LV to LA to MN

We started from the Hoover dam at around 2:30 pm, a good 10.5 hours before the scheduled departure of our flight from LA. LV to LA is supposed to be a 6 hour ride. We had all the time in the world with us.... or so we thought.

The return journey was fine till we reached the outskirts of LA. One of the friends had to be dropped at his home near the Universal studios. The guy took the wheels and I had no idea that he was going to miss the directions. The poor guy, to his defense, had moved to LA only 2 weeks back. I, of all people, cannot blame him given my own directional sense. This guy missed the route, and circled around for a considerable amount of time. After enquiring at a shop, he was finally able to make it to his house. By this time, the tension had built up.

The guy who took the driver's seat next raced to his home. We had to pickup his car from his place, drop the rented car at the airport, and rush to another airport for our flight. In all the tension, the guy took I-5S instead of I-5N, and we were lost for the second time in an hour. When we finally got the right route and reached the airport, the rental office had closed. The instructions there said that we had to park the car and drop of the details in the envelope provided. Two issues - 1) There was no envelope provided and 2) the details asked for included the parking slot number and there were no numbers in the parking slots. We ended up doing some alter arrangements and rushed out of the place (a day later we found that we penalized a day's rent for returning the car late).

We reached the LAX airport at 12:40 am believing that we were well on time for the 1:00 am flight. But then, the airline rules had it that we were supposed to be there 45 mins before the flight departure. We were not being allowed to check-in and we had company on that count. The other guy and the girl who were in a similar spot were doing the fighting while yours truly was trying to figure out alternate strategies. As it turned out, a) there was no way to get into the flight, b) the best the airline could do was to put us in "standby" for the next day's flight, c) Standby meant that we would get our seats the next day if the flight had free seats, d) Airline staff do not reveal if there would be seats available in the next day's flight, e) a new ticket for the next day would make us pay an additional $180. We left the airport with the thought of having our bank balances reduce by the said amount.

I called up the airline reservation number as soon as the clock struck 3:30 am PST and told my story to the nice lady at the other end. When I told her that I wanted to book a new ticket to avoid the issue of not getting a new ticket the next day, she said "No need to, you are excellent'. I asked "Does that mean that there are many free seats in tomorrow's flight". The lady replied, "I can't say that but you are excellent". I remembered my services marketing class where I learnt that the good nature of one person changes the impression of the client on a company. My impression on the airlines just got a lot better.

This blog is getting too big. So I would just end saying that I finally reached home, just a day late, without paying a penny extra, and not feeling tired since I slept the whole extra day I had in LA. Happy ending!

The Las Vegas Trip

I will remember the drive to Las Vegas for just one thing - getting up in between my sleep to see a guy glancing at me through the window of the car and turning back to my friend and saying something like "Sir, the speed limit in this city is 70 miles. You were driving at 85. I will issue you a ticket". He sounded as though he was giving a movie ticket. Anyways, not getting perturbed by such trivial things (?) I resumed my sleep.
We reached LV at around 3:00 am. Having had my sleep in the car, I woke up in time to utilize the complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Unfortunately the rest of the gang was ready only by 12:00 pm. There have been times in my stint in the US when I have repented not getting my driving license. This was just one of those instances when I had to stay idle for few hours just because of this handicap. One more issue was that each member of the team was of the opinion that someone else had planned the trip. There was no plan and hence no direction. So a pseudo-SUV and a 7 seater followed each other into the Las Vegas strip without knowing where they wanted to go.
We started with the MGM casino. Frankly speaking I did not see anything special. It had the usual stuff that I have seen on TV. Some people crowded around an enclosed area for the attraction of the casino which turned out to be couple of lions. We headed off to search for another attraction called the Mirage volcano. Our sense of direction took us through Harah's Casino and another place before we reached the Mirage casino. One thing of note is that the monorail journey gave a good view of the city. At the Mirage we got to know that the show would start only at 7:00 pm. So we ended up experiencing gambling in the casino while waiting for the show. Now you know why the casinos have shows, and why they have them only at particular timings. In the excitement of the slot machines and roulette we missed the 7 pm show and were in no mood of waiting another hour for the next show. After checking out the tiger reserve, we came out of the Mirage (get it?). The next few hours saw us roaming in the streets of Vegas visiting Caesar's palace, Bally's, Bellagio (the fountain looks great), and giving Paris a galnce from the outside. I guess we spent more time searching for Chipotle than any attraction in Vegas. Chipotle has been one place where I feel comfortable with the food. It tastes just like the food back home.
After a peaceful night's sleep, and once again waiting till 12:00 for the others, we headed off to the Hoover dam. The enormous traffic increased my expectation only to be disappointed on the sight of the place. While we were at the dam a damsel cried for help. she shouted help several times and said "someone has gone down". Quite a few guys looked down the dam with concern. But then, the guy who was being referred to had justed fainted on ground. Guys were smiling at each other while the cop car raced in with water.
After that, started the ride of a life time....

Memorial Day Weekend

I have always been a bit lazy starting for a vacation. But once the journey starts I will be in it with all enthusiasm and the end of the journey would be marked by fatigue. This has been the case some time now. But the Memorial Day weekend vacation is something that differed in quite a few ways than my "ideal" vacation.

The plan was to go to Los Angeles, check couple of places in a day, drive to Los Vegas, spend a day and a half in LV, drive back to LA and take the flight to Minneapolis. Sounded a bit hectic, but the reality was more than just a bit. We landed in LA at 12:10 in the morning. To start with, the friend who was supposed to pick us at the airport had a production release issue and was still in office at the odd hour. He came to the airport directly from his office and went back as soon as he dropped us in the hotel. The next plan was to get ready in the morning and wait for the friend to take us to the Universal studios. Little did we know that the guy would spend the rest of the morning in his office. But the poor fellow did turn up at around 11 am and we took the "30 min" ride to Universal in about 1.5 hours as the city bustled with the long-weekend traffic.

We started our tour of Universal after some more delays at around 2:30 pm. A bit of planning inbetween the rides made sure that we covered all the major attractions there.

Shrek 4D
Pretty good if this is the first attraction that you see in Universal. Otherwise one might find it to be a dead horse after the other attractions. Also, since I had done some homework on the show, I missed the surprise element. While people were laughing or sighing when water was sprayed over their face when Donkey sneezed on the screen, I was left saying "Ok, wikipedia was right on that one"

Jurassic Ride
This was the ride for which we were in the queue for the longest time. But it was sure worth it. I was in the first row of the cruise and so had the surprises really surprise me. The dinosaurs came out of the water just when I neared them and sprayed water over me. Cool, literally. The ride ended in an awesome way with a near vertical 85 feet fall. When we came out of the ride there were pictures displayed taken during the fall.

Studio Tour
I expected the run of the mill "See this to your left, see this to your right" kind of thing. But the studio tour was very exciting. It did have the usual stuff of showing the studio, the sound stations etc. But it also had some excitement with the flash food, the tremor at a subway station, the "Jaws" shark coming out of the water near the tram, water bisecting and giving way to the tram, the dance of "The fast and the furious" robotic-cars etc.

Terminator 3D
This show was a combination of actors and animation. The 3-D animation part was especially good with the flying machines looking as if they are coming right in front of our face.

Revenge of the Mummy
After the Jurassic ride I was not expecting anything more exhilarating, but this ride went to another level. It was a high-speed rollar coaster that went both forwards and backwards. It was lasted just few seconds, but the thrill is worth....well, making me stay from roller coasters for some time.

Water World
Water World is a live show (no animations or rides). Actors perform stunts in and around water.I sat in one of the front rows not noticing the sign "Soak Zone". At 8:40 pm I could have lived without getting drenched in water. The show was good.

I guess all of us were satisfied by covering most of the rides in a short span of time. I was particularly happy that my planning had helped us in using time optimally. With this satisfaction, we left Universal heading towards Las vegas.