Home Again

Yesterday's Scripture Reading: Breisheet (Genesis) 48-50

Today's Scripture Reading: Shemot (Exodus) 1-3

Had a nice flight home. Transformers was the in-flight movie, and this time I stayed awake and watched the whole thing. I kind of liked the Hoover Dam tie-in, but then they blew it by having the nearby town look nothing like any actual town nearby. The closest town to the Dam is Boulder City, and it doesn't have skyscrapers. Las Vegas is the nearest city with skyscrapers, but the town in the movie definitely was not Las Vegas. When the caravan left the Dam, the road footage looked like the Arizona side of the Dam, but the nearest town on that road is Kingman, which, like Boulder City, is a non-skyscraper town. Other than this discrepancy, the movie was enjoyable to watch and had some funny dialogue in places. The dog was cute.

Warning: The following is a rant.

Speaking of Las Vegas, I do not like McCarran Airport. It seems that no matter where I'm going, I end up having to go to the furthest gate in the most outlying terminal. Ditto when I return. And heaven help me if I have to go to the bathroom after exiting the plane (which is pretty much every time because I'm not a fan of the tiny airplane bathrooms). Stopping at a bathroom on the way to Baggage Claim usually means that my baggage will end up in the unclaimed baggage by the time I do get to Baggage Claim. It's always a race between me and those over-eager guys who take the bags off the carousel. All but once I've made it there in time to grab my bags before they haul them away, but it's always a breathless run to get there before my bags end up who-knows-where.

Add to this my phone ringing seemingly constantly during this breathless race to Baggage Claim as my husband keeps calling trying to figure out where he's supposed to go to pick us up because he's lost in the ever-changing McCarran Maze--the tangle of roads in and around the airport. On one visit to the airport, a certain lane will take you to Passenger Pick-up, but the next time you're there and try to take that lane, you end up in Long-Term Parking instead. It seems that every route to ANY destination in the airport requires multiple mad harrowing dashes across 3-4 lanes of traffic. The design and layout of McCarran is definitely worse than any other airport I've been to. Since it's such a popular tourist destination, you'd think they would have done a better job designing it.

A newly added irritant to the McCarran Airport experience that I noticed last night is that the $3 baggage carts have been replaced with ones that have no barrier sticking up at the front. In most airports, this is the place where there's a sign that says "Welcome to _______". The ones at McCarran used to say, "Welcome to Las Vegas", but now there is no place to attach the sign because the bar it used to attach to is not there on this new cart design. What this means in practical terms is that you can no longer line up your bags on the cart without fear of them sliding off the front end of the cart since the stopper bar thingy is completely absent. I wonder what genius thought of eliminating that feature and why?

In spite of the difficulties of traveling, the visit in Texas was well worth it, and being home safely again is also a wonderful blessing.