Las Vegas
Had a failed attempt to go on standby for an earlier flight home, chatted with the gate agents who said that flights today were unusually full out of Las Vegas. My intended flight was oversold by 3, every single Southwest flight today was also sold out, at that point I gave up checking other airlines and decided to stick to my original flight in the afternoon. At least Metro Pizza inside Terminal 3 is almost edible for airport pizza, and not anymore expensive than the crappy bagel place also in the terminal.
With a few hours to kill, and having eaten too much all weekend, decided to walk to a nearby strip mall for lunch. Vegas had cooled down today but was still mid-70s and sunny, so the ~2 mile walk to Pho Thanh Huong was not bad but not ideal. Gorilla Sushi was technically closer but AYCE sushi sounded less appealing than bun bo hue. Not that Pho Thanh Huong's bun bo hue was the best, but for a little local strip mall restaurant, they did a decent enough job with it, although I might skip their nem nuong as that was only okay. And like many small businesses, they are clearly hurting for people-- the existing staff are working their butts off, but still easy to see they're significantly short-staffed.
Lunch and then the walk back through suburban hell to the airport, then took a bunch of calls in the unexpectedly pleasant shade outside of the terminal in Las Vegas. Ducked back into the terminal when it was time for my flight, then a quick flight back to Los Angeles. Always fun to see how artificial-- how much humanity has done to the landscape-- taking off from LAS, with golf courses and square grids and greenery intermixed with boxes of desert and reclaimation ponds and mines. Finally, arrival in LAX had one last fun sighting, the orca livery 737 MAX 9 of Alaska Airlines. Fun!