Even though this Vegas vacation didn't go at all the way I planned, we still tried to make the best of the challenging and scary situation. I was excited for the past three months getting to visit one of my favorite places, Las Vegas, for my first time in 12 years. I was excited to see my favorite band, Pearl Jam. We went to Newark Airport to depart as planned. While we were getting ready to board, I realized I must've lost my belt during the TSA check through gate. Not the end of the world, I recently bought it at Marshall's for $12.95. I felt rushed by the TSA agent as I was trying to pick up all of my stuff. We joked if that's the worst thing I lose on a Vegas vacation, we'll take that as a major win. We boarded our United Airlines direct flight to Las Vegas. During the middle of the flight while I was moving around in my chair, all of the sudden things felt different. I realized, my wallet wasn't in my pocket anymore. I asked the row behind me if they happened to see my wallet, no such luck. The second we got off the plane, we immediately asked United Las Vegas to contact their coworkers in New Jersey asking if anyone found a wallet. Negative. I then called Newark Airport. Their recordings told me to call TSA New Jersey. I called TSA New Jersey, their voicemail message let me leave a voicemail, but recommended I fill out an online missing form. After filling out the online missing form on my phone, we then proceeded to Las Vegas. My friend Brad was staying at MGM, where Pearl Jam was playing, I was staying at nearby Planet Hollywood. I haven't been to Planet Hollywood since my first time ever going to Vegas back when it was called Aladdin. My first time ever visiting Vegas, my room at the hotel had a gorgeous view of The Bellagio water show, and I was immediately hooked. The Bellagio water show is one of my favorite things to see in Vegas.
After the scary rough start, we agreed to go to our separate hotels, and meet up again later. I ventured over in the 97 degree sunny weather with all of my luggage down the street to Planet Hollywood. After roaming around a little lost for a few minutes, I finally found their lobby to check into my room.
They informed me I couldn't check into my hotel room without my photo identification. I explained to them this decision was making me homeless on top of losing my wallet. They didn't care. I then had to call Brad, who thank goodness I was traveling with him. He was able to switch his hotel room from one bed to two.
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It was a tough several days. I wasn't hearing back from anyone. We kept trying to reach out to some friends brainstorming now on how to get me successfully through TSA at Las Vegas airport just so I could fly home safely.
We had some great advice to get their four hours early, and that even prescription medication can count as a form of identification with it having your name and address, on top of your boarding pass. Since I had my roundtrip boarding pass, that proved I had to have had my photo identification in New Jersey in order to get through TSA in the first place making it all the way to Vegas. After being taken off to the side for some additional screening where they did a deep dive into my belongings that I still had left on me, they let me go through. It felt like that was the first time I could breathe my whole time in Vegas, knowing I was safely on the path back home, and not stranded without anything on me. I can't express this sickening, scary, helpless feeling when you don't have any kind of identification on you whatsoever. You feel like a ghost. Quite often the only place I honestly felt safe was in our hotel room. While you try to not think of worst case scenarios, at one point I thought "Oh my goodness, what if something happened to me and I had go to a hospital without anything at all whatsoever?"
Long story short, I was too upset and stressed to even go to the Pearl Jam concert. I wasn't in the mood for it. In hindsight, Pearl Jam was promoting their new album that I haven't been able to listen to too much yet, (to many to's and too's in that, my apologies to anyone trying to suffer through my poor grammar in this one.) When I saw their setlist the next day, it made me feel a little less worse since I only knew slightly more than half of the songs they played.
On a lighter note, Brad lent me some cash so we could at least have some fun gambling through the weekend. It was usually sunny and 100 degrees, painfully hot for us. We basically just stuck to MGM and the Hooters Casino across the street. At Hooters Casino you could bet 25 cents per hand on the bar video games, and get free beers. Success. Entertainment for a couple of hours each afternoon at least.
Friday night we agreed to go to at least one great steakhouse while we were there. One of my many favorite parts of Las Vegas for over 20 years has been the food. It's one of the best dining cities in America, where everything you could ever want, they will have nearby. In Vegas everything is so heavily concentrated on and around The Strip, there are tons of amazing restaurants. If you're a casino without fun dining options, it would be challenging because all of the other nearby casinos likely do have those options. Brad and I went to Wolfgang Puck's Bar & Grill at MGM. I had a NY Strip medium rare that was absolutely fantastic. It's pricey, but I do recommend Wolfgang for sure!
We landed Saturday night. I was so fried by Saturday night at 9:45 when I walked through my door. Ironically The Hangover movie was on. I figured, why not at this point.
Sunday I kept it low key, just trying to get through the day until Monday. Saturday night TSA in Jersey were encouraging, saying that TSA office isn't open on weekends anyway and that I could call them back Monday morning. I checked my Amex app and could see there wasn't any activity on it at all since Wednesday morning since I lost my wallet. That was encouraging and gave me a little more hope. I didn't even tell my parents anything about my challenging situation because I didn't want them to worry about me, until I got home.
I'm so happy to say Monday morning at 8:30 I received a text from TSA that they had my wallet!!! All I had to do was drive to Union at their TSA lost and found office and pick it up.
Monday was also day one of me getting a rental car, while my Jeep Compass gets repaired. Just over a month ago my car was hit and run on unfortunately. I called Enterprise and learned even though I had my passport on me, that wasn't enough. They needed my license. I assured them that since this is through my insurance, it should prove that I'm both licensed and insured. Still, not enough. I've heard that plenty this past week or so.
Thank goodness for my Dad, Padre. He said "Steve if you haven't dropped off your car yet, just drive there now in your car and get everything!" I said "you're right! Once I at least get my wallet back everything else gets a million times easier!" TSA in Union at Keane University was fantastic. They were able to help me get my wallet once I showed them my tracking number.
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It wasn't the best week of my life, but it could have been far worse. It was a great remind for us to try and not take little things for granted. Just hitting the ATM a few minutes ago felt like a great back scratch.
Now my iHeart coworkers have such a great sense of humor. They're taking me to Yankee Stadium to go to the Yankee game tonight. Me, the Boston boy. #WhatCanPossiblyGoWrong?