Dreaming of a White Easter

On Easter Sunday we attended church with Mary’s brother and sister-in-law, then immediately headed back toward Kansas City. Our goal is to fill two weeks between this, and another event in the Omaha area in mid-April, without having to return to Minneapolis. But we got a cheaper flight out of KCI than out of Omaha.

One expects a normal drive of a couple hours or so between Omaha and KC, especially in April. Some snow was in the forecast, with most reports suggesting something between flurries and an inch. But we were surprised by a major snowstorm that slowed our progress to a crawl at some points, and had us passing multiple accidents and vehicles in ditches. Fortunately, we had left ourselves plenty of time.

We had hoped to spend the extra time eating Easter dinner at a nice restaurant. Instead, we ate a quick Mexican enchilada. We parked our car in the lot of our daughter’s workplace — on a good day, about 15 minutes from the airport. Then, I had my first experience with Uber. It worked well, but the driver had a long, slow trip of it in the snow. Our plane, however, was right on time.

As sharp contrast to the blizzard in Kansas City, it was 85 degrees when we landed in Las Vegas. I should not have been surprised that the first thing encountered upon stepping from the jetway was a block of slot machines, but it still seems out of place at an airport. Even Dubai, the Las Vegas of the Middle East, is not so crass.

Vegas allowed us to practice waiting: Waiting for our luggage at the baggage claim, waiting in line for the shuttle bus to take us to the car rental center, waiting in line to claim our reserved vehicle. It also allowed us to practice driving the same route multiple times: the GPS was a little slow giving us a turnoff and I missed it. Thus we had to take a ground tour around the airport once again before finding out hotel.

Once checked in, we ventured out to a nearby supermarket to stock up for our journey: bread, peanut butter, fruit, beer, wine — all the essentials. Does peanut butter go best with red wine or white? Vegas itself will have to wait. We have other destinations in mind.