A trip to Las Vegas & Los Angeles

During the time when we were in USA, myself and M hit upon a idea to go a trip to LV and LA. We were in Pittsburgh and M's family lived near Milaukee. M insisted we fly together from Chicago to LV. Being christmas time, the flights from PIT to MIL was expensive. Also, given that road trip traverses between many states, the car rental companies declined to provide a car. So we set driving in my car itself. There was a snow blizzard during the journey and the easy looking 9 hr drive took almost 24 hours. By the end of the roadtrip, me and wife were feeling cold, tired. M's family initially expected us for dinner on the first day, breafast, lunch on the second day and finally we reached their house at 4pm, there was enough time to bathe and have some snacks. We started our journey at 430pm to chicago airport from where we were to go to LV. The trip to LV and LA was fantastic. We went to the popular destinations; Universal Studios, Disneyland and almost all the casinos in Las Vegas. The fantasmic show in the disneyland, followed by the fireworks was memorable. It was fun to watch M toss the traffic rules out of the car window, when he clocked 110 mph driving between LA and LV.

On our return to Milaukee, we spent a week at M's place. By then he had cleverly ejected himself out of the earlier plan to drive with me to Pittsburgh. During the week, we visited Chicago multiple times and had a nice time relaxing at M's spacious house. Our return journey was good, we stopped at a Indian restaurant at Chicago for early brunch and were home by 9pm.

Some of the trip highlights:
a)That was my longest ever roadtrip: More than 1300 miles (roundtrip)
b) The thought of driving long distance prompted me to purchase my first cell phone in the USA
c) No GPS...sounds scary in the current day. During the travel to M's house, the yahoo maps cheated us by 40 miles in one instance.
d)Tough driving through the snow blizzard. It was a major psychological and physical drain out of energy. Had to forcefully take a break and relax at a gurati owned motel