still in hell

As I said; I could see the Las Vegas strip. So I decided to try and walk there.

It was pretty cold out, I kept slipping on ice.

I thought it was supposed to be hot in the desert.

As it turns out; you can't really just walk from the airport to the strip, unless you can figure out a way to run across the landing strip.

I'm not sure what this is, but I will venture a guess that is some sort of injury.

I had only, maybe, gotten about 2 hours of sleep. So, I found a spot where I could NOT hear any slot machines and took a little nap.

On my flight to Phoenix; I sat next to a young lady who had just come from Eugene and now was on her way to Mexico somewhere.

She told me that her flights to and from Eugene were always getting canceled.

She also told me how drunk she planned to get while in Mexico.

This is a book titled Walter the Farting Dog. I can't believe that we are telling kids that farting is not only acceptable but funny as well. Granted my taking a picture of book about farting, and commenting on it might constitute a fart joke.

While I am no expert on the subject; it appears that the food court at the Phoenix airport has a large West Indian population. Who knew?

I got a baked potato at a restaurant specializing in baked potatoes and Philly cheese steaks.

I only felt vaguely gross afterwards.

This was an attempt at taking a picture of the Phoenix skyline.

I chatted with a young woman who had been part of the epic Las Vegas adventure. She was on her way back to Eugene from somewhere in the Middle West

We made jokes about how angry some of our co-passengers were.

As we waited; we ran into Haley from the Boys and Girls Club.

At some point the flight announcer woman began stalling and started to lead us to believe that yet another of our flights would be canceled.

After some vague excuses, that sounded a lot like "this flight isn't really as full as we would like it to be, lets cancel it and hope for better luck with the next one",we were eventually boarded and sent back to Oregon.

I was going to be pretty sad if I had to sleep on the floor at the Phoenix airport, as it was considerably more depressing than the Las Vegas airport.

32 hours later I was back in Oregon. My parking bill was $80. At least I didn't have to wait for my bags...they got there yesterday.

Learning from Las Vegas - Inside the decorated shed

When last we met, I had been re-routed from San Fransisco to Las Vegas to catch an 11:30 flight from Las Vegas, Nevada to Eugene, Oregon.

This is a poster for Hedi Fleiss's Stud Farm.

At 11:45 we were told that while our plane was here, our crew was NOT.

We were told that a crew was on it's way from Arizona or New Mexico or maybe it was old Mexico.

We were also told not to wander off, as once our crew arrived they would have no problem leaving us behind. (Except when he said it it sounded less friendly)

This is a vending machine where you can buy digital cameras.

and ipods.

This is a machine where you pay $5 to charge your cell phone. I felt like a chump having to use it.

At about 12:45 we were told that our crew would be getting in at 2:30am.

One man, who fancied himself a hero and representative of the downtrodden travelers, loudly demanded to see the manager. The manager did, eventually, show up, at which point she repeated the same information from before, this time in a more authoritative voice.

I had a quarter in my pocket so I tried to play a slot machine.

The woman in charge of the machines basically told me that my money was no good here.

We (the downtrodden travelers) went to sleep on the floor of the airport while being gently soothed by the melodic chiming of slot machines.

At 2:00am I was awoken by another passenger telling me that our flight had been canceled.

We all waited in a very long line waiting to get new flights and $10 meal vouchers.

I was given a new flight to Eugene by way of Phoenix, Arizona; leaving atr 11:45am. I was told that this was one of the better flights.

It was about 5:00am after waiting in the longest/complainiest line ever.

You can see the Las Vegas strip from the airport, so I decided to try and walk there.

The Divine Comedy

I will use these cute animal picture as a soothing backdrop to my holiday travel adventure.

And, there is no need to point out that my resolution (several times) last year was to be more punctual with my posts, and here it is January and I'm already a month behind.

This is Bob Hope Airport in sunny Burbank, California.

When I got to San Francisco, the flight before mine had been delayed until after my plane was scheduled to depart. Then my flight was delayed. I went and got coffee and a pastry snack. Actually, the pastry snack was a desert as Libby (see post not about Ozzy Osborne) had given me some delicious beans and rice that I had eaten for lunch or supper or one of those in-between meals.

This is some sort of educational play area (obviously).

I wandered around the book store for a while. This is the erotica section. I didn't really see the point in "classing it up" so I bought a copy of Hustler to read on the plane.

Apparently, while I was checking out porn in the airport book store, my flight to Eugene was canceled.

I was re-routed to a flight to Las Vegas on US Airways (previously I had been on United).

While I waited for that flight I wandered around the gift shop/magazine stand. A woman with a voice that could cut glass yelled at me "is that your bag?!!" pointing at a bag sitting outside the store. She repeated this until she found the owner and then proceeded to yell at him that she was about to call the police.

As much as I dislike backtracking, the Las Vegas flight was supposed to get me into Eugene at two in the morning as apposed to flying out of San Fransisco at 11 the next evening.

Here is beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada.

I have been to (or more accurately; through) Las Vegas on numerous occasion and have never really had an interest in spending much time here.

I'm sure it's a very nice town.

I do like that they have slot machines in the airport.

I think they really liven things up and add to an otherly unexciting air travel experience.

According to my research airports represent the first terrace of Purgatory; where the inhabitants "are purged by carrying giant stones on their backs"

And following this logic the Las Vegas airport is probably the fourth circle of Hell: "Those whose concern for material goods deviated from the desired mean are punished in this circle."

I heard on the radio that The Catholic Church is thinking about revamping the first ring of Hell (that's where they keep un-baptized babies) because it just seemed mean to send babies to Hell. I think they'll still keep it around though for all the "virtuous pagans".