We flew out on Wednesday, August 16th
on a 6pm direct flight from Philadelphia
to Las Vegas. There
were no problems getting to the airport or getting through security. We arrived so early at the airport that we stopped at
a TGI Fridays in the terminal for dinner. We returned to the gate & met up with Randy & Glen who were traveling on
the same flight. The flight to Las Vegas was uneventful.
At McCarran airport, we picked up our bags
and went to the Enterprise Car Rental counter. Randy & Glen headed for the MGM Grand. We took the Enterprise shuttle to their lot. They met us with cold bottles of water. It was 100 degrees
during the day and the night temps didn’t go down very far. Water was an important commodity. We drove to the Luxor hotel and valet parking!
Our routine each day was simple:
8:30 - 10am
Pharoah’s Pheast breakfast buffet at the Luxor
10 am-ish
Drive to Hilton for the convention
6:30 pm-ish
Leave the Hilton, evening events
Thursday – We rode The Experience
several times in between convention events.
Friday – We searched the strip
looking for Pizza Hut for dinner, ending up at the Riviera.
Saturday – We had dinner at Quarks
then we visited the Old Strip – Freemont St.
Sunday – We had a group picture
on the Bridge of the Enterprise-D at the Experience.
Monday – We took in the attractions
at the Luxor. IMAX movie: Mystery of the Nile.
On Monday we left around 1:30pm despite our
attempts to leave earlier. We dropped the rental car off at Enterprise
and were shuttled back to the airport. We had electronic tickets but technology does not always cooperate. This time we whizzed
through the ticket counter and dropped our checked bags at security on our way to the x-ray machine.
This time we did not whiz by the security
checkpoint. As we removed shoes and put all our personal belongings on the conveyor to be scanned I was pulled aside by a
security lady. They moved me to a separate area and patted me down very lightly and politely. It was a few minutes before
the rest of my group realized that I wasn’t with them anymore. In a few minutes security was done with me and I rejoined
my group, stinky shoes and all.
We stopped at the Burger King for a light
dinner before heading to the gate. Randy & Glen meet up with us at the restaurant and we talked about our weekend. At
the gate we spent more time talking about Trek, conventions and the crappy music played at Shore Leave and other conventions.
We convinced Randy that his talents were desperately needed in Fleet!
The flight back to Philly was quiet but long.
We were so tired but glad to be back to double digit temperatures…although we could do without the humidity. After collecting
the bags we said goodbye to Randy & Glen and headed back home. We all agree that we want to do this again, just not as
soon as next year.
