Thanks to the first hiccup in my adventurous adventure it was almost 2 am before I got to the hotel in San Pedro last night.
When I arrived at the Alaska Airlines counter to check in for my flight in Boise yesterday, I was immediately told the FAA had declared an embargo on mobility scooters on regional jets. Huh? There would be no way I would be allowed to fly with my little travel scooter. The scooter who would be with me for four straight months delivering me to places like Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and Lithuania could not go with me.
It’s a recent ban, and unfortunately fliers like me were never notified. And also unfortunately for me, there were no other flights to LAX not using the regional jets today. We looked at larger planes on other airlines connecting through Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco. Nothing. They even looked into renting a scooter and sending it to the hotel for me while they held my scooter in Boise until I returned from my trip. Umm…I won’t be back home until September 9.
Southwest to the rescue.
While I lost my business class seat on a non-stop flight to Los Angeles (boo!), Southwest Airlines was able to get me on a Boise to Los Angeles flight through Las Vegas. So Alaska refunded my precious great-priced ticket and I had to purchase a new last-last-minute ticket on Southwest. While I typically try and avoid Southwest for reasons I don’t care to mention right now, the agents worked hard at not only getting me on the flights, but getting me an extra seat so I had an empty one next to me.
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| Goodbye, Boise! See you in September! |
Thankfully things got better from there. I had a fascinating chat with the person sitting on the aisle seat who was on his way to Vegas to do security at The Chicks (Dixie Chicks) concert. And his main gig is security in Las Vegas for Adele. Adele! So cool.
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| Hello, Vegas! |
I had enough time on my stopover to visit Wonder Woman. That gal was good to me. I hit three separate bonuses and walked away up $150. Imagine if I was playing the maximum.
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| Not even my biggest win! |
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| Ed, this one’s for you. |
While it was a rougher-than-planned day, I made it safely to my huge hotel room, and after a wee bit of sleep it looks to be a glorious day.
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| Good morning, San Pedro! |
If yesterday was the biggest glitch of my trip, I’ll take it!
I’m going to keep track of time changes for this trip. Number of time zone changes so far: 1