Las Vegas

We are back from our trip to Vegas. We had a very good time! I now know why it's called Sin City.
I did not make it to the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam. I decided to stay in Vegas and see all that was there, which is basically the same thing over and over again, each resort having it's own theme. We did not take in any shows..I was not interested in seeing three quarter naked girls dance and jiggle. We stayed at Caeser's Palace, which is VERY nice, and VERY huge! It is a hotel that can be measured in city blocks...it even has it's own three story mall, which has high end VERY expensive boutiques. I guess they figure you can spend your gambling earnings in those stores cuz I never seen prices like I did in Vegas! Jason did win 740 bucks playing poker though, so what I spent was made back immediately about 2 times over. I wanted to buy more but didn't see a whole lot that was practical or that I could actually get on the plane home. (More on my stuff getting home later)... My favorite store happened to be in Caeser's mall, Anthropologie, (which we don't have at home) so I spent some time and a little money in there, as well as Armani Exchange, which we don't have here.
We watched the water show at the Bellagio and it is really beautiful, it totally moved me to tears...seriously. You have to see this show if you don't want to go to Vegas for any other reason. We went to the top of the Eiffel tower, we saw New York, Italy, Egypt, Africa; I told Jason we went around the world and back again without even leaving The Strip.
On Monday afternoon, I noticed I was missing my Driver's License. I start freaking out, I cannot find it anywhere, and you can't get on the plane withut a photo ID and that was all I had. It was never to be found and me and Jason turned our room upside down went through all of our clothes, all the papers in the room, I mean we searched EVERYWHERE 3 or 4 times and it did not turn up. We called other casinos to see if someone turned it in, and had no luck. I called home to get my birth certificate faxed over, and they would not do that. I thought, "How am I going to get home?" Security is so tight at airports. On Tuesday, it's time to go home. Well, the guards let me through after a thorough search of my person and my bags and my clothes...then our outgoing flight was delayed which means we missed our connection in Houston. We got to Houston at 7 PM and our Tallahassee flight leaves at 6:40 PM. The next flight to Tallahassee is at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, which is no good because we need to get home sooner than that, but we're in luck! A Tampa flight is leaving in 10 minutes! Run down to Gate E3 ...hurry! You can get a early morning flight to Tallahassee from Tampa and be home by 8:30 AM Wednesday.
Now you can imagine that changing planes so quickly doesn't leave time for our luggage to make it onto our new plane. So off we go to Tampa, but our luggage is in Houston. Houston, we have a problem. So, we slept in the terminal at Tampa Airport, ( We did this exact same thing at Memphis last July, due to that flight being delayed from Chicago) ( we should write a book about the best airports to sleep in (none! all are cold and uncomforable)) ( I was just at Tampa Airport last week for my seminar) and went to get on our plane home (a 7:30 AM departure). Now, THAT flight is delayed! ARGH!...We finally take off at 8:10 or so and get home at 9:30 AM.
Houston, where is our luggage? We don't know when our luggage is coming in or if it's going to Tampa since our flight record shows we went to Tampa, or if it's gonna come straight to Tallahassee, which I would hope it's on the 3:30 flight that we turned down and traded in to Tampa. If it's gets on that plane, then we get our luggage later tonight, or tomorrow morning.
I'm totally freaked out about it. I want my clothes! and my make-up and my blow dryer for my hair, and my souvenirs! What am I gonna wear in the meantime? All my nice new clothes and good shoes are in my suitcase! They better not lose my luggage! Heck, my eyeglasses are in there, and my new Armani clothes!
Oh and guess what? After I was home for awhile, I was cleaning out all my carry on stuff, shaking things out, sorting through, when I came across a photo we had made in Vegas that the vendor framed in a paper frame, and when I tossed it aside, out fell my driver's license! Now, I already said that we went through everything, and we did, and we looked over that very picture just as many times as we did everything else, but we just did not catch it...I started crying so hard when I saw that I had my license after all...I was about to go to the DMV to replace it and here it was, after all that hassle at the airports...ARGH!! I could not for the life of me remember dropping it and I knew exactly when I used it last ( with my credit card in Anthropologie). If you know me, I am very organized and cautious and so losing my Drivers License was driving me crazy and I was totally bummed out about it. Well, I have it now. I hope that's a good sign that my luggage turns up.
So that's my little adventure in Vegas ( and Houston and Tampa)....more photos to come...keep checking back, ya'll.
Oh, and pray that my luggage makes it home.


March 2, 2006.....UPDATE: Our luggage arrived in Tallahassee last night at 7 PM. A happy ending to a fearful two days...I can relax now.