Putting these last two days together, as there really isn’t much to tell.  

If you’ve read the rest of the blog posts about the Kenny and Chris Wedding Trip, you realize that we’ve done a lot, seen a lot, but not slept a lot, so right after we checked into Red Rock, I suggested to Susie that Wednesday be a total relaxing day.  She agreed.  Had the temperature been a little warmer, we might have sat by the pool for a bit, but it was a little cold, in our humble option to do that.  So we found things to keep us busy and never left the resort.

I told you yesterday that our trip to Red Rock Canyon was like no other trip, as rather than being HOT, the temperature was cool and the sky partly overcast.  Well, our desire to stay put, and not venture out of the hotel led to another change from our usual Vegas trips…In and Out.  For the first time on a trip to the West Coast, since we originally discovered In and Out Burger, we did not partake this year!  No Double Double Animal Style, No Animal Style Fries, not even a drink cup with red palm trees on it!  Nope, our trip was In and Out free!  The closest we got, was the lady who brought an In and Out bag into the Noodle Bar the night before, and sat there eating a burger!  A little different from the year we were in Vegas for 3 days on the way to Hawaii, and ended up at In and Out 3 times!

We started our relaxing Wednesday when we woke without an alarm between 8 and 9 AM.  We got ourselves together in a leisurely fashion, and went down and had a lovely breakfast in the Garden Cafe.  Not only was it lovely and relaxing, but ended up being free when Susie went to the cashier and they looked at her comp points!  Perfect!

A little time in the casino was next, where we played a Video Poker machine that had been very nice to us a number of years ago.  It was nice, but not very nice.  Oh well.  

Red Rock is a full service resort that includes, among other things, a bowling alley AND a 12 screen movie theater.  After gambling for a couple of hours, we got on line at the movie theater to get tickets to see A Star is Born.  First off, Wednesday was Senior Day at Red Rock, and our movie tickets cost us $4 each!  Second, something we’d never seen before at a movie theater…we had to pick our seats from a screen at the box office, and got tickets for those specific seats!  Don’t know if that’s something that just they are doing, or if it’s a new trend, but it was strange to us.

As to the movie, if you haven’t seen a Star is Born, you owe it to yourself to go to a theater and see it!  Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga were brilliant in the movie.  Lady Gaga is going to be her generation’s Barbara Streisand, and as well as starring in the movie, Bradley Cooper directed it, so I’m gonna say he’s the next Clint Eastwood.  A great movie, and an enjoyable way to spend some time, and for $4????  A WIN WIN WIN!

We then went back to the room to relax a bit and read our Kindles.

Then we got a surprise…the newlyweds, Chris and Kenny, joined us for the night at Red Rock!!  We played some in the casino together, and had a wonderful dinner at the Yard House, and it was an early night for everybody!

Thursday, the boys slept in, while Susie and I returned to the Garden Cafe for another nice, and free breakfast!  We checked out at 11 AM, met the boys in the lobby to say goodbye (they were moving on to another hotel), and drove the Hertz car back to the Las Vegas Airport Consolidated Car Rental Center.

We’d driven the Ford Explorer a total of 1318 miles since we’d picked it up at Los Angeles’ Union Station on October 6th.  We started in Los Angeles, transported a lot of the boy’s apartment stuff to to Reno, drove for almost a week around Reno, gone to the California side of Lake Tahoe, and then traveled back to Nevada and down the state to Las Vegas.  As hard as it was to pick up the car at the beginning of the trip at Union Station following our train journey, it was as easy as could be in Vegas…they didn’t even question the fact that we brought it back with a 1/4 of a tank of gas, which was good, since that was more than Hertz gave us to begin with!  In minutes we were on the shuttle bus to the airport, and our American Airlines flight home!

We did something this trip home, that I think we are going to be hard pressed not to do every time we fly!  We flew First Class!  I’m sorry, but if you are of a certain age, and lord knows Susie and I are, you remember when flying was an elegant experience.  Women dressed up, men wore ties, and you were treated like a human being.  Today, it’s like riding on a bus!  A cheap bus!   From the moment we showed our First Class boarding passes when we checked in our bag, through security, including boarding the plane, and our pre-takeoff glass of wine, we were treated like valued customers rather than cattle.  Seeing some of the people in the gate area, and how they dressed, it appears I’m not the only one who thinks it’s like riding a bus!  We were in seats 2D and 2E, and had a very nice flight home to Philadelphia International Airport, including a couple of vodkas and a very nice lunch.  

Honestly, I said to Susie, that if we cant drive someplace, and we have to fly, I want to go First Class, or just forget about going.

It was very interesting to think that what took us the better part of 3 days, two weeks ago, we accomplished in under 5 hours on the way home!  While on the way west, we changed time zones once a day, tonight we crossed 3 time zones in the blink of an eye!  We left Las Vegas at 2:20 in the afternoon, and before we knew it, it was before 10 PM on the East Coast, and we were landing in Philly a full 30 minutes early!!   There is a lot to be said for flying, I must admit!

After we walked about 12 miles from the gate to baggage claim (Oh My God… you have to walk a lot in airports!!), our luggage came quickly, and in less than 20 minutes we’d had the Honda delivered to us, and we were heading to the Atlantic City Expressway, and home!

It was a great trip, mainly because we’d seen our baby  (he’s 2 minutes younger than Krissi) get married, had been surrounded by all 3 of our kids, traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast via Sleeper Train (we continue to get questions about that anytime we mention it), gotten to know Kenny’s, and by extention, our new family.  We’d gambled, lost some money, gotten a handpay win in Reno, ate a lot of great food, celebrated with friends old and new, and had a hell of a good time, but Thursday night (or early Friday morning), when we put our heads down on our pillows in Ocean City, it was good to be home!