Wedding Adventure - Day 1 - DFW to Vegas

After months of planning, this morning we awoke early to begin our Vegas-Wedding-Hawaii adventure. I was not feeling particularly well, so it was pretty rough getting to the airport and through security. We flew out to Vegas on American Airlines and I was pleasantly surprised that they did not try to charge us for an extra bag when we checked in. Since Amy was carrying her dress on the plane she still had two bags to check. While we were dropping the bags at the security screening area, the TSA officer asked me the usual questions regarding banned items in my bag. Then he asked Amy if she had more than three pairs of shoes in her bag. A nice spot of humor in what, at 8AM, had already been a long morning. Boarding the plane we caught our first bit of luck as the flight attendants made room for Amy’s dress to hang in the closet by the main door, saving her from folding (or more likely crumpling) it into an overhead bin.

The flight to Vegas was uneventful and I drifted off into iPod sleepiness for most of the way while Amy watched the remake of Ocean’s Eleven on her Nano. We were very excited to land in Vegas. However, as we waited and waited at the baggage claim and watched all of the other passengers drift away with their bags, it became very apparent that one of Amy’s bags did not arrive in Vegas with us. There was another rather concerned couple from our flight wandering around without any bags, so at least we were not alone (and had two of the three bags, plus the all-important carried-on dress). We talked to the representative in the American baggage office and she said that the bad hadn’t made the flight but would be put on the next flight arriving a few hours later. She said the bag would be delivered to our hotel later that afternoon. It had not been the best start to our trip.

Somewhat weary, we made our way to the rental car center to pick up our wheels for our time in Vegas. After a few bad experiences with the long lines at Dollar, we booked through Alamo this time, and after a few short minutes at a self-serve kiosk, we had our car: a bright red Chevrolet Impala. Although lacking in personality and excitement, the car had a huge trunk and did a great job of carrying us all over town while running our endless string of errands.

First stop was Michaels where we purchased a large tub to put drinks on ice at the keg party (we had previously shipped two smaller tubs we bought at Crate & Barrel in Dallas). Then we headed off to two different Von’s grocery stores to pick up bottled drinks and supplies for the cake party. Von’s is the Nevada version of Tom Thumb (for those of you in Texas) and Safeway (for those of you in Canada). With a car full of luggage and groceries (mostly soft drinks in glass bottles) we stopped at the In-N-Out Burger on the edge of the UNLV campus for a late lunch. It was good as always.

It was finally nearing Check-in time so we drove to Mandalay Bay and checked into our suite in THE Hotel where we’d be staying for one night. THE Suite was very cool, with a main living/sitting area with a couch, desk and widescreen television (and powder room by the front door complete with THE tp) and then a separate bedroom with another huge television. The main bathroom was huge with a fantastic shower lined with some sort of stone that felt amazing on your feet. We really need to find out what it is so we can use it when it is time to renovate our own bathroom. Our floor-to-ceiling windows faced away from the strip, overlooking the busy I-15 freeway and the anthill of a parking garage with the mountains in the distance.

After settling into the room, checking to see if our families had arrived and some blimp-watching, we wound up going to New York New York with my parents for dinner and some slot playing. Amy and my parents had dinner from the little fish and chips stand while I had some pizza from the New York-style (what else?) pizzeria just off the casino floor. It was very good. On the way back to Mandalay Bay, we went through the MGM Grand where my Mom stopped to play a Monopoly Grand Hotel machine and more than doubled her investment in a few short minutes.

It had been a long first day and we had a full schedule for Saturday, so we called it a night early (by Vegas standards).