It is fun and exciting to go on vacation, fly away, spend quality time with friends and relatives, and meet new people.
This time we actually flew! I am not sure how or why we decided to fly from Las Vegas to Seattle for a whirlwind visit with our Daughter and friends.
We considered renting a motorhome and driving, but the time it would take to drive that distance ruled that idea out.
Then we checked into taking the train. It sounds glamorous in a Sleeper Car, and it looks wonderful until you start booking. The good thing was we could board right here in Kingman, but from there it got pretty dicey! No throughway on a train; we would have to change several times, including a bus for part of the trip. The time might have been faster than in the Motorhome, but it didn’t sound like much fun.
When we finally decided to fly, we were late as usual in booking, so we paid more than we would have if we had planned months in advance. Since we were in for a penny, we decided to go in for a pound and booked First Class from Las Vegas to Seattle. Sounds fairy tale-ish! But First Clash ain’t what it used to be! It is four rows of seats in the front, separated by a flimsy curtain, with the same seats as in coach. We did get to board first, so we could watch everyone carrying huge carry-ons down the aisle, and fortunately, none landed in our laps.
I ordered two watered-down drinks, and we were served a hot sandwich and a puffy bag of potato chips with five chips inside. I will admit it appeared as though the in-flight crew catered to us, and they did a good job with what they had to work with!.
We decided that would be our last first-class plane trip, and probably our last any kind of plane trip. It appears that the planes spit out the passengers and luggage, then, within minutes, are loaded again and off to the next location. When do they have time to clean, even a little?
The highlight of our trip was the Airbnb house we rented. It was located on Lake Washington with an amazing view day and night! We could see across the lake to the Christmas lights of Ivar’s! This was a new house, freshly decorated, and the small lighted Christmas tree was a thoughtful welcome touch. We had one glitch: the oven didn’t work properly. When we mentioned it to the owner, he immediately offered compensation and promptly sent it through Airbnb to us.
Our trip home was interesting. We paid to park our car at a Las Vegas hotel with a shuttle running every half hour to and from the Airport! Sounds great, right?
The airline changed our departure time to more than an hour later than our already late one. We also forgot the one-hour time difference between Arizona and Las Vegas, so we spent more time in airports than in the air! The hotel informed us that the shuttle ran only every hour and stopped at 11:00, so we arrived too late and had to take an Uber to our car, which was parked on the fourth floor of the parking garage. But our Uber driver drove us right to our car. He got a good tip.
We kinda wish the Airline was as considerate of our troubles as our Airbnb. We sent a letter of complaint, and so far, we have had no response.
We went to Ivar’s for dinner the first night, and my Daughter scheduled a full body massage for me, which was wonderful! I think I will look for one here in Kingman.
We played many games of Cribbage and shared meals, and laughed! Our daughter and son-in-law planned a dinner at their favorite Mexican Restaurant and invited some of our friends we hadn’t seen for 10 years or more. Lots of hugs, great food, Margaritas, and we met sweet Rosemary, too!
We spent one day driving to Elma to have lunch with relatives and to stop by the Elma RV park for many hugs and cookies from Rea!
Like most vacations, we were busier than we were at home, working, but it was a blast seeing old friends and laughing. When we finally drove into our yard in the wee hours, we sighed, dragged our luggage inside, locked the doors, and fell into bed. We spent several more days just resting.