January 28, 2019
Flying to Vegas With a Dog
My ticket guy had found some amazing flight deals to Vegas routing via Vancouver Canada. There were also many advertisements for flight volunteers to take dogs to Vancouver so I figured why not give it a try. It would be doing a good deed and also a somewhat selfish reason to have Canadian immigration focusing on the dog and not focusing on the fact that a single white male was flying from Asia. The bicycle also would be overlooked or so I hoped.
The flight was very long and tiring with some beautiful views on arrival. I would first need to suffer the procedure of Canada border security before then checking my luggage in again (without the dog) on the next flight to Vegas. The dog made it necessary to do this, otherwise I could have just transferred through to US bound flights right away and gone through CBP pre clearance. Well the dog caused a bit of an ordeal alright as my case was complicated and they asked a ton of questions like who the owner of the dog was and so on. Everything went well and my plan was perfectly executed since the Canadian officials asked nothing about my own misadventures or why my passport was full of stamps from Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia. In the past this has always raised eyebrows so I needed a dog to act as a distraction.
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Since this was my hometown I did manage to spend a few days with family and friends and make the most of it before getting on the flight to Vegas. That went very smoothly, they did a cursory check of my bike and X-rayed it, then I went through US pre clearance. Compared to my own country this was a breeze. They only wanted to do the purpose of the trip to Vegas and I told them I'd meet my brother there. He would be there a few days after my arrival. Then they asked when I was coming back and I told them I would go to Mexico next and then back to China where I worked. And that was that.
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On arrival I set up the bike then foolishly spent $20 on the slot machines at the baggage carousel. That won't happen again as those are some of the tightest slots in all of Vegas. It could have been my taxi money as well but was now forced to walk the bike to the nearest gas station with an air compressor.
That turned out to be a huge ordeal as I first had to walk over 3km and needed $1.50 worth of quarters and I failed twice to get the tires pumped up. Finally I realized the hose was busted and so I would need to find another gas station. That done I then got to my Airbnb well after midnight and was able to successfully check in from the instructions and a bit of WiFi at a Starbucks that saved the day.
Today's ride: 15 km (9 miles)
Total: 15 km (9 miles)
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