Flights and rides, momo with family, the city of lights loses its glitter [Sat 3]

 Two 2.5 hour flights and a 2.5 hour layover in Denver -- designed as if to exactly thwart an individual's attempt to get some rest and peaceful sleep during one's journey -- got us to Denver. We got some McDonald's breakfast at Denver, because stupid Quizno's wouldn't open.

At Dallas, newlywed A and SB picked us up. We drove to downtown, got some coffee -- I had the regular hot chocolate which would be the origin of my stomach troubles for the next many days. Took photos, realized downtown dallas was up-and-coming and increasingly turning into a thriving metropolitan, though it didn't look like too many people lived in there. Then we drove to grocery store, get some supplies for momomaking. Heard tonne of funny stories about how they met and got to know each other, mostly embarrassing tales o AD. In our 6-hour Dallas stay, we must have spend 3.5 hours driving. I didn't mind because either way we were interacting and spending quality time with the chief guests.

With raw materials from the Indian store, and Kroger's, we went to SB's house, where she lived with her brother, mom, two incredibly cute dogs one of whom was a schnouzer, and a cat. It was a massive house with a large yard...classic new texas construction. Spent the next two hours catching up with everybody, making momos, eating momos, taking photos, and making plans for a couple of months from now on when we'd see them again.

Then we drove back to the airport, an hourlong trip. AD's brother P joined us too. The flight was delayed by an hour or so, and at this point I was already feeling peckish due to lack of sleep. However, our flight from DEN was not to be touched because apparently all the flights in the airlines system were delayed. Finally got into the plane, and took a 2.5 hour flight to Denver, the second one in 12 hours.

Back in Denver, which had become a familiar hunting grounds for us, we decided to deplane even though we technically didn't need to because the airliner that had brought us from Dallas was the same that'd be flying to our destination, Vegas. Still, to use the restroom and use the charging ports, we deplaned, chilled for a solid 2-hours, and went back in. And flew to vegas, a 2 hour journey by air.

At vegas, we took an online-taxi ride to the strip. Spent some time in Cosmo, looked around the town. Got dinner at momofuku, my third dinner at David Chang's popular and expensive chain. Went about casino's, got little drinks, and got very very disappointed. Paris was nice, and a cute dueling piano bar there was the best part of the trip. Everything else seemed so fake, so desperate, so coming-apart-at-the-seams, I didn't enjoy the experience very much.

Tired and annoyed, and almost cheated out of a lot of money in our attempt to get into a club, we rested back at Cosmo, got a taxiride, and went to the airport at 7am, not having slept for even ten minutes through the night. There SB got maybe 2 hours of sleep on the benches, I couldn't make myself sleep because head hurt like hell. Got the flight finally, felt awful, and flew back to Seattle, to land at about Midday.