In Vegas, baby!

This is going to be a long one, but I was wayyyy too tired from traveling to write the first night, and we were out last night, so just consider it a double. :) Our trip to get here was LOOOOOONG, but ended up being pretty awesome. CeCe and I hopped on a bus at 4:30am from Lakenheath to London Heathrow, and realized we had another travel buddy, squadron-mate Martin from intel. When we finally made it to our terminal and checked in for the flight (man, LHR is huge... I think we walked about 10 miles inside the airport), Martin turned on the charm with the desk agent and got a free seat upgrade to United's "Economy Plus" section. He told CeCe and me that we should try to get the same, so we decided to ask at the gate. I HATE asking for stuff like that, but gave in this time knowing that I currently had an awful seat that would have made the 11-hour flight to San Francisco fairly miserable.

SO worth it!!! We were successfully upgraded for free, and I even got a window seat! When we boarded the plane, we discovered even more perks. Economy Plus is just behind Business Class, and is advertised as having more leg room than Economy, which I am not sure is worth the $100 upgrade price tag... and apparently a lot of people agree with me, because the section was more than half empty. CeCe had a row of 5 seats in the middle to herself, and stretched out across them to sleep for most of the flight. I had my window seat plus the seat next to it on the aisle, which was amazing to have room to spread out AND I didn't have to ask anyone to move to go to the bathroom (usually the only downside of a window seat). There were spa packages on our seats with a bunch of toiletries, a thick pair of socks, earplugs, a sleeping mask (you know that thing that covers your eyes), and a nice pair of headphones instead of the hard plastic earbuds.

Despite the perks, 11 hours is still a really long time on an airplane, and I was ready to be done before we were even halfway there. Argh. But near the end of the flight, the scenery began out my window. I have heard that Iceland and Greenland are beautiful from the air, but unfortunately it has been dark or cloudy every time I have flown over them. The clouds broke up once we got over Canada, which was an interesting landscape. Flat and snowcovered, dotted with frozen lakes and streams, and not really any civilization in sight. I decided to watch a movie (because Canada is HUGE), and the next time I looked out my window, we were over northern Idaho. WOW. Gigantic snow-covered mountains as far as the eye could see, so majestic I almost forgot to breathe. My nose was glued to the window for the remaining two hours of the flight. More mountains through Idaho, Oregon, and northern California, some with snow and some without, broken up by rivers and deep gorges. As much as I love England, there is something about the mountains of the Western US that makes me fall in love all over every time I see them.

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Airplane windows are by far the worst medium through which to take a picture... the thick double pane always turns pics blurry, plus they are usually scratched or mottled with ice crystals, making it impossible to focus on what is outside. I don't have any good mountain pictures (the poor quality just would not do them justice), but as we flew into San Francisco on the California coast, I was lucky enough to catch an incredible bird's-eye view of the Golden Gate Bridge! Again, apologies for the poor quality, but here it is:

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After a 2-hour layover in San Fran, we were back in the air bound for Las Vegas. And the jaw-dropping scenery continued. The sun began to set behind the coastal mountain ranges as we flew southeast, providing me (in my window seat on the right side of the plane) an unobstructed view of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. As the sun touched the horizon, it lit up the mountain peaks like a blazing fire with the most vibrant colors of yellow, orange, and red all at the same time, colors no artist could ever duplicate. I watched in awe as the sky glowed behind the jagged profile of the mountains. As the sun disappeared, the horizon began to slowly dim, like an ember in a campfire. Unbelievable. God has always been and always will be my favorite artist.

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It was dark when we approached the city of Las Vegas, and the massive expanse of city lights centered around the Strip was a pretty spectacular sight to see as well. We were picked up at the airport by one of the pilots from the fighter sqaudron, and then after we got checked into our hotel, we headed out to dinner with a group of them, including my friend Jake from OCF. To CeCe's and my delight, they agreed to our suggestion of Olive Garden for dinner, so we got to cross off our #1 on the list of restaurants we miss in England.

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The time difference started hitting me while we were eating (it was about 5am in England), and I think I was asleep approximately 30 seconds after we got back to the hotel (luckily I made it to my room and bed). Plans for the next day included several briefings, training, and orientation on base at Nellis. When I stepped out my door just prior to 8am the next morning, I stopped dead in my tracks. Two reasons: a) it was bright daylight (sun doesn't even begin to rise in England in winter until after 8am) and b) this was the view from my doorway:

Mountains! And they are everywhere! I'm glad I was a passenger instead of driving around all day, because every horizon has these huge mountains and I couldn't take my eyes off them. It definitely feels like a desert, though, it is so dry you feel the need to constantly drink water. I'll skip over the details of the briefings and training since that would bore you (though maybe my rambling about other things does too), and just say that we ended the afternoon with a trip to the BX and commissary to pick up some things for the hotel rooms (we have kitchens), then came back to get ready for a dinner out with the squadron.

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They got a couple taxis the size of small buses, and crammed most of us into those with a few groups following in vans. We went to a German restaurant called the Hofbrauhaus, and it was incredible! It is supposed to be a replicate of a restaurant in Munich, and from what I saw of Germany back in September, I think they did an incredible job. Here is a picture of the inside:

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Cavernous decorated ceilings, long wooden tables, costumed beer maids, huge mugs of beer, and a live band made for an awesome atmosphere. Plus, it was really cool to get to hang out with a bunch of new people and get to know some of them better over dinner and a drink rather than the weather counter. After dinner, we walked across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino and hung out there for a while. I didn't gamble, but it was fun to watch some of the guys play blackjack and craps (a game I still do not understand). I headed back to the hotel around midnight with a group of people, so it was not too late a night.

We have today (Saturday) off, but I am still not sure what I am going to do. CeCe and I will probably head to the gym pretty soon, and there is a BBQ at the hotel for dinner, but those are my only plans so far. One of the pilots who used to live here was telling me about Red Rock Canyon and how cool it is to hike, so I'd love to do that, but he had already promised some friends he'd play golf today, so it'll have to wait until the next day off unless I find someone else to go with. I'm also hoping to meet up with college friends Jeremy and Laura at some point, so maybe I'll get in touch with them today. For now it's off to the gym!