We learned a few things about going to the airport this
morning. We are on our way to Rochester, NY to visit with Kelli, Jake, Claire
and Evan this week and next week the Milner and McNeil families join us for
Thanksgiving celebrations.
Our plane was scheduled to get off the ground this morning
at 6:00 AM. Deb convinced me that getting up at 3:30 AM and leaving by 4:00 AM
would be just fine. DIA (Denver International Airport) is about 25 miles East
of downtown Denver, and without traffic, it takes about 35 minutes or so to get
to the departures area.
Up at 3:30, brush my teeth, comb my hair, do a couple of
other last minute adjustments, pick up the packed bags at the front door,
elevator down to the parking lot and lo and behold, there’s 3” of new snow on
my car! WTF?? (In Colorado, that means “What the Frack?” because of the current
controversy over fracking to get at oil and natural gas deosits.) I’m from CA.
Do you think I was smart enough to by a snow sweeper offer or an ice scraper or
something else to clean the windows off with? Nooooooooo. Seems last time I
scraped ice off my windshield was at Shaver Lake in the Sierras and I used my
credit card.
So, standing there freezing my thumbs in 21 degree cold,
scraping the ice and snow off with bare hands, wishing I had 5 gallons of
steaming hot water ……
Finally off to the airport at 4:15. Now we have around 30
miles to go to long term parking, parking, shuttle to airport, checking bags,
security to go through, trolley to take to the C gate area, and boarding to go
through to get airborne. I-70 East is
snow covered, there are blinking lights of the snow plows everywhere, the car
aren’t actually driving in any particular lane because the lines aren’t
visible, and my windshield gets dirtier and harder to see out of with each
swipe of the wiper blades.
Flight’s at 6:00 AM. We are right on time! As they shut the
door in the boarding area, we make eye contact with the SWA rep who checks the
boarding passes. He’s shaking his head, but opens the door to the gangway so we
could board.
And, the flight is full – to capacity. There are two center
aisle seats left. Deb gets the one up front; I get the one next to a contestant
on “The Biggest Loser!”
So goes our first experience with DIA. Hope I can remember where we parked the car.
No comments:
Post a Comment