Las Vegas Bound

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With our bags in the hall by midnight, we once again found ourselves with the realization that another cruise was rapidly coming to a close; and, Sharon is now working on her fourth one-hundred days at sea! More than one “ear worm” plagued us during this journey. I remember humming one tune with new lyrics: “Do you know the way, to Prudoe Bay,…” Now, all I’m hearing is “I’m leaving, on a jet plane; Don’t know when I’ll be back again…” Well, perhaps that isn’t precisely true. We seem to visit Alaska every other year; so, we will see.



We had to wait until the end of our projected time slot before PINK-2 was announced for disembarkation. We found our bags and then went over to “The Man in Green”. Sharon insisted I was headed the wrong way, and in pausing three groups of people breezed past us before she realized, yes, we did need to head over the “The Man in Green” even though it looked like the line for the Rental Cars. We had to get in one line snaking through a maze, so that we could then get in another albeit shorter line that snaked through its own maze. Eventually we got appropriate tags on four of our heaviest bags that HAL would be transporting to the airport for us, and which we would need to reclaim down in the baggage claim area later this afternoon before we checked in with the airline. Today we would be going on the Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus, just not the same one that we’d done during our several-day pre-cruise visit to Vancouver. We walked with our smaller carryon bags up the steeply inclined walkway from the terminal for Canada Place. For some reason Sharon didn’t want to go inside and use the elevator and was looking for the escalator they told us about. Ok she was carrying the heavier bag with the camera, binoculars, jackets etc while I only had the Computer bag this time so guess I wasn’t her pack mule for this part of the trip. And in front of Canada Place, I think we both thought that we’d been transported to some sort of far off exotic Arab land: Everywhere you looked neatly trimmed bearded men were walking around with their keffiyeh and the women were wearing scarves in all forms from hijabs to burqas. I dare say, by the way we were dressed, we were in the minority.



We boarded the HOHO bus, and no sooner had we pulled away from the Canada Place bus stop that the canned narration began, and the driver pointed here and there to what the commentary was highlighting for us to see. It was quite a bit less personal than the HOHO experience we’d had with a young enthusiastic driver/guide; and, while the live narrator can get away with a cheesy joke here and there, it sort of falls flat when done as part of a canned commentary. In fact, it sort of just lays there on the floor like something that you just stepped in. We soon realized that we were to be tag-teamed by the running commentary with a he-said-she-said; but, her joke about going gaga over the shoes found in some of the up-end boutique stores of Robson Street left us cringing. There were pickups at a number of Hotels before we found ourselves in Stanley Park. It was in the park that Sharon and I did a double-take as the running commentary seemed to have a hiccup, and after leaving one stop the commentary resumed with exactly the same commentary that we’d just heard. It had been Sharon’s intention to ride the HOHO out to see “The Steam Engine Clock” and have lunch there since we hadn’t got off that stop on our previous visit; unfortunately, this was near the very end of the what seemed like two plus hour bus tour. When we’d done the HOHO by ourselves, the tour was divided into two parts, the RED-Line and the GREEN-Line, both of which were covered by the one price, you could just target areas you wanted to go, such as Stanley Park or Downtown. Here, everything was combined into one tour, so we got to do it all. We heard the spiel for the library repeated three times; before, we actual did stop in front of the Library. And admittedly, this round building of pillars is an architectural wonder, and probably a very fine library as well. We got off to take some pictures of the steam clock, which is actually smaller than I imagined that it would be standing there on the sidewalk corner, sort of as an afterthought. We snapped some pictures, and maybe we should have hung around for the quarter-hour to hear it sound off the time; but, we did hear it toot its chime as we made our way up the street looking for a place to eat.



We stopped at the first likely looking café that had an upscale trendy name that somehow seemed appropriate in this neighborhood with steam clocks on the corner: The Flying Pig. The menu clearly catered to the breakfast and lunch crowd. I decided to try the Beef Stroganoff and Macaroni and Cheese entrée; while, Sharon inquired about the Pulled Pork Sandwich. She asked if she could get it without sauce on it; but, alas that is the way it’s cooked: With Sauce. The waitress assured her that it was quite good, but not too saucy. Sharon made sure that it did not come with cheese, letting the waitress know that all she really wanted was the bun and meat (and the French Fries of course). My dish was exactly what it claimed to be, beef stroganoff mixed with mac and cheese and baked to a simmering delight that did actually work together. Sharon’s sandwich came, and evidently the waitress must have assumed that even though Sharon said what she said, she must not really have meant to serve the sandwich without coleslaw (and it was thoroughly mixed together with the pulled pork). “And it’s got cheese all through it!” Sharon shrieked. Sharon had removed the top piece of the baguette, and I tried to scrape off some of the coleslaw, where some had clumped at the top. I tasted some of the pork and its cheesy-looking sauce: “Hmm. It’s not cheese, Babe. It’s a Memphis style mustard barbecue sauce.” And it wasn’t too bad; but, I knew better than to tell her that or she’d have made me eat it. I’ve gained as much weight as I care to as it stands. (And we still have a visit to Bella Gelateria ahead of us). To her credit, Sharon did manage to nibble at one end of the sandwich, and she did have some French Fries. As for Sharon recommending this place to anybody, a popular saying of a former co-worker of both of ours comes to mind (well, I might have tweaked Gus’s popular saying a little for this restaurant), “You can put wings on a pig; but, it’s still a pig!”



We caught the HOHO just a few short blocks on; and, from there it was just a couple more stops to get back the Canada Place. We walked the couple of blocks to Bella Gelateria, and there was just a line to the door where a young couple was trying to push a wide baby carriage into the smallish entry of this corner store. Lunch had given (or perhaps not diminished) Sharon’s appetite, and she got a three-flavor cup (the same size as a 2 flavor). I got a two-flavor cup and was disappointed that I wasn’t going to have the chance to enjoy the black sesame gelato again. We both liked the expresso with chocolate chunks. I didn’t care for the coconut one as much. Sharon enjoyed the Chocolate Cherry and Salted Caramel.



We headed back to Canada Place in search for the elusive train station. We eventually were directed to the brown building, and once there, found a down escalator from the sidewalk that was taking us to “The Sky Train”. There was a sign noting that there was no Elevator at this station, for one of those, you needed to proceed to another station some several blocks away. Once we got down the escalator we found that we had to then walk down a flight of stairs (with our small carry-ons and computer). We reach a multi-train platform where obviously several lines must converge. We finally get directions that this is not where you get the Sky Train, for that we need to proceed all the way to the end of the platform, and then up. At least there is an escalator to get you up. Before we could get there, I sneezed, and my nose started bleeding again. It took a while to get it stopped.



We had a pass card that let us pass through a number of gate controls limiting access, and we finally did get up to where we could board the Sky Train. We knew that we needed the Southbound train to the airport. We boarded, got a place to sit, and off we went… only, we were underground. Why in the world do they call a subway “Sky Train”. Is this somebody’s sick sense of humor? We finally reached the airport and Sharon reached for my gate pass to throw it away. I pulled it back. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll put them in with the other papers.” So she stuffed them in her carryon bag, in the bottom of her carryon bag. Off the train, the first thing we come to is one final gate to get off the platform. Well, at least we didn’t throw our gate passes away!



We were able to find the baggage claim place, and it didn’t seem to be particularly well organized. In front were perhaps fifty airport push carts loaded with luggage. Our bags should be here, somewhere. All we had to do was point out which bags were ours. We’d just about given up, and then, there they were, all together, all on the same push cart.



We then had to get our bags up to Departures, check in, get boarding passes, drop off the luggage. Then we went through the US Entry Checkpoint, which meant, from that point on we would not need to go through passport control or customs when we arrived in Las Vegas. We still had a few hours; but, our HOHO adventure had managed to whittle away at most of our layover in Vancouver. I had another bloody nose in the airport, and it was starting to get pretty old. I found an Orange Julius fast food outlet in the food court; so, I got a large drink and a chili dog, and that was dinner.



When I returned to our seats in the waiting area, Sharon noted that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. This was due to the plane arriving from Santa Ana was delayed. We were flying Westjet, that services Delta; but, they don’t honor our first bag checks free (which we have with Delta because of my Amex credit card tied to Delta).



It was an uneventful flight, about two-and-one-half hours to Las Vegas, and our neighbors had been volunteered by Cathy (another neighbor) to pick us up. Cathy was unable to fetch us because she is in California. We’d texted them to let them know that we were late; but, they didn’t receive the text until after they were at the airport. We let them know which terminal we were at, and it took them just a few minutes to find us. So after spending the last five ½ weeks in Oregon, Canada and Alaska, we arrived home and at 10PM at night the temperature was 106 degrees Fahrenheit. But Sharon: It’s a dry heat!

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