GREYHOUND TO LA

Hey! How cool is this......writing  & posting my blog on a Greyhound bus to los Angeles !!!!!
So after months of concern, god knows what in phone calls and a fax to the hotel from Amtrak, we finally.....after some resistance....got on the rescheduled Greyhound with tickets for a later bus that didn't now go where we wanted to be. Our tickets were printed in Dec. and there wasn't time to have new one's sent when the schedule changed in march . what we were sent was an Amtrak voucher that had to be scanned in an Amtrak machine, of which there are non in Vegas and were now routed onto an Greyhound bus. When I showed the tickets to the Greyhound staff at the bus station 2 weeks ago they said that they weren't valid for any of their services, thus initiating endless calls to Amtrak and the american booking agents with everybody saying that there was an agreement in place for Greyhound to honour Amtrak tickets....only  nobody was telling the guys who let you on the buses on the ground. Eventually, Amtrak sent an email to the agents telling Greyhound personnel to honour the bookings which I had faxed to the Stratosphere as a hard copy.... and retrieving that was a challenge....so we turned up at 07.30 at terminal this morning which resembled a refugee camp.  My first plan had been to sit tight and then blag our way on when the bus arrived, but when I had to queue up at the ticket desk to get sandwiches I decided to open the batting straight away. Surprisingly, whilst they wanted to check us on the later bus which still runs somewhere, the fax proved invaluable and it was a stroke of luck that I had decided to queue at the desk as all stowed luggage had to be checked and tagged otherwise it couldn't go.........unlike National Express who just chuck everything in the locker willy nilly.
So we had 3 luggage tags for the 08,00 to LA ( despite our revised fax showing it as the 07.50 to LA)
the bus arrived at 07.45 at gate 5, and we were told to take all tagged luggage to gate 4, which we did, then disabled, children & seniors were allowed to board. At the desk we caused mass consternation from the ticket inspectors and lots of shouting around until someone yelled Amtrak tickets were good to go but take whole ticket and stub so with much relief  we saw our cases being loaded and we left at 8.15.
And the bus has WiFi and as the desert is endless and flat I'd thought I'd while away some time writing this. We waved to  D&M as we passed the Monte Carlo and sent them a text to say we were on the bus,; the air con was cranked up at 9am after complaints and the GF is now shivering in her fleece and stamping her feet to keep warm....... with the sun beating in through the window as it will hit 100 again today, I think its just pleasant. Due in LA at 13.25 ( v.comfy bus)  and then taxi to the Beverly Garland for 3 nights until we get the train to Chicago.