Our flight to Las Vegas from Minneapolis had a late departure, by almost an hour. The flight itself was good on a newer Delta plane with entertainment screens which helped the time pass more quickly. Tom and I each had aisle seats across from one another. We wore our masks on the plane, but less than 25% of the passengers did the same.

The flight arrived at 6:30 pm. We drank only bottled water and ate a few little packets of almonds. Tom has insisted I ride in a wheelchair since I was too slow walking after being sick for almost a month with Covid-19 and mainly lying in bed. Poor Tom had to handle the luggage but paid for a trolley to assist, the only place in the world where we’ve had to pay for a trolley.

I should mention that the fabulous helper that wheeled my chair was so conscientious that it shocked us. His name is Lee Paolo Matela. He works for a company called LAS Prospect, and they surely couldn’t hire a better candidate to work for their company. While I waited for Tom to collect the rental car, I emailed the company praising Lee Paolo for his kindness, efficiency, professionalism, and customer service. What a treasure this guy is!

I needed to wait for Tom at entrance #26 on the departure level with the trolley with our bags. He was gone no less than an hour. We knew it would take a long time when the rental car area was far from the airport, requiring transportation on both a bus and a van.

I watched out the window for every car approaching, hoping it was him. Finally, he shows up on foot without a car. What? I was shocked to see him on foot. When he explained that ACE car rental refused him the vehicle, they required a copy of a home utility bill for Nevada residents (which we are) to rent a car. We don’t have a utility bill for a home in Las Vegas. We don’t have a home. Good grief! That’s the weird news!

There we were, exhausted from the lingering effects of Covid-19. We hadn’t eaten anything in 13 hours except for those few nuts, and now we had no transportation. It turned out, a comedy of errors. We had to make our way to a distant area to get in line for the taxi stand. Tom pushed me in the wheelchair, insisting I stay in the chair while I pushed the trolley using his strength from behind me.  This would have been quite the sight to see.

Finally, we found a worker who grabbed a taxi for us, and we were on our way to the Green Valley Ranch Resort and Spa in Henderson, Nevada. How we’d manage to go to Costco, replace Tom’s broken suitcase, and pick up supplies at our mailing service, a 30-minute drive from here, baffled us at that moment. We could barely think straight to come up with a plan. We both agreed to worry about this today instead of last night.

Check-in was relatively painless. A bellman delivered our bags to our lovely hotel room on the 7th floor. Since we’d booked the hotel with Expedia on our site, the best price we could find, we received priority status and received a coupon for 20% off on all of our meals. It looked like we’d be eating at the hotel without a car. Besides, we still didn’t feel well enough to go out to a restaurant or even have a beer or glass of wine.

This week will be one month since we tested positive for Covid-19. So far, we’ve spent 26 days in isolation; two on the ship and the remainder in hotel rooms. Tom’s cough is much better. He’s taken all of the antibiotics as of last night and the last of the cortisone this morning. He’s still using the nebulizer six times a day and will continue for a few more days. His coughing is 75% better and improving each day. That’s good news!

Walking to and from the hotel’s restaurant takes everything we’ve got. I am still getting headaches, occasional fast pulse, and minimal coughing. Of course, both of us are struggling with becoming exhausted from exerting ourselves in any way.

OK. So our big concern is getting our stuff at the mailing service, which has the Costco gift card we received for using Costco Travel for sailing on the Celebrity cruise, during which we got Covid-19, which we’ve intended to use toward the purchase of a new computer for me. The keyboard is dying from overuse. It’s over two years old, and I am ready to upgrade and return to Windows. I can’t bring myself to become a devoted user of Chromebook for the long haul. I need easy access to desktop folders with files that can be easily accessed.

We headed to dinner at 9:00 pm here, 11:00 pm to us, to the Lucky Penny in the resort. It has excellent food and service, and most likely, we’ll have breakfast and dinner there each of the remaining six days we’ll spend in this town, in this hotel. Tom had a fantastic Rueben sandwich with chips (fries), and I had a Cobb salad, both of which we’ve included photos here today.

This morning at breakfast in the same restaurant, savoring delicious meals, we came up with a plan. We’d arrange for a rental car through the hotel’s concierge for one day. After breakfast, we met with Douglas, the Concierge, who, with the greatest of ease, arranged a rental car for us for 24 hours, starting tomorrow morning, for only US $79. At 10:00 am tomorrow, the car will be driven up to the hotel’s valet station, and off we’ll go, no utility bill required. Good grief! Good news!

We’ll return the car tomorrow night and get all of our projects handled; head to our mailing service to pick up our mail which contains the gift card for Costco; then to Costco to use the gift card toward the purchase of my new laptop and Tom’s new suitcase; Walgreens for two Covid-19 tests for our upcoming flights to South Africa, using the US $15 coupons we received for Tom’s US $300 of prescriptions.

Our goal is to continue to rest and recover, which we both see as vital to our recovery. This morning, just walking in the hotel to breakfast used almost 2500 steps registered on my Fitbit. After dinnertime, I’m sure we’ll be up to over 5000 steps which equals over two miles. Based on how we’re still feeling, we’d never consider walking two miles while we’re still recovering. Once we both feel better, we’ll gradually amp up our activity levels and exercise.

We aren’t looking forward to the difficult upcoming two travel days back to Marloth Park. We have an over six-hour layover in Newark, followed by the 15-hour flight and having to spend the night in Johannesburg, to avoid the risk of the excessive number of carjackings after dark, on the N4 highway from the airport to Marloth Park.

When we leave Las Vegas on May 22, we’ll have to get up at 4:00 am to get to the airport for the international flight and then again at 4:00 am when we leave Johannesburg the following day.

We’re anxious to be in our new house in the bush to get back to some semblance of “normal life” among our human and animal friends in the bush.

As lovely as this resort is, it doesn’t feel like a “holiday” as much as it feels like another hotel room in which to recover from this dreaded virus. All we can say, at this point, is to do whatever possible to protect yourself from this virus. Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky. It could have been worse, much worse. For that, we are grateful. The rest? An annoyance and gross and costly inconvenience. We can recover from this!

Take care, everyone!

Photo from one year ago today, May 16, 2021: