Our Vacation Ends

We said goodbye to Lake Havasu and the London Bridge.  We made the 2 hour and 33 minute drive from Lake Havasu to Las Vegas in a record 2 hours and 33 minutes.  This means we didn't stop to take pictures.  We already had pictures of dirt.  We already had pictures of cactus.  We already had pictures of rocks.  As the road from Havasu to Vegas had nothing but dirt, cactus and rocks, we made the decision to just drive.

London Bridge at Lake Havasu

We arrived at the Hampton Inn around 1 p.m. and were able to get into our room.  We then turned in our rental car at the nearby car center and called for a Hampton Inn shuttle to take us back to the hotel.  The desk clerk recommended a place for lunch/dinner which we refer to as "linner".  It was a pub/casino.  Luckily it was a small place and not a big casino.  It seems they passed a no smoking law that applies to small operations with just video poker and the like but not, of course, big casinos.

Our waitress lamented the loss of so many jobs with the passage of that law as it forced this establishment to build a glass wall between the bar-casino operation and the pub-food part of their business.  She said that many businesses couldn't afford to comply and were forced to close.  Since our waitress talked to us in a rough raspy voice tone so typical of heavy smokers, I decided to not advance my preference for smoke free restaurants.

They had a nice Guiness-like stout on draught and Sue managed a chardonnay.  We finished our meal and walked back to our final resting place.  Final for this trip anyway.  For dinner we polished off crackers, chips, apples, water, wine and chocolates that were the final remnants of our "on-the-go" food for the car.

We watched television in the room and fell asleep around 8 p.m. or 11 p.m. Miami time.  At 4:20 a.m. the phone rang, a rooster crowed, a buzzer sounded and a chime bonged.  This was our wake-up call from the hotel, my smartphone crowing, Sue's smartphone bonging and the nightstand alarm clock all encouraging us to get our buts moving and back to Miami.

At 5:30 we boarded the Hampton shuttle to the airport along with 4 other early departure guests.  Since we would not be down for the free Hampton Inn breakfast we managed to pick up two "on-the-go" bags at the front desk.

In ten minutes we were in the fast lane for our security check in as two TSA Pre-checked passengers.  We really like this TSA special certification as we whisked through security with shoes, belts and watches on.  My small carry-on and camera bag didn't even raise an eyebrow.  In pre-TSA pre-check days, both of my carry-ons would have had me pulled aside.  These bags are filled with x-ray suspicious wires, electronics and chargers.  Now, nothing.  We were at the gate about an hour before boarding.  I ate my breakfast bag from the hotel which consisted of an apple, a muffin and a breakfast bar.  I'll call it a breakfast bar because that's what Kellogg's called it.  A more apt description would have been strawberry flavored cardboard.  It was a thin cookie-like substance that sandwiched a sweet strawberry paste.

We were about to leave Las Vegas without having gambled on anything more risky than breathing casino air.  On a trip to the men's room I passed a row of slot machines, some of which were marked $0.25.  On my way back to our waiting area I remembered I had two quarters still in my pocket.  I said, why not?  I walked over to a likely winning machine only to discover that they needed at least a single dollar bill.  I had already used all my singles with shuttle driver tips and sky cap tips.  I'm still even with Vegas.

We boarded a brand new American Airlines (Airbus) A321S.  Our pilot had just flown it in to Las Vegas for its maiden voyage.  I like "new" but, in airplanes, I would have preferred a few burn-in miles before I am a passenger.  The seats were new and the seat backs had the latest electronics package.  In addition to the now customary LCD screen, I found a 3-prong 110 volt AC outlet, a USB charging port and an array of touch-screen buttons.

Airbus 321

110 volt Outlet at Seat Back

This latter feature was going to test our flight attendants' patience as two tiny symbols were actually the attendant call-buttons.  In the picture below they are the two left dots under the screen picture.  Everyone was playing with all the "new stuff" and the flight attendants were responding to non-existant requests for assistance.

A321 Entertainment Screen

I will say that our "main cabin extra" seats were not "as extra" as they were on the older planes we flew on our way out.  I guess all of this extra entertainment took up space on the plane.  I will also guess that American decided to cram in a few extra rows of seats to help pay the freight on these new planes.

We landed in Miami and our neighbor, Art, picked us up for our ride home.  Sue's first act upon arriving home was to put up her little 2' Christmas tree complete with lights and tiny ornaments.  We had missed out on Thanksgiving but she needed her Christmas fix.  Our kitchen remodeling will preclude an extensive holiday decoration project but the little tree will have to do.