On the Road with the Iowa Blog Cabin...Las Vegas

My work has sent me to Las Vegas this week. Yeah, I know. It's rough. I'm staying at Paris Las Vegas - a nice hotel, if you've never been here. I took the pic of the Eiffel Tower last night. I love traveling (especially when it's not for work). Maybe I'm getting old, but I am really getting tired of flying. Correct that. I'm really getting tired of the other people who fly. I suppose if I was on my own private corporate jet, it wouldn't be a big deal at all to fly.

Case in point - yesterday. A flight from Dallas to Las Vegas - two hours and twenty-five minutes. I sit down (aisle seat, as always), turn off my phone, turn on my iPod (Winston Churchill, by John Keegan - audiobook) and get settled in.

As I'm looking down the aisle I noticed a really, really tall, skinny guy coming down the aisle. He stops next to me and begins to sit down in the aisle seat directly next to me. He sits down, knees practically on his chest, and opens a small backpack up. He pulls out these GIGANTIC headphones - I'm talking the size of those nerdy 80's style ear-muffs my mom use to make my sister's wear in the wintertime. He puts them on. I kind of chuckle. He reaches in the bag again and pulls out three small pillows and begins to strategically stuff them in the sides of the seat and behind him to, apparently, give him more support. Whatever. Once more, he reaches into the backpack and pulls out one of those 'U' shape neck pillows people sometimes use. You know, the ones that look like the miniature "boppy pillows" mothers use to feed their babies. He settles in. I roll my eyes and chuckle again.

He kind of squirms his body a little as if he was settling into the seat - and leans his head back - listening to "the Best of NPR," no doubt. Just when I was sure he was finished and the plane had just taken off, he reaches into his bag one last time...and pulls out a banana. Seriously. He peels back the banana, leans back, closes his eyes and eats the banana right there...it was sick.

I looked over at the guy immediately next to me on the plane - who had also been watching the scene, "What kind of guy eats a banana on an airplane? I asked. He laughed. "I have no idea," he said with a smile and a thick Texas accent

It was one of the weirdest things I've witnessed in a long time. A 7' tall man, on a plane, with a boppy pillow around his neck, listening to headphones - all while eating a banana with his eyes closed. Craziness.

Reporting live from Las Vegas, this is YOUR Iowa Blog Cabin.