in there was a conveyor belt. We asked a person for information.
  There is another baggage reclaim, just around the corner. We go round the corner. We find the other baggage reclaim but we still don‘t find a Thrifty desk.
  The panicky feeling that had struck me around the time that we caught our luggage was subsiding and the ability to think straight had returned and I began to think how crazy this was. Over there aways, I could see huge signs for car rental companies, Alamo, Hertz, etc but there were no desks inside the terminal. There are always desks inside the terminal. Not this one buddy. In truth, there was a desk, just not a car rental desk.
  We decided that we should ask woman behind this one and only desk where we might find the Thrift desk and she said "Outside on the traffic island". We wondered what it was that was out there on the traffic island, but since the woman spoke less than perfect English we didn‘t ask for clarification. Instead we went and sat on the traffic island. There was no Thrifty desk on the island, just the seat. A bus stopped. An Alamo bus. Something clicked in my head.
  At that moment I don‘t think I quite knew what that click meant but I guess I sensed that if one company sent busses then others might. I was right
  Various buses from various companies came and went, but none from Thrifty showed, and the disquieting feeling settled back over us. I ask a man who looked like some sort of security guard, if he knew anything that could help me.
  "Right there buddy" he said pointing at the spot we were on. The feeling became more disquieted. All the other car rental buses paraded themselves once again and we gazed in wistful longing. Were we waiting for something that never came, some sort of phantom courtesy bus that many had claimed to see but none could describe exactly?
  A bead of sweat ran down my forehead. A crow landed nearby. I expected tumbleweed to roll by. I got a glimpse of a Thrifty bus.
  Yes, there it was, a blue and white apparition emerging from the heat haze. It looked like no other courtesy bus so I figured it was ours. I nudged Wendy, she looked with disbelief in her eyes.
  The bus stopped and we got on, we relaxed. Sadly this relaxation didn‘t last for long. The small tub with the dollar bills in it was all to obvious. We must tip this man.
  The first thing they teach you in U.K. tourist school is that you must tip Americans.
  We‘d already been to the States so we had no excuse, but still we had come loaded with nothing smaller than twenties.
  We discussed strategies on the bus ride. We could give the guy twenty dollars, we could rush to unload our own cases and hope he‘d forget carrying ours on board or we could simply ignore his withering look when he realised that no tip was coming his way.
  We asked him for change.
  How low can you sink? Asking someone for change so that you can give them a tip. Anyway it meant that we could tip the man who brought the car round and pushed the button on the electric gate to let us out, so it wasn‘t all bad. You must realise, though, that this was the man who gave me directions to our chosen motel, so I wasn‘t inclined to tip generously.
  I asked the lady who was doing our paperwork if she could perhaps direct us to the Super 8 Motel on Koval Lane. She asked the guy who was about to get a less than stunning tip, if he could offer directions.
  "Make a right oudda da gate ya go two blocks to da lights make an udder right head along Las Vegas Boulevard for ~~~"
  Then he lost me. The lady who was doing the paperwork sighed, looked at me in that way that suggests that she wished she had never asked him to explain, and drew the route on a "Thrifty" map; simple.
  Not quite.
  I may have mentioned this on more than one occasion but it‘s a fact the America is deceptively large.Maps give no impression of the scale of the place and this map of Las Vegas that the Thrifty lady gave me did everything it could to live up to this tradition. What was a two inch by one inch right angle pencilled in on the map, turned out to be an enormous distance in reality. I should have gotten some idea simply from the fact that the 'one inch' bit to the traffic lights was a couple of miles, but what the heck we enjoyed seeing parts of Vegas that would otherwise have remained hidden.
  We drove a complete rectangle, a big rectangle it‘s true but not big enough, and we went past the Thrifty depot again. So we started over.
  This time, with some care, we found our night's accommodation.
  
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