Our Journey Home

After having had a very nice visit to Washington, with time to see my kids, grandkids, siblings, Mom, some dear friends and couple of places like the Pike Place Market, Zoo, World Spice Market, and Ted Brown Music, it was time to return home. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:00 am and we had to return our rental car so we left the hotel about 5:45 and arrived at the airport shortly after 6:00 to allow enough time. We were not sure exactly where we were supposed to go to turn in the car or how long that would take and didn’t want to run any chance of being late so decided we would prefer to allow extra time. It was a darn good thing we did that. On the way to the airport we needed to stop and fill up the gas tank on the rental car. The first gas station we stopped at would not take my debit card and would not take Kevin’s credit card either. We decided they just did not want our money so we went to find a gas station that did want our money. We found a station closer to the airport and again it would not take my card but at least it was willing to take Kevin’s card. Of course the gas was a little higher priced than it had been at the first station but at least that task was accomplished.

We got to the airport and followed the signs to the rental car return area. We found that really easily and there was a guy there to check us in which was accomplished before we were even able to get out of the car and get it unloaded. That was the quickest and easiest part of our trip home. We took our bags and made our way into the airport. At the terminal we discovered that of course, we were at the opposite end of the building from where our airline was so we weaved our way through the mass of bodies and luggage to the United counter. We got in line to get checked in. After waiting there for about 15 or 20 minutes we were already a little concerned about how long it was going to take us to get checked in. We arrived at spot in the line where they had a ticket agent who was directing us to go to the end of another line. This new line wound around and around inside the terminal, up the ramp, out the door and down the sidewalk outside. While we had been waiting in the first line we had overheard that there were several people who had missed their flight to Washington DC while waiting in line. We were pretty stressed by this point and rather concerned that we too might miss our flight even with allowing extra time.

We made our way outside and looked at how long the line was. The stress level (at least mine) was increasing. I am much better than I used to be but flying is still stressful for me so the added stress of the long lines and all the waiting was not helping at all. In the process of finding the end of the “five mile” line, we found a line for Curbside Check-in that line did not appear to be nearly as long however it required you to pay $2.00 per bag to check in. I dug around in my purse and had a five dollar bill so we jumped into the shorter curbside check in line. By this point it was almost 7:00. Our “extra” time was slipping away. It really only took about 15 minutes to get through the line and get checked in but it seemed like a lot longer.

Finally checked in we headed to security. The line there did not seem as long, that is until we got to the point where it splits off for the x-ray machines and the metal detectors where it was jam packed with people most of whom seem to have never been through airport security before and had no idea what to do or how to get through. We of course ended up in line behind a family with 3 kids. Not only did the parents not really know how to get through security smoothly but they were trying to teach their kids how to do it as well. Needless to say my stress level was increasing by the minute as was my desire for a cigarette, which the airport was kindly reminding me what seemed like every 30 seconds that I could not smoke in the airport.

We got through security and found our way to the North Satellite of the airport. We got coffee and something to eat before walking to the other end of that part of the airport to our gate. We arrived at our gate at 8:20 and were supposed to board at 8:30. We were a little later than that boarding but it was not to bad, it gave us time to eat our breakfast and for me to get the stress under control some. Once we got in the air, our flight was pretty good until we began to cross the Rocky Mountains where we hit some turbulence, but that is fairly normal. Touch Down! The excitement of the trip home is over, nothing left but getting our bags and the drive home right? Wrong!

We got our bags just fine in fact quicker than we expected to, they were not the last bags onto the carousel this time. We met up with Kevin’s parents who had brought our car to the airport for us to save us almost an hour on our return drive home. They are so great doing stuff like that for us. Jerry (Kevin’s Dad) said that he had checked the fluids in my car and added transmission fluid and antifreeze so we might want to keep an eye on the temperature gauge. They went to catch the city bus back home and we got on the freeway towards home. We had only gone a few miles when the car started to over heat. We got off the freeway and found a Wal-mart. Kevin went in and bought 2 gallons of antifreeze while I watched the water level in the radiator’s over-flow tank. We let it cool down and decided that maybe we should really let it cool while we went to get something to eat. We were a little concerned about how long the normally 3 hour drive might take us and there are not many places to eat along the way. After eating we put in about 1 ½ gallons of antifreeze before it was to the proper level and got back on the freeway.

We hit a couple of pretty good storm cells on our way home. I guess we brought some rain back to Colorado with us from Washington. There was one spot where it was raining so hard that even with the windshield wipers going full blast, you could barely see the road in front of you. Thank goodness Kevin was driving. Between the early morning we had had and the stress, I kept dozing off. We made it a little over half-way home and I woke up. Kevin was having trouble staying awake too so since I had taken a little “cat nap” we switched and I drove the rest of the way home. It was about 5:00 pm mountain time when we got home.

Monday I had to be at work at 8:00 am for driver in-service day. We had the joy of sitting through 6 hours of hearing reminders about rules, regulations, procedures and policies. The one good part of the day was that we had the fire chief and a fire fighter come to our meeting and we got to “play” with fire extinguishers. They started a fire in a metal drum that had been cut down and we got to put it out. Yesterday was spent unpacking and doing laundry to recover from the trip to Washington and start preparing for a trip next weekend to Montrose for a wedding. Amanda will be traveling from Washington to Denver by herself next Saturday while Kevin and I attend the wedding. I am really hoping that her trip home is less eventful than ours was. Kevin’s parents will pick her up at the Denver airport for us on Saturday and we will go get her from them on Sunday. Starting Monday, Kevin has to be in his classroom or in meeting during school hours for the week. I start driving again on Thursday since the kids have to be there for registration, orientation, getting their computers and school supplies. The following Monday school starts regular schedule and summer will officially be over for us. It has been a busy and active summer for all of us and not nearly long enough. I could use a couple more weeks of summer and I am pretty sure Kevin and Amanda would agree but I could be wrong.