Traveling Day

Today started off pretty good, but then quickly progressed to every traveler’s worst nightmare. I woke up at 5:30AM eastern time, and since I had packed my bags the night before I didn’t have much prep work to do before we left but to throw some things in my carryon bag. My mom woke my dad up at 4AM when she went to work, and then I woke him up again three more time between 5:30-6 and he didn’t roll out of bed until just after 6! My flight was at 7:45 and the airport is only about twenty minutes away from my house. Well, we left Wawa at 6:30, then hit traffic at the ramp where rt 55 and 42 meet, then we hit more traffic at the Platt bridge because of construction. We got to the airport at 7:05AM, and when I went to check in my luggage I was kindly informed that US Airways was no longer accepting checked in luggage, and there was no way my 52lb suitcase was fitting in the over head compartment. After pleading with the receptionist, I got my bag checked (and my oversized luggage fee dropped!). Then I went to get in the TSA line and go through security, when I somehow ended up in the medical liquids line which moved soooo slow compared to the other lines! I went through security and accidentally left my track sweatshirt on the conveyer belt as I threw my shoes on – without tying them- and ran (like one of those people you see in the movies) to my departure gate where I had missed the flight!I was pretty much freaking out at this point, but luckily I got put on stand-by for a flight from Philly to Charlotte, then Charlotte to Denver. There was almost no room on the philly to charlotte flight, but I managed to squeeze on. The first flight was good, I knocked right out, but the second flight was torture! I sat in the back of the plane in the aisle between four avid fishermen (two on either side of me) who were on their way to Denver on a fishing expedition and who just wouldn’t SHUT UP! I was getting magazines and bags of trail mix passed over my head every five minutes until I just put my head down on the folding tray and tried my best to go back to sleep…and that would have happened if the baby sitting two seats behind me hadn’t started wailing at the top of his lungs – screeching like a banshee! and making the four hour flight even more unbearable for the already cramped coach passengers. Wind gusts were up to 30mph, and you could feel the plane literally flopping up and down like a roller coaster, and while roller coasters are fun, this ride was anything but fun as I walked off extremely nauseous. My flight landed in Denver at 12:55PM, and since I was too late for my pre-booked Frontier flight, I also had to move that….to 9:50PM that night…so I’ve been sat in the airport working on this blog. Please excuse anything that may not make sense….I’m extremely sleepy…..

Below are my kitties helping me pack 

            I’ve already started noticing differences in the people out here versus the people back home on the east coast. Most of the travelers out here, as well as the workers at the airport concessions, are white. Things out here are definitely a slower pace than Jersey City of New York. It’s a normal sight to see someone running to catch a train or cab or a flight back home, but out here everyone takes their time walking, I didn’t see a single person walk or run up or down the escalators; everyone pretty much just stood and rode the escalator at the escalator’s maintained pace. The airport even has its own subway inside to take passengers from one terminal to the next. This all may sound lazy, but I didn’t many overly or morbidly obese people out here either. Most people are of a slim to medium build, and you can tell that a lot of people out here are the outdoorsy type because they carry North Face or CamelBak, bags normally sold at camping stores like REI and are small and lightweight for carrying essential things like water and food. A lot of people, including kids, carry around their own plastic, reusable water bottles, too, as I have noticed this sitting next to a water fountain for the past two hours -_-.                     

            The attitude and temperament of people out here are different too. In Philly the TSA people were kind of scary; they were loud, firm, and authoritative when giving directions about what to put on the conveyor belts. But at the airport in Denver, the TSA agent was practically singing show tunes about either “dump, chug, or chuck” your water bottle, and joking around with the passengers about their luggage and socks and such. Even the guy who checked my ticket and ID was friendly and asking about my day and where I was coming from, where in Philly the lady simply took my ID, checked me off and sent me on my way screaming “Next” down my ear. Although the Denver airport is pretty big, it’s a fairly quiet place. It is almost 5PM MT and everyone seems to be sitting by themselves, not really interacting with each other, though people still seem friendly and do not appear to be hostile or standoff-ish. One man across from me just asked another guy to watch his bag for him while he went to the bathroom, and the guy watched it for him. I will probably go and get dinner in an hour or so, and head over to the terminal around 8 and sit for an hour while the flight boards at 9:20 and takes off at 9:55. As for the next few hours I’ll be sat here, in the same seat, trying to avoid hemorrhoids watching Hulu, facebook, and email before I get on the plane – thank god for free wifi! I’ll post again tonight once I get to the hotel – hopefully my first video post teehee should be fun 

Photos: Top Right - Tornado fall out shelter sign in the Denver airport. The flat Midwest is common for tornadoes, especially from spring to fall, but they are not so common in Colorado because it is very mountainous. There have been occasional tornadoes in the past. 

Bottom Right: My oversized luggage being held at the US Airways baggage claim. It was so big it even got its own cones to mark it off haha.