Advertisement
Published: July 18th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Untitled Greetings everyone! We have made it....well, not all the way to Keystone, but to Douglas, Wyoming which is our first stop on this 6 day trip-o-fun. It has been a long day filled with lots of waiting in lines, sitting, and making many last minute turns on the correct street.
It started off this morning when we all pleasantly awoke at 4am...wayyyy before any of the birds were chirping. Our game plan last night was to get on the road at 4:30, but in reality, we all knew that the goal was very unrealistic. There was a brief moment in time when everything was going according to plan upon our departure from 107 Windy Willow Way; however, Pamela decided to take the trash out the front door and had the garbage bag ever so gracefully knock into our floor vase holding some decadent flowers. From there it was not looking pretty.
We eventually made it out the door and on the road by 4:45 with a 6:55 departure time (going the opposite way of our previous year's trips to Ocracoke). There was a slight mist accompanying our ride to the Vista airport parking which we made our first
wrong turn due to Pamela's lack of navigating skills. Eventually we dropped off the Big Dog Avalanche with our Jamaican mon' friends and arrived at airport at around 5:45. With the reassurance from Pamela all week that noone would be at the airport at this unGodly hour of the morning, we were all in for a surprise when the Continental outside check-in had a huge line which seemed as if it did not move. We all got in the line and stood there for 40-45 minutes and were finally checked in.
Once walking through the entrance we ran towards security check-in for gate 98. Again, we found the same problem as before....LINES! With our departure time lingering, all of us were beginning to feel nervous yet again. Luckily the line was moving 10 times faster than the check-in line, but Gary did not find this to be fast enough. He asked several travelers if we could oh-so-graciously cut them in line....we were 2 for 2 until we reached a family of 3 who rudely declined. As the great Koddenberg family that we are, we decided to stick it out and wait till it was our turn. FINALLY we made
it to our security check. With our shoes off and carry-ons in the bin, we all walked through the metal detector cleanly and went to retrieve our bags. This is where Meghan and Bridget decided to hold up the continuation of trying to catch our flight with just 5-10 minutes lingering till our plane left without us. Bridget was the trouble maker and had 3 water bottles taken from her. Gary and Delaney sprinted towards gate 98....which of course was the second to last gate. Once the other 3 finished with security they sprinted towards the gate. Pamela thought she was smart by taking the "moving floor" and saying "Hello, Ladies"...until she was left in the dust. Turns out, our flight was delayed and that airport workout was unneccessary.
Eventually we boarded the plane a little after 7am, and then waited another hour until our takeoff because of the rainy weather conditions. Once we took off we were fine as wine and on our way to Denver, Colorado.
We landed in Denver a little before 10am with bare land and farms surrounding us. In the distance you could see the city of Denver and the Rocky Mountains with
snow caps still intact. Luggage pick-up was a breeze and the Travel Nazi (Pamela) was on her way out the door to the rental car bus stop. This took us to Dollar Car Rentals where we received a Chrysler Aspen instead of the Pacifica and our ride was pimped. Once we had our car we were on the road to Wyoming at about 11:45.
The drive started off going in towards Denver on I-70 which then led us to I-25N towards Wyoming. (And we're baaaaaaaack!)....Denver was the last bit of city life we would see. Soon after the houses and buildings faded and all we saw were plains and large rocks scattered everywhere.
Our first destination was Casper, Wyoming to visit Aunt Ag. It was a "metropolis" as Gary called it once we spotted it in the distance. After sitting in the car for 4 hours we were pretty excited to see that there was life beyond the plains of Wyoming and that we weren't the only ones. We got off the exit using our Mapquest directions which in turn led us in the wrong direction (or so Pam tells us). After driving through the ghetto of Casper
, then all around town, and giving many calls to Aunt Ag, we found ourselves at our destination a little after 4pm.
We picked up Aunt Ag and drove to the Oregon Trails Veteran's Cemetary to visit Pam's father and uncle's gravestones. It was located at the top of a hill looking over the beautiful scenery and the oil refinery where Pam's dad used to work. After our visit there we drove around town looking at the old high school, where everyone grew up, etc. Aunt Ag suggested we go to dinner so we pulled up to Poor Boys Steakhouse. The food was excellent and just what we needed after barely eating all day (Interesting fact #53587: Pam and Gary like to starve their poor, helpless, and innocent children). Once dinner was over we made our way back to Aunt Ag's house and had a photo-op and were on our way back to Douglas (which was 30 minutes back in the direction we came) and checked into our Holiday Inn Express.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 11; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0408s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb