The price for the flight to Las Vegas, $162, was the only thing good about that ordeal … and that was still too much. We flew on Frontier and they have become such a low budget, no-thrill airline, there are no longer any passenger comforts to be had. Everything has a price. It costs to take luggage, so everyone carries a backpack and claims it is their personal carry on. It’s supposed to fit up underneath your seat, but they all get stored in the upper bins anyway, so the people who have paid for the privilege to store their carry-one in the upper bins feel as if they were taken. It costs for water, sodas, drinks or snacks…. and totally, ridiculous prices too.

There was a young lady sitting in my window seat when we arrived, but I let her stay there and I took the middle seat and Steven had the outside seat. There was an Indian family behind us with two little ones. The trays on the back of the seat have become tiny, half-sized metal shelves, which make a TON of noise when slammed up and down, to which the baby of the family was doing on the back of my seat-mate’s seat with her parents allowing it.

I could see my seat-mate was about to blow.

She exclaimed that she had PTSD and if that noise didn’t stop she couldn’t be held responsible for her actions. I asked if she had served and she had, then I told her that both Steve and I had too. I asked her if she had ear plugs. She said yes, but that her son didn’t show her how to download music to her phone, she only knew how to use it through the internet…. She was probably 20+ years younger than me, so I was astounded at that, but I told her she could use my music if that would help her sanity. Then she told me she didn’t even like flying and she had no idea why she was doing it. She kept looking out her window (we were just behind the wings) and then saying, “oh hell, no!” then quickly shutting the window before opening it a few moments later. Remember the Twilight Zone of the man on the airplane who saw gremlins on the wings? That’s what I kept imagining she saw every time she did that. She finally covered her eyes with a masked and pulled her hoodie up over her head and basically hid herself from everyone and quietly went to sleep.

Thankfully, the baby went to slept as well. I think the mama had understood the half-serious threat and quickly calmed the baby down and we didn’t hear another peep from her the rest of the flight.

The four-hour flight was frankly unbearable. Poor Steven was so cramped with his 6 foot body shoved into a leg space of 28 inches, he tossed and turned in his seat the entire time. The seats have gotten so thin and light and almost have no padding anymore. I think they are trying to lessen the weight of the infrastructure so they can take more passengers, but in doing so, they sacrifice passenger comfort.

When it finally came time for the snack service, and I made my selection of $19.99, which was for two cans of soda and two snacks, the steward shoved an iPad in front of my face with the amount of my purchased and three buttons automatically totaled for a tip equaling 15%, 20% and 25%. “Miss, Miss, we’d really appreciate it if you would select one of these three buttons, just one of them, Miss, please selected just one of these three buttons, we’d really appreciate it.” He must have said that like four or five times, and the entire time, never mentioned the four button underneath that said no tip. I was confused at first and then looked at him but held my tongue, and irritably selected the lowest one. My seat-mate woke up with his incessant begging, so he asked her… “Miss, would you like something? Miss, what would you like to purchase? Miss, that’ll be $2.50 for a 16oz bottle of water. Miss, would you be paying by cash or charge? Miss, have you located your credit card yet?” Then he started the tip song and dance and she just blankly stared at him, mostly because she had just been rudely woken up and also because she’s paying $2.50 for a small bottle of water and was now being asked to tip the annoying creature who sold it to her. She looked at me and also selected the 15% choice. As he was walking away, she looked at me and asked, “Did I just get punked?” “Yep!” I replied. “But you’re not alone!”

We finally make it to Vegas, and I wished my seat-mate a good time in Vegas and thanked her for not sacrificing the baby and we headed for a cab. I had already made a budget reservation with Motel 6 Tropicana. The cab driver looked like he rolled his eyes when I said where I wanted to go and he actually said he had never taken anyone there and didn’t know where to drop us off at. I felt like I needed to explain that we were only passing through and just need a place to lay our head for the night and that was the reason I went cheap. He didn’t look like he was buying it.

We get checked in and you can tell the hotel was something back it’s day, but that was at least 40 years ago. It still had a wonderful looking pool and the rooms were small but clean. They kind of had a 1970’s Jetsons vibe going on. The bed was comfortable and the bonus was we were able to drop off the backpacks, which I swear were getting heavier each day!

We went across the street to check out the MGM and O. M. G. …. what a place! It’s like being in a small city. Lights, noise, people… you’d never know it was 10 o’clock at night! But, it was too much for me. I was exhausted from flying, so after walking through the casino trying to find food, we gave up and stopped in at the Coco’s next to the Motel 6 and grabbed a quick bite to eat. We walked into the next door liquor store so Steven could get a lighter since he threw his away before the flight and found some cans of Dark & Stormy from the island, but I was too tired to grab one. I finally make it to sleep around 1:30am.

The love of my life wakes me at 5:30 for breakfast. I’ve had four hours of sleep and I try to go back to sleep but he’s not having any of it. So, back to Coco’s for breakfast, then off to the MGM again. By 7:30am, we’re playing slots and roulette and the folks next to us are drinking.

Welcome to Sin City!

We head back over to the hotel at 9am to meet up with Eugene and so we can do some laundry before checking out. Laundry is done at 11am, we’re checked out and headed back to the airport for our 2pm flight to Germany!