Right now it’s about 10am eastern. I’m packing up the last few things I need for my trip. My flight is just a few hours away.

I am flying out of my local airport, Stewart-Newburgh. I bought my ticket on Hotwire.com prior to the September 11 attacks. I got a round trip price of $247. This is a great price from this airport and American Airlines site was getting over $500 for this ticket.

My flight is at 2:20pm. This is a small airport so getting there about 1 hour early is more than enough time. I left the house at about 12:30 and made a quick stop for some lunch at Burger King. From there I headed to where I work. I work just a short distance from the terminal. I parked my car there and had one of my co-workers drive me up to the terminal.

Check in was smooth. There was no line at all. After answering the security questions and giving my ID I was on my way to the metal detectors in less than 2 minutes. There was no wait here either. Security was tight here. They made everyone empty their pockets of everything but paper money, jackets were removed and x-rayed, laptops were removed from cases and x-rayed, as was everything that was removed from your pockets. After walking through the metal detectors everyone was then checked down with the wand.

The plane boarded on time. The boarding process went smooth. They check your boarding pass when you board the plane and you must show your picture ID again. The only thing I don’t understand is why when they announce a boarding group people charge the door. Then stand in line for 5-10 minutes while each passenger boards. Don’t they realize everyone is getting on the plane and they don’t need to rush the jet way to do so?

As we were taxiing to the runway the captain came on the PA and tells us air traffic control is backed up and we would need to sit on the runway for up to 25 minutes. I’ll never understand why they don’t have that information before we board the plane. After about 10 minutes of sitting there the captain came on again and said we were cleared to take off and a few minutes later we were on our way.

This is flight 1263 and will connect in Chicago O’Hare. I’m in seat 20a and have the row to myself. This plane is a Fokker F-100 and has 21 rows, 2 wide on the left and 3 wide on the right. This flight seemed pretty full at about 80%. I have a great view between an engine and the wing. It’s also noisy as hell here. We are flying at 28,000 feet and our flying time is1hour 56 minutes. It’s quite bumpy since it’s very cloudy and there are some storms out near the Chicago area.

There is no meal on this flight. We did get the standard soda and a small bag of Frito-Lay Rold Gold Snack Mix with cheddar flavor. They even came back through and gave everyone an extra bag. Big spenders today huh?

There is a guy sitting in front of me with his wife. He’s appears to be in his late 50’s or early 60’s and seems to be a real jerk. Acting like the world revolves around him, and showing off to his wife by acting like he knows everything. I just had a great laugh though when he returned from the lavatory and proceeded to smash his head on the overhead bin when he returned to his seat!

We arrived in Chicago right on time. As usual my connecting gate was 12 miles away from my arriving gate. I had plenty of time between connections so it wasn’t a problem.

This is flight 1141 and will take me right to Las Vegas. It’s a Super 80. A larger plane than the F-100 but had the same 2-3-seat set up. I am in 15f. There is a lady sitting in 15d and 15 e is empty. This is good for some extra elbowroom and is pretty lucky that there is an empty seat here since this flight is very full.

We are going up to 35,000 feet and our flight time is 3 hours 31 minutes. We are scheduled to land about 25 minutes early. That’s a good thing if you ask me!

There is meal service on this flight. Actually a bag lunch you pick up on the jet way. It has a turkey sandwich from Perdue with 1 slice of cheese on it, a small bag of Ruffles, a bottle of water, a 2 pack of Pepperidge Farm Brussles, (is it me or are these cookies getting smaller and smaller?) & a package of Granola Berry Crunch from the King Nut Company. According to the package it is a premium blend of vanilla granola, sliced almonds, dark raisins, and strawberry flavored cranberries. Pretty tasty stuff. They also brought the standard beverages to everyone.

This flight started out bumpy but smoothed out about half way through. Right now we are starting to make our final approach into Las Vegas. It’s now time to put this computer away.

As we approached the airport I noticed we weren’t on our usual path of crossing over Boulder highway and flying along Sunset Rd. Instead we were well south of the airport and circled out near Jean as I could see Nevada Landing and Gold Strike not too far away. We landed from the south and as we came in flew right over top of Silverton and then the infamous (to some) All-American Sport Park. We landed at 6:28pm. This was about 30 minutes early. Of course we had to taxi for what seemed to be 10 miles.

After arriving in terminal D my first stop was the bathroom! Hey, after 4 hours in a metal tube you just gotta go! From here it was to the monorail and to baggage claim. After about 5 minutes the luggage was out and I had my suitcase.

Now it was on to the Alamo shuttle. I used the Quickrent option. From the time I got off the shuttle to the time I was walking to my car was LESS THAN 1 MINUTE. I had a mid- sized car reserved and got a red Oldsmobile Alero. It was brand new in November and had less than 4,000 miles on it. The only thing that pissed me off was it was designated as a non-smoking car and someone had smoked in it. I had a base rate of $377.78 on this car. I also had a coupon good for 15% off from my entertainment book. This coupon was worth over $50.

After a quick stop at the security checkpoint I was on my way to the strip ready to make my way downtown. There wasn’t much traffic on the strip tonight. I did get stuck at a few lights but only for 1 cycle. As I made my way own the strip I was looking for any changes in the last 8 months. Oddly I didn’t see too many differences. One thing that did remain the same was in front of the Imperial Palace. The guy in the wheel chair was there. I had been wondering if he was there anymore because there hasn’t been much talk about him as of late. I’m happy to say he’s still there! To me, he’s as much a part of Las Vegas as the neon signs and gambling are.

I was going to be checking in at the Plaza downtown. I’ve never stayed here and didn’t have much intention of staying here this trip either. I did get an offer from the for the very first time and thought I’d take them up on it just to check out the hotel and to have a place to rest in the event I went downtown to gamble.

I self parked my car. The garage here is a bit seedy, as is the elevator area. While I didn’t feel unsafe, I felt it was a bit eerie. The casino has a nasty smell of 10-year-old cigarette smoke and what seems to smell like bathroom cleaner. It’s that stuff that smells like fake lemon and instead of covering up the nasty smells in this place it just mixes with them and creates an even nastier odor!

I made my way to the registration area, which is clear on the other side of the property from the parking garage. When I got to the check in area there was no line and less than 1 minute I was on my way to the room. I was in the north tower and have room 816. This hotel has potential but needs a good cleaning. The carpet in the hallways is filthy and stained and they looked like they haven’t been vacuumed in weeks.

The room is basic and amazingly was clean. It’s a bit dated but not that much. I have a great view right down Fremont Street. It’s got 2 beds with a nightstand in the middle, a small dining table with 2 chairs, a dresser, and a TV cabinet with a refrigerator. The bathroom is split into 2 rooms, the vanity area, which also has a closet area in it. The toilet, bathtub room, was separate. The toilet area is extremely small. After a short rest and taking some pictures I left the Plaza and headed up to Henderson to the Reserve.

As I pulled up to the Reserve I could see all the construction going on out front making the place into Fiesta Henderson. I don’t think they are doing a very good job. They are trying to re-theme the place from a jungle theme to a Mexican beach theme and it’s just not working. Even with the festive colors it’s still got Reserve written all over it.

Check in here was a bit of a challenge. They didn’t seem to have my reservation in the computer. After digging through all my papers and finding my original confirmation number it turned out they misspelled my name. Once that was settled I was on my way to the room. I’m in room 8018. It’s has 2 beds and a strip view. The bathroom has a hair dryer and a coffee maker. The rooms still have the Reserve theme of the animal prints and lamps. For a property that is supposed to be totally renamed by December 29 they aren’t even close to being ready. One thing I am not happy about here is they charge you 99 cents for local phone access per night whether you use it or not and they charge you a $3.39 energy surcharge, even for comped guests. Very tacky.

After getting settled into the room I went down to the Baja Café. This was formerly known as Congo Jacks. I have 100’s of thousands of points here so I went to the machine to self-comp myself and my card wouldn’t work. They changed the slot club a little in preparation of becoming Fiesta. I went to the slot club and got a new card. The guy there said that they are combining the clubs at both Fiestas. I just needed to go there and have them combine my points. After getting my new card I went back to the machine to comp the meal and noticed this wasn’t available anymore. You now get to swipe your card at the register and the proper amounts of points are deducted from your account.

I was happy to see they still had the Chinese section and my favorite soup was still on the menu. The Feel Good Wonton. It’s noodles, chicken, wontons, mushrooms (they get picked out, EWE) and spinach. At first it looked like they started skimping on it because I didn’t see much chicken in it. I was wrong though since under the noodles there must have been a pound of chicken. This hit the spot and it was now time to gamble.

I started off with the FPDW 10 coin machines. This is the equivalent of a half-dollar game. Things started out really well here. I quickly doubled my money and got quite a bit of play. I cashed out up about $40 and moved over to low limit craps. I played here for about 2 hours and walked away with an extra $60. It was now 2am local time and to me it was 5am. It’s much later than I expected it to be.

Total win/loss for the day $100
Total comps for the day $105