So it turned out, the weekend my husband Anthony booked my 30th birthday trip, was also the big Mayweather vs. McGregor fight. It was bound to be epic.
Our flight was out of Grand Rapids through Southwest Airlines. We only book through Southwest now, I keep on gaining points… someday I’ll have a free flight! Where should I go with that!? Plus, when you fly out of a smaller airport like the Gerald R. Ford International Airport, you are going to have a layover somewhere. Most of our flights out of GRR on Southwest have a layover at Midway in Chicago, and that airport is just easy.
Our flight left Grand Rapids around 6:15pm EST. Naturally, we arrived to the airport two hours early, always thinking its is going to be busy… Nope… We check in and get through security in 10 minutes MAX! What to do now? Well, of course drink at the airport bar. Being in Beer City USA, it’s guaranteed the airport will have some good beer. We ordered a beer each, ate some delicious pretzels and beer cheese dips, then ordered probably two more beers each before our flight boarded. We had a quick puddle jump to Midway and landed at 6:00pm CST.
I got off the plane wanting to continue by buzz. So we found the bar nearest our connecting flight. Our flight was delayed 45 minutes and we still had about 2 more hours to spare until we had to board. Sitting at the bar there were a lot of people going to Vegas. Being socially lubricated I decided to talk to everyone around me. We struck a deep conversation with a man who was all about Floyd Mayweather Jr. I didn’t have much thoughts on the fight. I should have and Floyd is a hometown boy, but all you hear about it, I just didn’t care. He’s a dirtbag… but I want to support a hometown boy… I was so torn (not really).
During our conversation, Anthony and I became best friends with the guy. He even bought us two more beers. We weren’t buzzed at this point… we were drunk! All of a sudden I freak out and asked what time it was! We missed our boarding! We were in A group and C group was boarding. Anthony and I were running to the terminal. Anthony is naturally loud so the Southwest employee almost didn’t let Ant on the plane because he was “too drunk”. I had to vouch for him that he was fine, he’s just a loud personality. Ha. She almost believed me. Once we got on the plane, we found seats in the way back of the plane. I sat next to a guy going to his Bachelor party in Vegas. I was so into talking to him, the poor guy probably just wanted a nice quiet flight. Lucky for him, I passed out before the flight took off!
The best part about passing out on flights, is that they go by so fast! I woke up maybe about 20 minutes before we landed. Ant asked me what I wanted to do once we got to our hotel, the Flamingo. I was still sleepy and a little crabby so I just wanted to go to the hotel, go play our favorite slot 100 Lions, and go to bed to prepare for our weekend. He told me that he wanted to eat and that he scheduled a scavenger hunt for that night. I thought it was kind of weird, because we landed around 9:30pm, we wouldn’t get to our hotel until at least 10:30, so the scavenger hunt was at 11:30ish? I just brushed it off because it’s Vegas and it operates at all hours of the day. On top of it, Ant was stressing a bit because our flight was delayed, so we were getting in later than expected. In my mind, I thought we had plenty of time until 11:30pm.
We checked in to the hotel. Anthony sprung for the GO Suite, and upgraded room at the Flamingo. How romantic! We always stay at the Flamingo when we go to Vegas. One, it’s affordable; and two, it’s by everything. It’s an easy walk to get to restaurants, the promenade, other hotels, the Linq (where we got engaged back in 2015), has the best pool and it has nickel beers at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville from 5pm-6pm! The Flamingo is really the best place to stay in Vegas. Try it! Do it!
It was time to go get some food before our scavenger hunt adventure. It’s tradition for us to go to the Yard House on the Linq Promenade. We walked the 5 minutes in the nice dry heat. I was still a little tired and grumpy, not really wanting to be out. I put on a happy face, because we were in Vegas. We walked up to the hostess and Anthony said we have reservation for “Anthony” (t was really our last name, but I’m not sharing that with you crazy peeps). I blurted “We have a reservation? When did you do that? We can be at our reservation late?” Anthony just ignored me and started following the hostess to our table.
We walked around a few corners and MY SISTER AND BROTHER-IN-LAW WERE SITTING AT A TABLE! Anthony surprised me by having my sister and her husband join us for this weekend! I was so excited to see them there. They live in Minnesota and have four kids. I only get to see them a few times a year for holidays and any big events for their kids. It turns out they have been at the restaurant for a few hours waiting for us since our flight was late… They had a few beers on the table each! We were sitting there being giddy all together, catching up. Then a guy comes to the table and says “Hey! When did you get here!?” MY BROTHER SURPRISED ME, TOO! My brother lives just outside of Boston and he made the trip in for my 30th birthday celebration! Needless to say, I have the best husband! He planned all of this four months before the trip and he kept it a secret. (Anyone who knows Anthony knows he CAN NOT keep a secret!)
It hit me after a few minutes. We were not going to do a scavenger hunt. Ant just needed me to leave the hotel room so he could surprise me! Ahhh, it all makes sense now!
Stayed tuned for part 2 of the shitshow… It only gets better (or worse, depending on how your look at it) from here! Be ready for pools, too much drinking, Britney, big wins, $600 meals, bungalows, pale Irish men, and exhausted people…
Married without Kids 