18th April - Las Vegas to Memphis

Today is a dreaded travel day, Las Vegas to Houston and then Houston the Memphis.

Memphis is where we start a road trip that culminates in the Paducah Quilt Festival that I am sure Rayls will enjoy.

So we got up a bit after 7am and went to the Buffet for breakfast.

Then back to the room to finalise the packing and at 10:45 we checked out and drove to the Vegas Airport Car Rental Facility. The little Nissan went a little over 1300 miles in the two weeks we had it.

Shuttle bus to the airport. The check in procedure is much quicker these days with computer monitors everywhere and the process takes 15 minutes or so. Security about the same  I remember back to the quilt bash of 2012 where it took 3 hours to get from the back of the line to check in.

We were at the gate, C16, probably a bit less than 2 hours before take off.

Our flight from Vegas to Houston left on time and arrived a few minutes earlier, It was a 1861 kilometre flight. We flew north of Phoenix and almost directly over El Paso and San Antonio and got a great view of downtown Houston as we came in to land.

We arrived at gate 22 and had to walk 50 metres to gate 21 for our flight to Memphis. Bonus!

The flight to Memphis took off around 25 minutes late, it had been delayed earlier. The plane had started the day in New York La Guardia, and had gone to various places before New Orleans and then Houston and onto Memphis for the night.

Wasn’t looking forward to the day, been OK so far. I am writing this half way between Houston and Memphis. We still need to rent a car and check in to a hotel so more to come!

Later now, 809 K's from Houston to Memphis, car rental was quick, no problems. We have a Hyundai Accent, no choice - what we got.

Lost 2 hours today, so we arrived in Memphis at 9:30pm. Checked into Hotel and were hungry do drove a K to a Burger King, tried the drive through, that was fun. I had no idea what the server was saying and she had no idea what I was saying. Very broad accents here.

17th April - Las Vegas

Strange place Las Vegas, good for people watching. Our hotel booking includes free buffet breakfasts so that was nice.

I had a bad night sleep with my knee swollen up and very painful, really should get that knee replacement. I started out with a walking stick but the meds kicked in and we did OK.

We left the car parked and walked along the strip. Across through New York New York to the MGM and then back out into the strip. We sauntered down to the Hard Rock Cafe and right next door is a Coca Cola shop, lots of Coke memorabilia. Spent a bit of time in both of them, I even bought a Diet Coke pen.

Kept walking and had a dounghnut each at a Krispy Kreme. Poor service and stale doughnuts.

Then we used an overpass to get back to the other side of the strip and headed back towards the Excalibur. I guess we walked 2 K's up and 2 back. We checked out the Aria, lovely garden display. Then back to New York New York where we looked around a bit. I wanted to go on the roller coaster but Rayls wouldn't be in it. 

We did check out a half price show tickets place and get two tickets to see the Australian Bee Gees show which is on the Thunder Downunder Theatre at the Excalibur. 

Got back to the room around 5 and rested till 6:30 when we went down to the theatre to see the Bee Gees Show. We had seen the real Bee Gees many years ago but this was still good. I was a fan of the Bee Gees from Spick and Specks back in the very early sixties and much prefer their sixties music and although some of these songs were in the show it seemed more balanced to the seventies and Saturday Night Fever era. 

As we walked out of the theatre we saw a long line of women ready for the next show, Thunder Downunder. Rayls had expressed some interest in this so I bought her a ticket and back into the theatre she went. She said it was a good show and she even got a kiss and a cuddle from one of the Aussie guys. When I bought the ticket I asked the lady if there were many men going and she said there is always 8 on stage.

It was a good day, tomorrow is a travel day flying from Las Vegas via Houston to Memphis.

16th April - Las Vegas

We said our farewells to Steve and Amy just after lunch time and headed 285 Ks south to Las Vegas. Utah, into Arizona and then Nevada.

We are staying on the strip at the Excalibur. Here for two nights before heading on to Memphis.

Quiet night, sad to have left Amy and Steve but good to be back from 5000 feet to less than a 1000.