Las Vegas, Grand Canyon (22nd – 26th Nov 2007) Trip
Trip Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syXtmCvuRDo
It all started with the idea coined by Naveen Muthennagari; one of my very good friends…. “Hey Krish what about Thanksgiving weekend yaar… let’s plan something”; the core idea was to have a get together of Naveen, Cherukuri (one of our old Keane batch mate) & me, we had many long hour conference calls (which disturbed Cherukuri a lot during his weekend activities [boozing , sleeping & again boozing] :)); finally one fine day Cherukuri dropped saying he’ll not be able to join us. Naveen said anyways since we two are ready let’s meet somewhere; we settled down with a common opinion for LAS Vegas & Grand Canyon. Naveen told me with him few of his friends will also come, but the count of people was always doubtful for me; I could never knew how many of us are actually going to meet there in VEGAS; before we actually met. Later it was finalized that total 9 adults and 1 kid will be coming to VEGAS.
Krish, Naveen, Richa, Monica, Nishant, Sumit, Sunita, Arunesh (with wife + 1 kid).
Hotel Room Booking: so in order to have a pleasant trip we should have proper and advance booking of room as well as CAR… Even though many good deals were already gone since it was only one week for thanksgiving, we didn’t give up and started searching, I booked Super 8 hotel (3 rooms for 2 nights @ VEGAS) and informed the same to Naveen & Richa (Naveen’s Friend who was also coming for this VEGAS trip); Richa took the charge of booking hotel for last two nights @ Vegas; we were facing problem booking room @ Grand Canyon which was also finally somehow booked… just before 3 days I came to know that the hotel booking of Super 8 is not done (reservation was cancelled because of some connection problem while booking; which I didn’t realize before) so the same hotel which was coming for reasonable fare was kissing the sky - standing on top of money. I remember, me and Naveen had more than 2 hrs of conference call with http://www.cheaptickets.com/ guy to book the room again; we didn’t get a single hotel, which was value to money, so decided to book two separate hotels for two nights :). So for 5 nights total 4 hotels were booked :)
CAR Booking: out of 9, Me, Naveen, Richa & Nishant reached Las Vegas by flight and rest of the 5 people with 1 kid were coming by car from San Francisco & Sanoje CA; we did online booking for Hyundai Sonata from Mc Carren airport (LV) for 4 days; thinking that we’ll have our own conveyance to roam around the strip & Grand Canyon.
Drivers License: I’ve recently (1 month before) got the Georgia Drivers License and a novice driver; Naveen has just the California’s learner’s permit.
Journey Begins: so finally the day came (22nd Nov 2007) when we all started from our respective locations, my flight from Atlanta was at 12.15pm; I had booked a parking lot around 3 miles away from airport and was supposed to reach there at 11.10am in order to catch the flight. It was my first journey to Atlanta alone, and I had no idea of the parking lot (where it is?) I just had one Google map in my hand; I started @ sharp 9.00am for parking lot and followed the map; after going around 15 miles on I-75 (interstate) I realized that I’ve not fasten my seat belt (which means heavy fine if a cop catches), I was going in the right most lane of interstate and became furious; in hurry I made worry, car slipped into shoulder (roadside), I was just a lucky coz the way it was pulled into shoulder would have been very costly if any heavy vehicle was there behind me. I took a long breath and started again after buckling, but that was just beginning, I just completed 20 more miles and heavy rain started, even though wipers were doing their best, I was not at all able to see outside, somehow I kept driving (getting late every minute)… after a little while I realized I’ve taken wrong exit and following the wrong route to parking lot (I became more tensed thinking this trip is gone)… I took one wilder exit and kept driving… oh mannnn I got I-285 WEST somehow (that means again came back on track). I was very happy that again after 2 minutes I’m on the right track. But this happiness was just for 5 minutes because of my confusion again I missed the route and this time I was sure that I’m not at all going to go LV since I’m completely lost now; and coincident happens only once. So thinking let’s try luck again I took another wrong exit. ma ma miaa it was second coincident in a day, I was in front of CAMP CREEK PRKWY (The parking lot; which I booked). Lady over there took care of parking my car and I headed towards the shuttle for Airport, nice journey till Las Vegas (city of entertainment).
Reached Las Vegas: I reached LV by 5.35pm; Naveen Richa & Nishant were supposed to reach there before me by 5.00pm, I called up Naveen but Richa lifted the phone; I was surprised – she said they missed their flight and came by another flight; that too Naveen will be coming in next flight which will reach LV by 2 hours, meanwhile I tried one of the Gambling machine with $1 and yea yea I got $1.5 back so 50% profit (not so bad :)).
CAR Rental: We thought let’s utilize the time we’ll go to CAR Rental counter and get that done… we reached the counter and everything went fine, we got the papers of car and now it’s turn to pay the money. I recently crossed the limit of $1000 in my credit card and there was no more balance, my debit account was also nil since I paid my credit card but credit card payment takes 2-3 days to complete so ultimately money was hanged in between and I didn’t have money to pay for car rental, Richa was ready to pay but counter lady said since booking is in my name only my credit card can be accepted; and if I pay by debit card $300 is security deposit, since I didn’t have any money we thought of waiting for Naveen since he has learner’s permit we’ll book the car in his name and then things will be settled down, we were desperately waiting for Naveen but he finally came at 9.00pm after reaching to the counter lady said person with learner’s permit can’t take car on rent in his / her name, again mess. I called up one of my very good friends (Mr. Deepak Kela) and that kind soul transferred $400 into my account but I forgot if we pay by Debit card $300 is deposit, so the money which I asked for was not sufficient to meet the payment, luckily Richa had her laptop we logged in there and Naveen transferred the rest of the money and finally we got the keys of car… Car was like “makkhan” ekdam smooth… as I told before I never drove alone and this was the situation that only I can drive, means (4 logon ki zindagi apne haath mein le ke gaadi chala raha tha main :)), we didn’t face any problem to reach hotel we booked for 22nd night.
In Las Vegas: Thursday night we roamed around the strip in LV and went to 1 or 2 casinos. In the night we met the other group (Monica, Sumit, Sunita, Arunesh (with wife + 1 kid)) who came from CA, Monica is a friend of Richa so she joined our group and rest 4 remained together. It’s said first impression is the last when we met with this group Nishant with his notorious behaviour, Naveen as usual kissing cigarette and me with a beer bottle welcomed them, Later on Richa told us that after seeing us Monica told her “Ye sab kya hai yaar”. In the night we dropped Richa & Monica into Hotel and again came back to the strip… Enjoyed the nightlife of Las Vegas (I quoted LV “City of Lights”).
Thanksgiving Friday: Nishant was tired so he asked us to drop him also into the hotel, after that Naveen said yaar it’s “Black Friday and there will be sale in all the stores, let’s explore, we said “chalo” we wanted to go to the stores (anyone of circuit city, best buy, staples…) but didn’t have any idea where these stores are… it was chilling outside (temperature was less than 0’C). We wander the whole night but couldn’t get any clue for Circuit city or any other store where offers were going on (we did have the map but it was not very accurate) finally one kind lady in the Gas station helped us to reach Circuit city.
Shopping @ Vegas: we reached circuit city by 8.30 in the morning and by that time many of the items on sale were already sold out but then also we could successfully grab 2 GPS, 2 Photo printer and few more electronic stuffs.
Freaky Friday @ Vegas: the only thing happened on Friday was U-Turn after every turn we missed again and again U-Turn… sometimes I entered into wrong side of the road (luckily no one was coming from other end), it was like learning driving on the busiest roads J. But we enjoyed a lot went to Madame Tussauds WAX museum, Bellagio’s Musical fountain, Paris, New York City, Belly’s. It was fun all the time. More about Madame Tussauds visit @ Blipfoto.com.
Saturday: We had delicious lunch @ “India Oven” and started for Grand Canyon; just 40 miles after Las Vegas on the way to Grand Canyon, we stopped @ Hoover Dam (the Grand DAM which engineers completed in just 3 years & has produced approximately 150 billion kilowatts (enough energy to supply a million residents for 20 years)). First time I parked the car in multilevel parking lot (on 4th floor of parking lot), DAM was full of crowd and because of slow traffic our car was just crawling, at 5.30pm in the evening we took a break @ KINGSMAN (Arizona).
Prescott: we were following the GPS and the address of the hotel which we’d booked @ Grand canyon was not being recognized by GPS, somehow we got the address and followed the GPS direction, oooooooooooo it was pleasant weather, straight and lonely road I speeded till 110 miles/hour (thrilling 176kmph) average speed was 80-90 miles/hour and we were enjoying a lot with our traditional Antaakshri… we never cared and till 8.30 we were driving towards Phoenix (the address we got from GPS), we stopped @ Wickenburg and called up our other group who started from Las Vegas after us, just to check where they are, and we were shocked hearing that they’ve already reached Grand Canyon around an hour before, they asked us where are we going we said we are also coming towards Hotel and currently at Wickenburg… Sumit (the person who drove the other party’s car) said lemme check; he checked in the map and told we people are in the south of Arizona and the hotel is at the North of Arizona state, means we people are completely going wrong. Till KINGSMAN we were on the right track, and the address, which we entered @ KINGSMAN matched with our hotel address but we didn’t care about zip code. What? Let’s drive back and this was going to be the most scary drive, dark mountains, swirl roads; sometimes we were going upward hills and then again coming down @ other side of it, speed limits were changing very frequently; all five people attention; we are in mess. Naveen quoted “When American’s are there in car only 1 person is driving, when Indians are there in a car 5 people will be driving, and when Chinese are there in Car no one is driving”, so we were actually 5 drivers in the car :). We drove inside the Arizona National Park and at the speed of 90 miles/hour a camel sort of animal was there in the middle of the road to welcome us, gosh I just turned the car everyone was shocked at that speed, because the animal ran other side we survived otherwise at that speed we would have been in major trouble that too at the middle of Arizona National Park (where no one was there to help for miles, even no network coverage). Finally with everyone’s effort and alertness we safely reached Prescott (our landmark, from there our hotel was not so far, and we had clear directs till that) Finally we reached our booked hotel @ around midnight.
Grand Canyon Tour: other party left early for GC tour and they were supposed to go back to CA directly so we waived them with final good-bye and started getting ready for our trip. By this time I had enough exposure of driving in all kind of roads, situation and traffic so we enjoyed a lot in Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon is really awesome most creation of Nature; over the period of more than 270 million years the Nature & Colorado River have carved the mountains so nicely that is just amazing. To feel this you need to be there.
Back to Vegas: While coming back to we were taking double caution so no way we did any mistake… smoothly driving… but Nishant had one doubt why everyone is driving in the right most lanes and our car is only going in the fast left lane… slowly Richa also got this doubt…. Bosssssss this left most lane ends ahead… shucks… this wider road suddenly turned into a single lane and by the time I applied break I was not more than 10 feet away from a HAATHI (I call American Trucks, HAATHI), huff; clean shave. Ok ok let’s follow Haathi for sometime, after 5 minutes again on the fast track… but still Nishant raised the same doubt why everyone in front of us is still shifting to right lane man… I really don’t know, we reached Hoover dam and the guard over there pointed, sir “why high beams are on, you can’t drive whole long way here with this on” ooops Nishant got his answer and Richa too J.
Naveen Quitting Cigarette: Everyone was tired and so me too; by this time I’d driven around 1000+ miles (1600 kms), can you believe this? Thanks to everyone for believing on me (I know folks you didn’t have any other option :)). It was 4 peoples responsibility, which guided me in this whole long and thrilling drive. Naveen decided he’ll quit cigarette from tomorrow, I said tomorrow never comes, he said you don’t want me to quit cigarette from tomorrow, I said boss I want you to quit before we reach Vegas, he said “yaar aaj ki raat Bar jaana hai kal se surely quit kar doonga”. Later on I came to know he really quit, good Naveen keep it moving.
Monica Left: Monday morning Monica had to catch her flight for SFO, everyone promised they’ll wake up early and we all will go to see off her, did I say no one wake up? As expected J. Airport is not so far from Orleans so it took us just 10 minutes to reach airport after dropping her I came back to Orleans. My flight was @ 6.00pm in the evening so we thought of reaching airport by 5.00pm, there itself we had to return the rental car which was booked till 6.00pm in the evening. We went to another Indian restaurant and then back to strip, enjoyed ride of Monorail and some of the other attractions of Vegas.
Towards Airport: while going towards airport GPS showed some circular route and we were confused with that, I was worried that I may miss my flight, but nothing major happened and we reached airport on time @ 5.00pm, we handed over the keys of car to rental agency and boarded the shuttle towards Terminal-1.
American Airlines: cool, I reached on time and it was the time to check in; self check-in machine denied my ticket information, I went to the counter and lady told me that my flight was @ 4.00pm and it’s already 5.25pm, wowwwwwwwwwwwwwww, did I say my flight was @ 6.00pm; I never checked the timings I don’t know where from this 6.00pm was in my mind, this was major hit, so what’s next, she said next flight to Atlanta is at 11.00pm and that too it’s not a direct flight I’ll have to go to Miami (whole long way from West of US till the Eastern most point of US) and from Miami next morning @9.00am I’ll have to catch another flight for Atlanta… she asked whether I want a confirm ticket or standby will do, I asked how many tickets are open she said 10. I decide to take a chance and asked lady to give me a standby; this way I could save 100 bucks :)
Vegas Called me Back: I had around 4.30hrs of time before check-in and didn’t want to waste this, I called up Naveen, “hey Naveen I missed my flight man; Krish, cut the crap, you can’t miss your flight because you reached airport on time yaar… nooooooooo my flight was at 4.00pm and I was in a impression that it’s at 6.00pm”. I’m coming back to you people for another 4 hrs. And we decided to meet at Mandalay bay; I took Airport shuttle, which dropped me @ Tropicana (which was around 1.5 miles away from Mandalay bay) and with that heavy bag on my shoulder I walked in that chilly weather till Mandalay bay… finally Naveen Nishant Krish & Richa met again. We went to New York City and clicked few pics, then Roller Coaster ride (man, electrifying experience). Finally Richa said since you’ve come back let’s go to Bellagio where you can enjoy the Musical fountain, it was perfect timing, we reached there and show began, after the hilarious musical show, I told Nishant “Agar meri flight nahi bhi chootati to kya mil jaata, I missed my flight but having great fun here”, Nishant smiled.
Last night @ Vegas: after the Bellagio’s show we had dinner and took a cab, all the people were dropped @ Orleans then I headed towards Airport, Richa said, “Hope this time you fly” and I did. After reaching Miami I had to wait for 1.5 hours for next flight and finally back to pavilion @ 1.15pm, I was dozing and donno how I reached home driving my car whole long 75 miles from Airport.
Monica: after reaching home I came to know when Monica reached Sanoje, she was supposed to be received by few of her friends and she had to call them, to tell her location and the only Phone available was “out of order”. She was alone and there were few druggies in the airport; one old lady driver helped her and even gave free pass till home.
Drivers License: I’ve recently (1 month before) got the Georgia Drivers License and a novice driver; Naveen has just the California’s learner’s permit.
Journey Begins: so finally the day came (22nd Nov 2007) when we all started from our respective locations, my flight from Atlanta was at 12.15pm; I had booked a parking lot around 3 miles away from airport and was supposed to reach there at 11.10am in order to catch the flight. It was my first journey to Atlanta alone, and I had no idea of the parking lot (where it is?) I just had one Google map in my hand; I started @ sharp 9.00am for parking lot and followed the map; after going around 15 miles on I-75 (interstate) I realized that I’ve not fasten my seat belt (which means heavy fine if a cop catches), I was going in the right most lane of interstate and became furious; in hurry I made worry, car slipped into shoulder (roadside), I was just a lucky coz the way it was pulled into shoulder would have been very costly if any heavy vehicle was there behind me. I took a long breath and started again after buckling, but that was just beginning, I just completed 20 more miles and heavy rain started, even though wipers were doing their best, I was not at all able to see outside, somehow I kept driving (getting late every minute)… after a little while I realized I’ve taken wrong exit and following the wrong route to parking lot (I became more tensed thinking this trip is gone)… I took one wilder exit and kept driving… oh mannnn I got I-285 WEST somehow (that means again came back on track). I was very happy that again after 2 minutes I’m on the right track. But this happiness was just for 5 minutes because of my confusion again I missed the route and this time I was sure that I’m not at all going to go LV since I’m completely lost now; and coincident happens only once. So thinking let’s try luck again I took another wrong exit. ma ma miaa it was second coincident in a day, I was in front of CAMP CREEK PRKWY (The parking lot; which I booked). Lady over there took care of parking my car and I headed towards the shuttle for Airport, nice journey till Las Vegas (city of entertainment).
Reached Las Vegas: I reached LV by 5.35pm; Naveen Richa & Nishant were supposed to reach there before me by 5.00pm, I called up Naveen but Richa lifted the phone; I was surprised – she said they missed their flight and came by another flight; that too Naveen will be coming in next flight which will reach LV by 2 hours, meanwhile I tried one of the Gambling machine with $1 and yea yea I got $1.5 back so 50% profit (not so bad :)).
CAR Rental: We thought let’s utilize the time we’ll go to CAR Rental counter and get that done… we reached the counter and everything went fine, we got the papers of car and now it’s turn to pay the money. I recently crossed the limit of $1000 in my credit card and there was no more balance, my debit account was also nil since I paid my credit card but credit card payment takes 2-3 days to complete so ultimately money was hanged in between and I didn’t have money to pay for car rental, Richa was ready to pay but counter lady said since booking is in my name only my credit card can be accepted; and if I pay by debit card $300 is security deposit, since I didn’t have any money we thought of waiting for Naveen since he has learner’s permit we’ll book the car in his name and then things will be settled down, we were desperately waiting for Naveen but he finally came at 9.00pm after reaching to the counter lady said person with learner’s permit can’t take car on rent in his / her name, again mess. I called up one of my very good friends (Mr. Deepak Kela) and that kind soul transferred $400 into my account but I forgot if we pay by Debit card $300 is deposit, so the money which I asked for was not sufficient to meet the payment, luckily Richa had her laptop we logged in there and Naveen transferred the rest of the money and finally we got the keys of car… Car was like “makkhan” ekdam smooth… as I told before I never drove alone and this was the situation that only I can drive, means (4 logon ki zindagi apne haath mein le ke gaadi chala raha tha main :)), we didn’t face any problem to reach hotel we booked for 22nd night.
In Las Vegas: Thursday night we roamed around the strip in LV and went to 1 or 2 casinos. In the night we met the other group (Monica, Sumit, Sunita, Arunesh (with wife + 1 kid)) who came from CA, Monica is a friend of Richa so she joined our group and rest 4 remained together. It’s said first impression is the last when we met with this group Nishant with his notorious behaviour, Naveen as usual kissing cigarette and me with a beer bottle welcomed them, Later on Richa told us that after seeing us Monica told her “Ye sab kya hai yaar”. In the night we dropped Richa & Monica into Hotel and again came back to the strip… Enjoyed the nightlife of Las Vegas (I quoted LV “City of Lights”).
Thanksgiving Friday: Nishant was tired so he asked us to drop him also into the hotel, after that Naveen said yaar it’s “Black Friday and there will be sale in all the stores, let’s explore, we said “chalo” we wanted to go to the stores (anyone of circuit city, best buy, staples…) but didn’t have any idea where these stores are… it was chilling outside (temperature was less than 0’C). We wander the whole night but couldn’t get any clue for Circuit city or any other store where offers were going on (we did have the map but it was not very accurate) finally one kind lady in the Gas station helped us to reach Circuit city.
Shopping @ Vegas: we reached circuit city by 8.30 in the morning and by that time many of the items on sale were already sold out but then also we could successfully grab 2 GPS, 2 Photo printer and few more electronic stuffs.
Freaky Friday @ Vegas: the only thing happened on Friday was U-Turn after every turn we missed again and again U-Turn… sometimes I entered into wrong side of the road (luckily no one was coming from other end), it was like learning driving on the busiest roads J. But we enjoyed a lot went to Madame Tussauds WAX museum, Bellagio’s Musical fountain, Paris, New York City, Belly’s. It was fun all the time. More about Madame Tussauds visit @ Blipfoto.com.
Saturday: We had delicious lunch @ “India Oven” and started for Grand Canyon; just 40 miles after Las Vegas on the way to Grand Canyon, we stopped @ Hoover Dam (the Grand DAM which engineers completed in just 3 years & has produced approximately 150 billion kilowatts (enough energy to supply a million residents for 20 years)). First time I parked the car in multilevel parking lot (on 4th floor of parking lot), DAM was full of crowd and because of slow traffic our car was just crawling, at 5.30pm in the evening we took a break @ KINGSMAN (Arizona).
Prescott: we were following the GPS and the address of the hotel which we’d booked @ Grand canyon was not being recognized by GPS, somehow we got the address and followed the GPS direction, oooooooooooo it was pleasant weather, straight and lonely road I speeded till 110 miles/hour (thrilling 176kmph) average speed was 80-90 miles/hour and we were enjoying a lot with our traditional Antaakshri… we never cared and till 8.30 we were driving towards Phoenix (the address we got from GPS), we stopped @ Wickenburg and called up our other group who started from Las Vegas after us, just to check where they are, and we were shocked hearing that they’ve already reached Grand Canyon around an hour before, they asked us where are we going we said we are also coming towards Hotel and currently at Wickenburg… Sumit (the person who drove the other party’s car) said lemme check; he checked in the map and told we people are in the south of Arizona and the hotel is at the North of Arizona state, means we people are completely going wrong. Till KINGSMAN we were on the right track, and the address, which we entered @ KINGSMAN matched with our hotel address but we didn’t care about zip code. What? Let’s drive back and this was going to be the most scary drive, dark mountains, swirl roads; sometimes we were going upward hills and then again coming down @ other side of it, speed limits were changing very frequently; all five people attention; we are in mess. Naveen quoted “When American’s are there in car only 1 person is driving, when Indians are there in a car 5 people will be driving, and when Chinese are there in Car no one is driving”, so we were actually 5 drivers in the car :). We drove inside the Arizona National Park and at the speed of 90 miles/hour a camel sort of animal was there in the middle of the road to welcome us, gosh I just turned the car everyone was shocked at that speed, because the animal ran other side we survived otherwise at that speed we would have been in major trouble that too at the middle of Arizona National Park (where no one was there to help for miles, even no network coverage). Finally with everyone’s effort and alertness we safely reached Prescott (our landmark, from there our hotel was not so far, and we had clear directs till that) Finally we reached our booked hotel @ around midnight.
Grand Canyon Tour: other party left early for GC tour and they were supposed to go back to CA directly so we waived them with final good-bye and started getting ready for our trip. By this time I had enough exposure of driving in all kind of roads, situation and traffic so we enjoyed a lot in Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon is really awesome most creation of Nature; over the period of more than 270 million years the Nature & Colorado River have carved the mountains so nicely that is just amazing. To feel this you need to be there.
Back to Vegas: While coming back to we were taking double caution so no way we did any mistake… smoothly driving… but Nishant had one doubt why everyone is driving in the right most lanes and our car is only going in the fast left lane… slowly Richa also got this doubt…. Bosssssss this left most lane ends ahead… shucks… this wider road suddenly turned into a single lane and by the time I applied break I was not more than 10 feet away from a HAATHI (I call American Trucks, HAATHI), huff; clean shave. Ok ok let’s follow Haathi for sometime, after 5 minutes again on the fast track… but still Nishant raised the same doubt why everyone in front of us is still shifting to right lane man… I really don’t know, we reached Hoover dam and the guard over there pointed, sir “why high beams are on, you can’t drive whole long way here with this on” ooops Nishant got his answer and Richa too J.
Naveen Quitting Cigarette: Everyone was tired and so me too; by this time I’d driven around 1000+ miles (1600 kms), can you believe this? Thanks to everyone for believing on me (I know folks you didn’t have any other option :)). It was 4 peoples responsibility, which guided me in this whole long and thrilling drive. Naveen decided he’ll quit cigarette from tomorrow, I said tomorrow never comes, he said you don’t want me to quit cigarette from tomorrow, I said boss I want you to quit before we reach Vegas, he said “yaar aaj ki raat Bar jaana hai kal se surely quit kar doonga”. Later on I came to know he really quit, good Naveen keep it moving.
Monica Left: Monday morning Monica had to catch her flight for SFO, everyone promised they’ll wake up early and we all will go to see off her, did I say no one wake up? As expected J. Airport is not so far from Orleans so it took us just 10 minutes to reach airport after dropping her I came back to Orleans. My flight was @ 6.00pm in the evening so we thought of reaching airport by 5.00pm, there itself we had to return the rental car which was booked till 6.00pm in the evening. We went to another Indian restaurant and then back to strip, enjoyed ride of Monorail and some of the other attractions of Vegas.
Towards Airport: while going towards airport GPS showed some circular route and we were confused with that, I was worried that I may miss my flight, but nothing major happened and we reached airport on time @ 5.00pm, we handed over the keys of car to rental agency and boarded the shuttle towards Terminal-1.
American Airlines: cool, I reached on time and it was the time to check in; self check-in machine denied my ticket information, I went to the counter and lady told me that my flight was @ 4.00pm and it’s already 5.25pm, wowwwwwwwwwwwwwww, did I say my flight was @ 6.00pm; I never checked the timings I don’t know where from this 6.00pm was in my mind, this was major hit, so what’s next, she said next flight to Atlanta is at 11.00pm and that too it’s not a direct flight I’ll have to go to Miami (whole long way from West of US till the Eastern most point of US) and from Miami next morning @9.00am I’ll have to catch another flight for Atlanta… she asked whether I want a confirm ticket or standby will do, I asked how many tickets are open she said 10. I decide to take a chance and asked lady to give me a standby; this way I could save 100 bucks :)
Vegas Called me Back: I had around 4.30hrs of time before check-in and didn’t want to waste this, I called up Naveen, “hey Naveen I missed my flight man; Krish, cut the crap, you can’t miss your flight because you reached airport on time yaar… nooooooooo my flight was at 4.00pm and I was in a impression that it’s at 6.00pm”. I’m coming back to you people for another 4 hrs. And we decided to meet at Mandalay bay; I took Airport shuttle, which dropped me @ Tropicana (which was around 1.5 miles away from Mandalay bay) and with that heavy bag on my shoulder I walked in that chilly weather till Mandalay bay… finally Naveen Nishant Krish & Richa met again. We went to New York City and clicked few pics, then Roller Coaster ride (man, electrifying experience). Finally Richa said since you’ve come back let’s go to Bellagio where you can enjoy the Musical fountain, it was perfect timing, we reached there and show began, after the hilarious musical show, I told Nishant “Agar meri flight nahi bhi chootati to kya mil jaata, I missed my flight but having great fun here”, Nishant smiled.
Last night @ Vegas: after the Bellagio’s show we had dinner and took a cab, all the people were dropped @ Orleans then I headed towards Airport, Richa said, “Hope this time you fly” and I did. After reaching Miami I had to wait for 1.5 hours for next flight and finally back to pavilion @ 1.15pm, I was dozing and donno how I reached home driving my car whole long 75 miles from Airport.
Monica: after reaching home I came to know when Monica reached Sanoje, she was supposed to be received by few of her friends and she had to call them, to tell her location and the only Phone available was “out of order”. She was alone and there were few druggies in the airport; one old lady driver helped her and even gave free pass till home.
Nishant, Naveen & Richa also reached home safely without anymore trouble.
It's said all well that ends well, even after all this hip-hop and zig-zags; we really had wonderful time.
Las Vegas & Grand Canyon Tour
22nd – 26th November 2007
22nd – 26th November 2007
Travellers,
Krish, Naveen, Nishant, Richa & Monica
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