Laughlin River Run

We spent last weekend participating in the 2013 Laughlin River Run motorcycle rally.  This is like a mini Sturgis. We went with our friends Marty & Vickie Davis.

We didn't ride down due to weather, the guys tried to figure out a way to trailer them down but the time frame didn't work with all of us working.

We spent Wednesday night with our friends as we had a very early flight out of Billings at 6:00 am on Thursday morning.  We had to be at the airport by 4:00 am so that we could get through security.  Didn't get much sleep, stayed up visiting until 11:00 pm and then we had to be up by 3:00 am.  Our friend Dale Butterfield picked us up and took us to the airport.  He said he wanted to do this that way we wouldn't have to pay for parking.  That is a true friend.

It was a good thing we got their early, about 10 minutes later security was backed up with people catching flights.  We had a quick cup of coffee and shared a roll at the airport.  Our past experiences with Alaska Air hasn't been good, but this time we had no problems.  On this leg we went from Billings to Seattle, had about 1 1/2 hour layover then on to Vegas.  We landed in Vegas at 11:00 am, got on the shuttle to the car rental place.  Marty & Vickie made the reservations for the car rental and we split the cost.  The car we got was a white Nissan Altima, not as fancy as Mary's.

Got the maps, GPS programmed and made our way.  Marty wanted to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Henderson that he liked many years ago, but couldn't remember the name.  He had sort of an idea where it was.  Needless to say we couldn't find it.  Oh well, we did find one called Rubio's in Henderson and it was very good.  Managed to get on the road to Laughlin by GPS, which it really wasn't that hard to figure out.

We got into Laughlin around 2:00 pm.  Found our hotel and got checked in.  Traffic was pretty busy with all the bikers coming in.  Our hotel was the River Palms, it was nice but you could tell it was on of the older ones.  After checking in and regrouping we then made our way down to registration to pick up our packets.  Registration was at the Riverside Hotel which was about a mile walk down the little strip.  We walked, would have been too hard to find parking down there. It was also very hot temperatures in the mid 90's.  We are not used to this hot this time of year.  We did meet up with the group from Billings who did ride their bikes all the way.

The weekend we spent wandering around, looking at all the vendor tents and t-shirt tents.  Had a good time but it go to the point where everything starting looking the same.  We were there two days before we figured out that the river walk goes all the way up and down the river side of all the casinos.  That made the temperature a bit cooler.  We did ride the water taxi once.  Did gamble a bit, won enough money to pay for dinners.

Our last day we drove up to Vegas.  Our flight out on Monday morning was at 10:00 am, this way we didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn, we could sleep in a little bit.  It was recommended that we turn the car in around 7:00 am, that would give us time to do the check in bit, catch the shuttle to the terminal and get through security.

Checking the car in was a breeze, we were directed where to stop, they scanned the car and we were free to go.  It took us longer to get our stuff out of the trunk.  The process went very smooth, got on the shuttle, made it to the terminal, got checked in for our flights and boarding passes printed.  Security was a breeze, no lost car keys this time.

On our return flight home we went Vegas, Portland then Billings.  We had about a 3 hour lay over in Portland so had plenty of time to eat and just relax a bit.  Our flight was on time landing in Billings, in fact we were about a half hour early.  Dale picked us up and took us back to Marty & Vickie's house.  We got back to Hardin around 8:15 pm.

Had a good time and would like to go back.  We took our rookie lumps on this trip but now we are wiser.  We would most definately go back.  The guys were talking about taking turns doing this and then Sturgis.  I have my photos and will be getting them up on picasa here soon.