Summer Vacation Trip - Day 1

I got up early to make sure we were completely packed and ready for our trip.  Mollie slept in and I had to wake her up just before 0900.  She was VERY grumpy about being forced to get up early.  She ate breakfast (grits) and said she was ready to go.  However, I discovered that she hadn’t actually packed her bags completely and was apparently going to leave things behind that we’d discussed bringing.  Fortunately, we were able to get everything together in time for our departure by the time Brenna arrived to take us to the airport (1000).  We got through check-in and TSA relatively quickly and set up in the boarding area without much difficulty.  Mollie and I discussed our itinerary a lot and we each did some reading.  Before boarding our first flight, Mollie got herself some lunch (sandwich).  We departed from Reagan National on time (1245) and arrived at O’Hare on schedule (1345 local).  We had almost two hours before the next flight and I did a bunch of walking in the O’Hare terminal and picked up lunch for myself (1420) while Mollie Skyped with Brenna.  We took off on the next flight at about 1600 and enjoyed free DirectTV on the plane.  Mollie enjoyed several great views of scenery below and watched movies.  We didn’t talk a lot but were both in pretty good spirits.  We arrived in Las Vegas late (1800 local) and had to do a lot of walking and shuttling to get to our rental car.  We did have a new experience of FiveStar service (i.e., pick your own car) with Hertz and selected a Nissan Rogue that Mollie nicknamed “Sherpa”.  We were on I-15 (headed north) by 1900; Mollie enjoyed seeing all the amazing scenery on the Vegas Strip and the pretty mountains in the distance.  It was very hot but there wasn’t a lot of humidity.  We checked into the Air Force Inn at Nellis quickly and then went to eat dinner (Del Taco for “Taco Tuesday”) at 1915. Mollie had trouble with her order and ate one of my tacos as a result.  This led to some giddy ribbing on my part...  Mollie’s assessment of the place was “meh”.  We were both pretty exhausted after our long day of traveling but Mollie insisted on watching a TV show (2100) in our room, despite the three hour time difference.  As a result, we went to bed at 2230.