Day 0.5
I could go on about airplane boarding procedures. Or the three loud Israelis behind us who spent two hours arguing. Not arguing to prove they were right or to explain their viewpoint, but all three of them were arguing to prove the other two were wrong. It wasn't fun. But there's been too much else happening to me.We got to our stopover in Las Vegas. The flight was delayed an extra hour so we got to wait. Every other flight by America West that night seemed to be delayed also. I mean, we had to wait an hour but that's still better than the folks going to Chicago or Atlanta had. I was shopping for airlines based on price, not on-time percentages. I figured an extra hour would give us time to look around, shop, and such. That made sense except everything (except Taco Bell) closed within five minutes of us getting off the plane and that we had those four large bags to carry around. So we could only buy things if the other was willing to sit and watch the bags. And Isabel didn't want me out of her sight for any longer than I had to be.
Yes, they do have slot machines in the airport. No, they have the lousiest payoff rates in the city. Y'see, every other casino has to compete for your attention and dollars. They want to keep you hanging on as long as they can and soak you for as much money as possible. The airport slots, well, you're going to be there until your plane arrives and nothing they do will change that. So I put in about $2.00 and get back fifty cents. Didn't even get the near wins that most slot machines give, you know, so you think you almost won and it makes you more likely to win next time. I got the "No, we're not even trying to make you think you're a winner. You're a loser. Your plane's a loser. Give me your quarters and maybe I'll let you pretend you like it." machines. There was one machine that kept winning throughout the night, perhaps as a siren singing its song to lure other fools to its waters. It would ding and you'd hear quarters rattling through it for a minute or two. My theory is that inside those things are a variety of chutes, flaps, and echo compartments designed to make the quarters rattle against each other as many times as they can so that when you win five dollars, you get forty dollars worth of clang out of it.
I installed an SNES emulator on the laptop. I was playing ActRaiser. Isabel was playing the make-Terrence-look-at-me-every-three-minutes game. I lost. She won. Considering it was 4 AM in our native time zone and we had been awake and moving for the last 19 hours, I'm not holding it against her.
We got to Los Angeles at about 3 AM and were greeted by her sister and brother-in-law. They had an Expedition. It fit all our luggage. Barely.
