Day 6 - The End Part I

---

Well, we both knew this day would come, but I don't think either of us were actually prepared for it. This morning came with the biggest tease ever..... 10'' of new snow at Breck, Vail, & Beaver Creek and it was still coming down! However, it also provided for nasty driving conditions on I-70. So this morning we packed up our things, watched the weather on TV where we watched cars on I-70 sliding into ditches and guard rails and what have you, and then checked the ski reports very sadly. Once we unburied our good friend Petey, and warmed him up for a few minutes we checked out of the room at the good ol' Comfort Suites and grabbed our last Continental Breakfast of the trip.

Then we hit the road... very slowly... When we first got onto I-70 some sections were closed for either adverse conditions or avalanche control, both things that are not fun to drive through. We carried on at an amazing 20 miles per hour, though, and before we knew it we were at the Eisenhower Tunnel. This is supposed to be the place where the weather magically changes and becomes mild on the Denver side, but this was not the case this morning. We were met with snowpack, slush, ice, more ice, chain restrictions, exploded chains all over the road and the occasional car in a ditch. Petey held his own, though, and after about an hour of driving we had fairly defined, clear tire tracks that we could follow, and shortly after that the road cleared to just water run-off and then closer to Denver it became completely dry.

Denver. Flat. Brown. Gross. Not the Rockies. Oh well. We got to Denver International Airport at around noon after our white-knuckle drive in from the high country. We had to first stop and fill up Petey or else they would have charged us $4 a gallon (yikes!) and then we dropped him off at his home (slightly dirtier than when we first met him).

After a quick trip to the airport on the Enterprise bus we checked our luggage (which went surprisingly fast) and went through security (where we both set off the metal detector). We then had some time to kill so we rode around on the train that takes you from terminal to terminal to see what we could find. We ended up finding a Ben & Jerry's and enjoyed some Cherry Garcia as we awaited for our plane to begin boarding. Then we got on the plane and headed to Philly, the city of brotherly love! We'll have more from there. See Ya.

---