Susie and Stephanie's Big Adventure

I Can See Clearly Now

By Stephanie September 25, 2014 Leave a Comment

So we’re here!  In the land of my father.  Country at least, if not state.

Overall, the journey wasn’t too bad at all. We really could have done without the delay at Heathrow, especially the time we just sat on the plane on its stand, waiting for clearance to taxi. I’m not sure who was the more nervous, Susie, or myself on her behalf.

I was terribly restrained at Heathrow. I think I only tested two perfumes – and didn’t buy any. In fact, all I bought was a couple of books – and apart from those on my Kindle are the only books I have with me.

The Mountains of Snowy Greenland from 37,000 feet

The Mountains of Snowy Greenland from 37,000 feet

I managed to get a window seat on the plane and spent some time gazing out of the window even though it was mainly cloud I could see. The cloud broke a little over Greenland so managed to get a snap of the snow, although not as clear as it could be.

By the time we got to bed it was around 5:30 am to our body clocks, so a pretty long day.  This meant we were up early this morning, 6:00 am Colorado time and down for breakfast by 7:00 am. Breakfast was great.  It’s now lunchtime as I write this and we’re still pretty stuffed. I had the bacon, egg and hash browns with an add on of cinnamon roll french toast with maple syrup.  This was supposed to be just the one slice but as our waiter explained as he delivered it, they had a new chef on who had prepared the full three slices in error so these were “on the house”. We made a valiant effort between us but were beaten by the final slice.

We have now ventured out to collect our rental car. This involved catching the shuttle bus back to the airport, then taking the rental company’s shuttle bus out to their site. We had a bit of a “discussion” about what has or has not been included in our package and will be emailing the travel agent for some clarification. The (literally) small print on our rental voucher came in for close consideration necessitating Susie “my eye sight is perfect” Black fishing out her reading glasses to dissect the details. And then lending said glasses to the guy behind the desk …

The drive back to the hotel was pretty uneventful with Susie in the hot seat and yours truly being the eyes and ears. Which proved their merit as the driver decided to ignore the red lights just because the other guys turning right had a green light!

We’re just having a top up of coffee before tackling the drive into downtown Denver without a sat nav. We have an old fashioned map and downloaded Google maps on the tablet. Of course, little miss “nothing wrong with my eyes” needs the reading glasses to see the paper map, although has decided it’s much easier to read the right way up!

Our most vexing question at the moment is regarding tipping. What Rules do we apply? When, who and how much? This may be a question for Libby and Andrew to come back on.

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Filed Under: Colorado

Travel Details

By Stephanie September 23, 2014 Leave a Comment

For our family members who like to know these things, here are the travel details:

  • fly from Heathrow, Wednesday 24th September on flight BA219 departing 15:35
  • arrive Denver International Airport, Wednesday 24th September 18:25 local time
  • stay Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Denver Airport
  • drive down to Colorado Springs on Friday 26th September
  • stay Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights at the Homewood Suites by Hilton, Colorado Springs North
  • leave Denver Sunday 5th October on flight BA218 departing 20:45
  • arrive Heathrow, Monday 6th October at 12:35

Tuesday to Saturday nights are not yet booked – we’re going to see what we want to do while we’re there.  We may head out away from Colorado Springs to see a bit more of the State but we’ll decide when we’re there.

We’ll certainly log into Facebook occasionally so can be contacted that way.  Otherwise best method is Susie’s phone or her email (Compuserve not Pentamid).

You may like to know that the time in Colorado is 7 hours behind UK time.

Filed Under: Colorado, Travelling

All Checked-In

By Stephanie September 23, 2014 Leave a Comment

15:34 this afternoon saw us staring intently at the screen, poised ready for action. One minute to go until the online check-in – and more critically, the “choose your seats option” – opened for business.

As soon as we spotted our allocated seats and those still free for selection, we cross-referenced seatguru.com to help pick the best seats we could.  We did choose to move, albeit one row forwards, so that we could sit on the non-sunny side of the aircraft.  We really wanted to be further forward but as the only possibility was right in front of the toilets, we decided not to go there.

Packing has commenced in earnest with Susie using the internet to research the best suitcase packing methods.  However I did point out that the recommended way of folding one’s clothes doesn’t lend itself to her usual living out of a suitcase method.

The forecast for Colorado Springs seems to range from 29 degrees C to a low of -2 degrees C so planning what to take is fun.  I think we have most permutations covered but have decided to leave the woolly hats behind this time.

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Filed Under: Travelling

It’s A Small World…

By Stephanie September 23, 2014 Leave a Comment

It’s been a little bit frantic getting everything organized.  Susie didn’t get back from her mum’s until late on Friday so we went to visit the travel agent on Saturday to go through the options and, hopefully, get our booking made.

In our minds, we were aiming to fly out on Friday (26th) but told Mr Travel Agent that we could go a couple of days earlier if this came in at the right package and price.  Well, guess what, it did!  So we’re off on Wednesday, a good two days earlier than planned.

Leaving on Wednesday means that we won’t be available for the Whitchurch ringing practice in the evening so we thought we’d better email everyone to let them know that there’d not be a practice due to short numbers.  We included some of our friends from Pangbourne too as we didn’t want them to make the effort to join us and find the bells silent and tower locked.

To our surprise, we received an email back saying that Len and Jill were also off to Colorado too this week. One phone call later, we find out much to everyone’s astonishment that not only are they travelling on the same day, but that we’re all on the same flight to Denver!  It never fails to amaze me the way life is full of these coincidences.

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Filed Under: Colorado, Travelling

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