Day 1 - To Seattle

Our car picked us up at 7:45 a.m. and deposited us early at the airport with our four suitcases, two carryons and two rucksacks.  American had upgraded us to first class to Los Angeles where we were catching an Alaskan Air flight to Seattle.  We could have flown non-stop on Alaskan Air (the only airline that flys non-stop from Las Vegas) but, for some unknown reason, we decided to suddenly be cheap and didn't want to pay the $25 per piece luggage fee they charge.

Our bags fly free on American, we get to check in at the first class podium where the lines are short and we get to go through the first class line for TSA.  So American seemed a win-win situation.

Well, the luggage fee gods were circling.  We landed in Los Angeles and then sat for over an hour waiting for our gate to clear.  Our gate had a broken down plane at it so they moved us to another gate.  The plane at that gate had some kind of "loading issue", so we sat and sat and sat on the tarmac.  Meanwhile, we suddenly realized that when we disembarked, we would need to walk from American, go across LAX to Alaskan Air's terminal.  Our allotted walking time was getting shorter and shorter as we sat.

Finally, we pulled up to the gate but had to wait another five minutes for the door to open.  I guess they weren't expecting us?  We decided that we weren't going to kill ourselves getting to the connection since we would have to go through security again and who knew how long that would take, so there was no way we would make the flight.  It was an easy, quick walk across LAX and into the Alaskan Air terminal.  This terminal looks like something that was built in the 60's and packed wall to wall with passengers.  We got through TSA quickly and bounded to our gate where passengers were luckily still loading.  We found overhead bin space and settled in for the 2 1/2 hour flight.

Seattle's airport looks as old as LAX.  Very dismal......Next piece of good news was our luggage had missed our connection.  Alaskan Air guys said it was American's fault.  Called American and they said it was delivered in plenty of time for Alaskan to get it our plane.   Deep sigh.......

Well, at least, they knew where the luggage was and would be joining us within an hour on the next flight from LAX.  Our option was to wait for it or they would deliver it to our hotel by midnight.  Since we didn't want to awoken in the middle of the night and we also didn't want some delivery guy to have access to our luggage, we decided to wait.  Luckily, an hour later, we had our luggage.

Our limo was there in five minutes and off we went to the Alexis Hotel near the Pike Place Market.  We checked in with no issues and our room is very nice.  Its got a huge living area including a dining table and fireplace.  We washed up and then went for a short walk(Jeff wanted me to add that it was ALL uphill) heading towards our dining location.

We ate at Wild Ginger.  Terrific food and drinks.  I started out with a Novo Fogo Negroni (Novo Fogo Silver Cachaca, Carpano Antica Vermouth, Campari, Damiana) which was one of the best drinks I've ever had.  Jeff went with a Pomotini which turned out too strong for him but all the better since he gave me what he couldn't finish.  We had several skewers of satay, some made of grilled scallops and the rest called "beef alot" (ground beef, peanuts, garlic, onion, lemongrass and turmeric, wrapped in fresh la lot leaves,grilled and served with a spicy dipping sauce with peanuts).  The rest of the meal was just as good.

We strolled back to our hotel (all downhill says Jeff) and turned in.