Las Vegas Baby

Wednesday 22 August 2012 – On the road again.

Day 132 and 26 days to go

I can’t believe we are on the move again. We are now at O’Hare airport waiting for our plane to start boarding, mind you we still have a couple of hours.

Our day started at 8.30am when we woke but stayed in bed watching the TV. My throat was sore from the air conditioning we had on over night. It also kept us restless during the night as the quilt was thrown on and off at regular intervals.

At 9am we dragged ourselves out of bed and into the shower before sorting out the things we required for the morning. We packed up our bags in readiness for our journey on to Las Vegas tonight.

We then walked out through the hotel checking out a few of the lower floors before making it through the lower concourses and the rabbit warren that was contained below ground. Here there were many shops and we were able to pick up a breakfast roll and juice at Dunkin Donuts.

Once the extremely hot bagel was finished we continued to snake through the maze being thwarted from exiting a couple of times before finally making it out onto Michigan Ave where we walked to the Old Library that has been converted into a cultural centre. We located the large glass dome on the second floor and then returned to the ground floor to use the wifi to check on our flight details.

With the flight info at hand we returned to the hotel at 11.30 to complete our packing and rest up in the room until 11am when we were to check out. I went to the business centre to print out our motorhome voucher that we will require next week. At first they were going to charge me $7 to print 1 page but in the end they did it for 50c.

At 12.30pm we did the final sweep of the room before loading our bags and heading to the lobby where we settled up and stashed our bags. We then made our way back over Chicago River heading to Rush Street where we first checked out the Harley Davidson merchandise store. Rip off.

Our next stop was for lunch, opting to eat at the famed Giordano’s for a famous stuffed pizza. We were seated quickly and ordered the Chicago special and then waited and waited until 50 minutes later our pizza arrived. We were well hungry by that stage.

The pizza looked more like quiche in that the pastry sat up about 5cm around the edge and was then filled with cheese, pepperoni, mushroom, onion and capsicum, it was topped off with a tomato sauce. Thankfully we had ordered the small as it was so filling we both came out feeling so bloated.

All we wanted now was a siesta but with no room to return to we wandered down the street stopping in at the Northbridge Shopping complex for a quick look and then we walked to the river to watch the tourist boats moving up the river. Our attention was grabbed by clapping from across the river bank so we ventured over to watch a very entertaining group of young African American men doing a dance / rap / acrobatics routine. They had the whole crowd going with their very polished routine.

With the show over we wandered aimlessly down the street before returning to the cultural centre. Realising I had missed the Tiffany dome the first time we made our way to floor 3 where we could take in the magnificent coloured glass dome and the glass, mother of pearl and ceramic mosaic tiling that surrounded the walls.

We then made our way back to the river where we found a shady spot to sit and watch the world go by. Paul then suggested we get a drink at the Public House so we ventured there and hung out watching ESPN for a while. By 5 we had decided we could do this hanging around watching time go by at the airport so we walked back to the hotel collected our bags and then hailed a cab at 5.30pm.

The traffic was not the best considering it was peak hour but our driver managed to get us to O’Hare in one piece and within 30min so that was good. We checked ourselves into our American Airlines flight only to find we were not sitting anywhere near each other, despite booking our seats on the internet. Not happy with this Paul let the attendants know we were not happy and eventually we found someone who was able to rectify the problem though I didn’t get the window seat as had been requested.

With our boarding passes printed and our bags loaded on the belt we made it through the TSA security check point and then we were free to do as we pleased. We picked up another free sample of Garrett Popcorn before sitting at a Starbucks where we had a hot chocolate, read and worked on the computer in an attempt to while a way the 3 hours we had before boarding.

At 8pm we moved onto our gate in readiness for boarding only an hour and 30min early. We certainly weren’t going to miss this flight. We read for a bit then at 9pm we realised it wasn’t particularly busy where we were sitting, when we looked up we realised they had changed the gate so we grabbed our things and moved to the allocated gate where there were lots of people.

At 9.30pm we were given permission to board the plane and at 10pm we were moving on the tarmac and in the air saying goodbye to Chicago. We were sitting next to a Brazillian French bloke who lives in Las Vegas so he was happy to have a chat about where we were heading. However, it didn't last long as I soon had my eyes shut and tried to get some sleep over the 3 hour and 40 min flight and I did. 

I woke again at midnight and was again woken by the pilot when we had 25min to go and we were starting to see lights twinkling in the distance, but it was nothing on what we saw when we approached the strip it really was incredible. My neighbour was pointing out different hotels, everything was neon lights. WOW!

At 11.30pm (Las Vegas time is 2 hours behind Chicago, we are now 15 hours behind home) we were on the ground and before we knew it we were out of the plane into the terminal and then catching a tram to baggage claim. We had a wait for the bags to start rolling, but thankfully ours were out in the first run and we were out of the airport and straight into a waiting taxi. 

Our taxi guide was very informative letting us know about things to see and do. The ride to the strip was only short and the neon lights on the ground looked even more spectacular from here. All the amazing hotels it was very cool. We made our way to the Hard Rock Hotel being dropped at the lobby. 

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