Vegas

Well, if you're on Facebook, or live around here, you know I survived the flight and made it home in one piece.

I spent a lot of time on Wednesday finding a good place to stop for fuel.  Normally it's not that hard, but normally I'm not looking for Jet A at 1 a.m., either.  In the 340 I just have to stop at a place with a self-serve pump.  That doesn't work for the Cheyenne.  :)  First stop was going to cost $200 in fees plus very expensive gas.  Second place I was pleased with.  $75 after hours fee and more than $1/gallon cheaper on fuel.  Both of these places I called on the phone ahead of time and arranged to have someone there at a specific time after hours.  Then Nathan suggested a third place.  I call them up.  No after hours fee and the gas is another $.20/gal cheaper than the second!  So then I had to call back the other two places and cancel my "reservations" with them.  And that's how I went from a fuel stop in New Mexico to one in Kansas to the final one in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Funny how a fuel stop can be in three different states and still be within just a few minutes of each other as far as time enroute. :)

The flight there we had a stiff headwind, enough that we had to stop for gas, anyway.  So we flew for a little over 3 hours before stopping in Colorado Springs.  The airport is RIGHT next to the start of the mountains.  Field elevation is like 7000'.  I was a little disappointed that it was night, because I couldn't see all the mountains that I knew were Right There.  The whole line.  Pike's Peak.  All of it was right there and all I saw was black.  Which, for the record, is also a little creepy when you're taking off out of there and have to get to a certain altitude to avoid said mountains.  I would not care to be out there on my own VFR, or in a single engine airplane, at night.  At all. 

The next leg was about two hours long, headed into Vegas.  When I got closer, you could see the blackness of the desert all around, and then there's this circle of bright light.  As you got closer, you could just see Vegas as the Oasis that it is.  A huge circle of bright lights, with mountains around the edges, then nothing but desert. The controller told me to aim for the Stratus.  I didn't see it, didn't know where it was in relation to anything, so I had to ask for a vector.  Finally I did see it, and they had me fly real close down the main strip.  That was a neat sight from the air at night, and I kept trying to take photos, but you're in busy airspace and even at that time of the night they were busy and kept making me do things.  I wanted to tell them to back off for a minute, but alas...  ;)  They did end up dumping me on top of the airport very high, so it was an impressive sink rate down to the runway.  Flaps out, gear out, props forward, power out, and it came DOWN.  Nathan and I were giggling like little kids. 

We landed at 4 a.m. our time, 1 a.m. Vegas time.  Got the car, got to the hotel (The Luxor, a giant pyramid), got checked in which took forever, and finally I was in my room at 5:15 a.m. my time.  I set my phone alarm for 9 am, hoping to minimize sleep issues.  Unfortunately I was cold in the room, and I couldn't sleep well.  There was a sheet and a thin blanket, and I needed another or at least one real blanket.  I mostly huddled and tried to keep warm.  I woke up at 7 am and couldn't get back to sleep, plus now my head hurt (more on that later).  I dragged out of bed at 9:30 am and took a shower, and checkout time was 11 am.  I texted Nathan and asked if he wanted to go eat, and we took our stuff out to the car.  Well, we took our stuff out, and the valet went and got the car for $15, and then took the car back after we put our stuff in it.  This is a problem, as we can't just walk out to our car.  So now our charger cords are in the car, my Tylenol/Advil is in the car, my coat and sweatshirt too.  None of this is a problem at 11 a.m., but when you're not leaving until 6-7 pm and the sun is down and your head is hurting worse and your phone is down to 20%, now it all becomes a problem.  ;)

In the meantime, we went exploring.  We went walking up the Vegas Strip.  We walked through a few of the casinos, ran into quite a few characters.  Fat Elvis on a scooter offered to take a picture with me, and when I turned him down he offered "Free hickeys".  Eew.  lol  I saw Darth Vader and a skinny older Michael Jackson with the long hair, and when he turned around he was Chinese.  One girl told me I had beautiful skin and another girl told me I had frizzy hair and should use her product.  The last time I was in Vegas I didn't get accosted on the streets by workers, and this time they were EVERYWHERE.  They'd try to talk to you and if they got you they didn't let you go.  Tickets to shows, coupons for free drinks, all sorts of stuff they were hawking to get you to come to their place later, and it was a big shell game show.  If you said anything to them you were locked in.  So I learned how to be more rude and stick a hand up and say "no thanks" or just keep walking and ignore it, which seems so rude to me.  Which is exactly how they get us tourists in.  ;)

We stopped and had a Coke and did some people-watching for awhile in comfort.  Definitely a fascinating study in human nature out there!  After awhile we took an Uber car down to Downtown Vegas, Freemont Street.  That was pretty fascinating too.  We walked up and down the area there, then stopped to get another Coke for some more people watching.  This one had less family friendly people working it.  There were circles, areas where people would stand and work.  You could tell they'd paid for a spot to work there.  They had guys who made roses out of wood, others selling this or that, and then a lot of girls who were there to get paid to have pictures taken with them.  One was a tall African American girl who was dressed like an African Queen, and she'd put hats on people and take photos with them.  There were various styles of scantily clad girls too, and they tried to get tourists over to get a photo with them.  After we'd been there awhile we saw them all switch.  The various "acts" would move to a different area.  Someone would bring them a sandwich, they'd hunker down and eat on the ground, smoke, then get back up and be ready  for more pictures.  They all knew each other and were friendly to each other, hugging when they left, etc.  People, including kids, were walking by and not thinking a thing about girls in body paint and boots only, or no pants, or whatever, just part of the local scenery.  It's a whole other world for sure.  And it was kind of cold out there, too.  I felt kind of bad for them.  I'm trying to imagine that as your work day.  I overheard someone say that a girl had told them she'd make $500 a night sometimes. That seems like a lot of money, but knowing what prices are out there...

The bad thing for me was that my stinking head was just getting worse and worse and worse.  Finally I was about sick, and this is bad considering we've got a 4 hour flight home starting at 10 pm our time, 7 pm Vegas time.   I call the airport and ask the Cheyenne to be topped off so we'll be ready to go.  Around 6 pm I finally cave in and find a store and buy Aleve and try to temper the headache.  I do NOT feel good.  There's nowhere to sit, rest, sleep, nothing.  They don't want you to sit in Vegas unless it's at a noisy casino.  Nathan and I found a bench by the check-in lanes at the Luxor, and I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes to the thumping of loud music, the talking of a lot of people, and the clanging noises of the machines in the casino behind me.  Soon enough I got the text from D that they were on their way.  We get to the airport, and they hadn't topped off the airplane.  So we wait for that . By the time we take off it's 8 pm.  Nathan takes left seat for this one, and I'm sort of just hanging on.  I could have done it if I was alone, or with D's help right seat if I had to, but I was glad to have backup this day.  I'd not slept, my head was killing me, I felt sick to my stomach and dizzy.  So about an hour into the flight I slid down into my seat, put my head back, and tried to relax.  I can't sleep in airplanes so I never went fully out, but I did relax ad rest.  Meanwhile, Nathan, who is notorious for falling asleep in airplanes, stayed wide awake all the way home, no problem, happy as a clam.  lol  When we got about 150 nm from Kokomo, you could see everything.  We were at 37,000', and I could see the actual cities, not just the glow from, of Chicago, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, and yes, Kokomo.  It was really impressive.  The whole network of the cities and roads all spread out in a spiderweb below us.  We landed around 3 am our time.  When I got home, I hit the bed at 4:15 a.m.  That makes for two very long nights.

 I slept in until 11:30 I think, and I felt like a new woman for awhile.  That sleep was the best, I don't think I moved all night.  And then that afternoon here came my head hurting again.  I couldn't stop it, even taking meds, a lot of them, it was coming on strong and fast and I could not figure out why.  None of the usual triggers were in place.  There was no reason for my head to hurt!  But it didn't know that. I ended up having to take an Imitrex at 2 a.m.  Then Steve said...you know, when I had a sinus infection, my head would hurt really bad and then go away and then hurt again, and sometimes I'd be stuffy but not always, etc.  I can feel the tension in my sinuses/head.  I have taken decongestants and Mucinex and all sorts of stuff and I can't get it clear.  I'm just praying not to have another headache like last night, both because I can't take those headaches right in a row for one, and my medicine supply is down for two.  I'd had two days in a row of bad head pain and last night I was ready to call Uncle on it.  So Monday I'm going to try to get in to the doctor to see about some antibiotics in case this is a sinus infection.  I hope it is and that the antibiotics clear it off fast.  I also wonder if that's why I had the low grade fever the other day, and I can feel that I have it off and on still.  That would make sense to me, along with the weird way my head feels, different from anything I normally get.  It's not stress or allergies or typical anything.  It must stop now.

All in all I enjoyed Vegas, wandering around, people watching, the beautiful weather and blue skies, the amazing buildings and sights.  We wanted to catch a show but nothing was open until after 5:30 pm.  Even the Bellagio water fountain show doesn't happen until later.  So we missed out on the shows this time, but got to spend hours exploring Vegas and checking out the sites, and that was neat.  Especially since you get paid for it.  And to eat well, of course.  ;)

I do have some photos, but it's 1:30 am and I'm going to try to get some sleep.  We had our Christmas Party at the Wild's house tonight, and there was a pretty good turn-out and I got to talk to lots of folks I knew.  A party is always nicer when you know and like most of the people.  ;) 

Anyway, on to bed!