Thanks to Buckeye_in_sc for his Olives recommendation, KC Scott for his Il Mulino and Cosmopolitan recommendations and Roach for the longer Hoover dam tour suggestion. We went to/on each.
Here is the view from our balcony at the hotel.
Thanks for the hints for dealing with the hotel KC Scott. I had to ask for the upgrade but glad I did. The welcome gifts were on the counter when we arrived.
The room itself was nice, but it was in a hotel full of hipsters. Not sure why a hotel room needs a full kitchen with no pots, pans or other kitchen items, but whatever.
So Tuesday before heading to dinner we took a few photos from the balcony. (The 'Seaters and our scheduling coordinator.) Mrs Seater and Kristen went to HS together and Kristen runs the office side of the company.
On Thursday the three of us met with a small manufacturing company at their place of business. Across the parking lot was this place that some might recognize.
Friday morning the Seaters headed to Hoover dam while Kristen went to the spa. This is the new bridge and the view from the new bridge.
AZ side spillway and tunnel.
A few other Dam shots prior to the tour:
Dam Tour shots:
Tracking cracks inside the dam
Joint stress and movement gauge
At dinner at Olives the ladies ran into someone they knew from college.
Sunday came pretty quickly after a successful trip but the excitement wasn't done yet. Our plane was about 25 minutes late arriving and as such we pushed back from the gate about 20 minutes late. We then immediately pulled right back into the gate. Turns out the #1 engine wouldn't start. 20 minutes later the starter had been changed and we tried it again. This time the engine fired right up. Off we taxied to the departure runway 07L. Since we were on an older 737-500 model the pilots had to switch the AC off so as to have the max thrust available for takeoff in the 107 degree temps. After a pretty long take off roll we are airborne. As we are climbing thru maybe 3500, the AC comes back on for a second and then there is a sudden loss of thrust and everyone feels their upper body move forward as the plane starts to decelerate.
Sitting in the exit row window on the left hand side I immediately looked at the wing for a few clues. Right away I saw the flaps being retracted and felt the yaw to the left. My reaction was the #1 engine just had a pretty big failure. I tried to look out the right side and saw the outboard spoilers were up slightly. Now I am sure the #1 engine failed. By this time the guys had us level, but we couldn't stay there for long with the terrain around. Pretty quickly thereafter we made a right followed by another right shortly thereafter. Now we are headed back to the airport. Plane seems to be handling pretty well from where I am sitting so I spend a few moments trying to calm the two ladies. Pretty soon we turn final for runway 07R and I hear the #2 engine go way up in thrust. Guys are prolly struggling at this point to keep it on the centerline with all the extra yaw. They put it down right in the middle about 3000 feet down. Perfect for the situation when you have 12000 plus available.
When I look out the window we are the leaders in a parade:
View out the right side, excuse dude's lip decoration:
Here is the flight aware screen shot of our flight. Notice the bottom line shows the plane going from Dallas to El Paso. The next line up shows the plane going from El Paso to Las Vegas. Then you can see the plane was on the gate for an hour plus while the starter was changed. Then the third line shows a diversion. The fourth line shows we were gone from the gate and then back to another gate 17 minutes later.
After that they swapped us into a new plane and we made it home pretty late. Props to Southwest for the email I had the next morning which included a $250 voucher for travel on Southwest.
All in all Vegas was slightly better than I expected, but I don't need to return anytime soon. Some food was really good, some was good, some sucked, but it all was expensive.
