Thursday, 3/19/2009.

We started our voyage by walking to the MAX red line. It's only 6 blocks, but it was difficult- one pack weighs 40lbs and is very awkward- there's no good way to hold it.

Our flight out was okay, though there was some interesting drama beforehand. Alaska Air was desperately trying to bump two people from the plane. We put ourselves on the volunteer list, and were apparently at the top of the list. They offered us $200 each if we'd wait to take a flight out the following morning. We said we either wanted to go tonight (through another airline?) or go first class tomorrow.

First class was full for the following morning, so we declined the vouchers and told them we'd take the flight. As we were boarding, the counter agent literally came running to us and pulled us from the line. They had a lead on some tickets through Southwest, (not my favorite- sort of Greyhound of the sky). Fine. At least we'd make it to Vegas tonight. Unfortunately those tickets literally got sold during the middle of the process.

So we boarded the plane, being some of the last people to onboard. Even as we were sitting down, they were on the plane's intercom asking for volunteers to come off the plane. Crazy! Since we weren't willing to wait to fly down the following day, and they weren't willing to offer anything over $200 each, we walked away from the deal. It's interesting- we probably would have taken it for $250 each, and certainly would have taken it for $300 each. Asking to fly first class the following morning should have told them we were willing to take a deal. I wonder if they have a "no-barter" policy?

We arrived at LAS airport without incident, though we did accidentally stay on the People Mover for too long. That meant we stayed on it for three one-way trips. Oh well!

Even with the delay due to the People Mover, we still had to wait for luggage for at least 15 minutes. I don't know why it took so long. Still, we had plenty of time to catch our shuttle to St. George, since it left about an hour after our plane arrived.

The ride on the shuttle was fine, besides having to listen to inane comments from other passengers. I just put on my earplugs and tuned them out. We arrived in St. George around 1am (3 hours after leaving Las Vegas, since we lost an hour due to the time change), took the truck my parents had left at the shuttle drop, and got to the house around 1:30am. That's well past my bedtime, but it was definitely nice to get to our destination.