Travel, It’s Not For The Faint of Heart

Hello friends and happy Monday. I recently returned from a week long trip to Las Vegas, for the Star Trek Convention, and Utah, to see Zion National Park.

I have many more posts to come to share all of our experiences with you but for now I just wanted to catch up a bit and ask you a question about what kind of traveler you are. But first:

Let’s go back to Tuesday of last week, actually week before last, the day before we left on our vacation. I had to work all day so it didn’t leave me a lot of time to pack and get things organized. I always feel like I have a million things to do before I leave when in reality I only have about half of that. But somehow, as it always does, it worked out. Clothes were packed, arrangements for the babies, were made. My sweet nephew comes in and feeds them and makes sure they have water and cleans out kitty boxes. He is a gem. Airport check in for our flights was done on our phones the day before so we would be ready when we got to the airport. And then:

Tuesday evening we had really bad thunderstorms in our area. My nephew, yes the same one who takes care of the kitties, lost power for several hours and came to borrow our generator. Sadie was being a little scaredy cat, literally, and was hiding outside and wouldn’t come in. I knew I couldn’t leave for a week with her stuck outside. I was frantically packing so that we could leave the next morning at 4:30 AM to get to the airport in time for our 7:00 AM flight. We were thinking how lucky we were we hadn’t lost power. Also, after a while Sadie finally came in. Things were coming together and I was finally starting to relax. At 10:00 PM I was finishing some last minute things before bed and our power flickered and went out. It didn’t come back until 2:30 AM. Just thirty minutes before we had our clocks set to get up to get ready to leave for the airport. Because we are on a well system. No power means no water. No water no showers. Needless to say I was so worried we weren’t going to get our electricity back on before we left, I didn’t sleep all night. But we got power back on, showers and COFFEE all before leaving at 4:30 AM

Wednesday: We made it to the airport on time. Every time I go on a trip something at the airport has changed. Either you have a different way of checking in or something at security has changed. It’s always different. We got our bags checked and had a safe flight to Chicago and then on to Vegas. I can’t tell you much about the flights because I slept through both of them. But all were on time and no problems so that was good.

We got a taxi to the hotel. Luckily we were staying at the hotel where the convention was being held. It was a toasty 107 degrees F when we arrived in Vegas. But it’s a dry heat everyone says. I don’t care it’s still hot!!!! Because of the convention it took a few minutes, more like an hour, to get checked in. By this time we were exhausted. We made it to our room, It was on the 39th floor, and took a quick break.

We decided to go down and get signed in for the convention. A line had started forming through the hotel by the time we made it to the convention center. Luckily we got through that pretty easy. My husband had pre-ordered the tickets and gotten us top tier tickets so we were ushered through a different line. As far as I could tell this was the only advantage to paying several hundred extra dollars for the tickets. Oh wait!!! we did get an ink pen. Right.

Thursday and Friday: The convention started in full swing Thursday morning. After a quick breakfast, well we had to wait for thirty minutes for a table, and a gulping $75.00 breakfast bill, we were headed to the Vendor room. This is where actors of all the Star Trek shows, Star Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager etc. gather and sign autographs and will allow you to get your picture taken with them. For a fee of course. A fee of about $100.00 per person. My husband wanted several pictures. I am a huge Star Trek fan as well, but to me this seemed crazy!!! Some of the stars we met were nicer than others and didn’t price gauge. Barbara Luna was just a jewel and so friendly. We loved every second with her.

Also Billy Clark who played the Gorn in the Original series was a sweetheart. He signed autographs and posed for all the pictures you wanted, for a nominal fee.

We hadn’t been to a Star Trek Convention in several years. I knew the cost of things had gone up. I tried to keep an open mind about everything but I was just so surprised by the cost of food and experiences.

Saturday: We decided to visit the Los Vegas Sphere. I knew this could be a once in a lifetime experience. You can see the Sphere from the plane when you arrive in Vegas. We went on a Saturday. The Sphere took five years to construct it opened in September of 2023. It is 366 feet high and 516 feet wide, spanning a total of 875,000 feet. It is a screen that envelopes you in 270 degrees of visuals while filling your ears with immersive sound. Imagine you feel the wind off a mountain top or the vibration of the earth as an enormous elephant walks by. It was breath taking. I’ll have more on that next week.

Sunday: After four days at the convention, and visiting a couple of other things, we got an Uber to the Car Rental place and picked up our rental car and headed to Utah to visit Zion National Park. When the Uber dropped us off at the car rental I almost didn’t get out of the Uber. Even the driver looked skeptical. Is this an actual business he asked. I checked my confirmation and yes this was the address. It looked like a camper, that was the office, with several cars around it, those were the rental cars. We lugged our suitcases up a metal ramp that looked questionable. We entered the little camper trailer office. Only one person was on duty and there was a line of people waiting. Luckily we had checked in online so our process went fairly fast. We were told that since we were taking the car into another state we would have to pay an extra $20.00 a day. We were planning to be in Utah for three days before returning to Vegas. I had also purchased the extra insurance and they couldn’t pull it up even though I showed them the policy number. They charged me again for that and told me to take it up with the online company when I returned home. Fortunately that charge came off the next day. They must have found the policy. Not sure.

We finally got our car after about an hour. We headed out of Vegas and hit I-15 north to Utah. The drive was about three hours. It was a beautiful drive. It seemed like leaving the city behind and entering the wide open desert immediately calmed our souls.

We arrived in Zion National Park late in the afternoon. We explored the little town of Springdale and got some food. We had an early night. We wanted to get into the park early the next morning before it got too hot.

Monday- Tuesday: We took a shuttle to the Visitor Center and then took another shuttle to get into Zion National Park. During the summer months cars are not allowed on the park roads. You have to take a shuttle. The shuttle system is fabulous. The shuttles have about six stops along the canyon route. You can choose which stop or stops you want to take. Each stop leads to a different hike. As I said we got in and out each day before it got too hot. I can’t even describe how beautiful it was. I took a ton of pictures and I will show you lots of them in a separate post but here are a couple.

Tuesday Evening: we left Zion to head back to Vegas to fly out the next morning. Again it was about a three hour drive. We thought about driving up to Salt Lake City and flying out but that would have been about an eight hour drive. we returned the rental car and got a ride back to the hotel. We had such an early morning flight we didn’t want to have to worry about returning the car the same morning.

Wednesday: We left our hotel at 3:45AM to head home. We got an Uber to the airport. All of our Uber drivers were awesome. Our flight was at 6:00 AM. I thought we were getting to the airport a bit early but no. The lines were crazy. Again we had checked in for our flight online the day before. But it was still crazy. The lines were long and not a lot of instruction about what to do. I worried that we were the only ones feeling confused but no lots of people were shaking their heads about where to go next. So confusing. Like I said before, every time is a little different.

We finally arrived home late Wednesday and I have never been so glad to see all of the kitties. I guess, as I have gotten older, travel gives me a bit of anxiety. It’s not just the traveling part of it but also leaving the house and babies behind.

So. What kind of traveler are you? I am not always good at going with the flow. I can be patient up to a certain point. We had a really easy travel experience compared to some others. My niece and her husband recently returned from a trip to Grand Cayman. Their three hour flight turned into a nine hour flight and they were stuck on the plane on the runway for another two hours. They did not leave the plane for nine hours. Their returning flight was then canceled and they spent the night in the airport. I know these things happen and it is just a chance you take when traveling.

I tried to be very open minded about the checking in process at the airport and all of the price gouging but sometimes it’s hard to do. I think that may just be a part of travel that you take or you don’t, and don’t means you don’t go. I love visiting different places and even different countries it’s just the getting back and forth that sometimes takes the fun out of it. But I will try harder to “go with the flow”

I leave you with this picture of sweet Kitty Kitty. After we got home I unpacked the bags and put the laundry in the laundry room to start the next day. About ten minutes later I looked in and there was Kitty Kitty on top of the laundry basket. She does this every time we travel. Sometimes she tries to get in the suitcases. I think it is her way of saying how much she missed us.

All of our experiences are memories that we will never forget. Our trip involved so many fun things it far outweighed anything bad. We felt fortunate and blessed to be able to take such a fun trip together.

A few travel tips:
1. Do everything you can do in advance to make things easier
2. Don’t skip meals this can make you hangry. It makes things worse.
3. Don’t try to cram too much into your trip. Leave a little wiggle room for extras.
4. Stay hydrated. This is so important when you fly.
5. Go online and check out the area. you will be visiting. Look for local restaurants and things to do ahead of time.
6. Try not to have too much to carry with you. A large bag can become so heavy and tiring. I bought a small travel bag on wheels and it is just wonderful. I will show it in my Friday Favorites.
7. HAVE FUN!!!!! you never know when you will get another chance to visit that particular area.

What kind of traveler are you? Any tips you might share to make things easier?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

And

There’s no place like home!!!!!