We arrived at Denver airport in our chauffeur driven limousine – at least that’s what the driver of the Alamo shuttle bus told us 🙂 We were the only passengers on the bus, so perhaps he was right.
Once arrived our first order of business was to find a luggage trolley. There were luggage trolleys, but you had to rent them and it didn’t appear to be like the supermarkets where you put the pound’s deposit in to free your trolley and then get it back at the end. It looked like you had to put notes into the machine and then at the end, if you returned your trolley it gave you a quarter (25 cents) back. Big Deal. I’m from Yorkshire. I refuse to pay dollars to rent a trolley, so we wheeled our luggage.
Our second order of business was to decide what to do about the extra large cardboard box containing my new boots. We had discovered in the shop that they had such incredibly slippery leather soles. I could do quite a passable impersonation of Jayne Torvill skating round the carpet much to the amusement of our sales assistant. So wearing them didn’t look like the most sensible option if we wanted avoid a second trip to ER and to catch our flight instead.
We found a bench and proceeded to repack. Fortunately my carry on bag was just large enough to accommodate the boots providing I stuffed them with all the clothes I already had in the bag. And then the collapsed box, fitted in Stephanie’s suitcase with barely a millimetre to spare. Excellent.
Until we got to the bag drop. Then to our surprise and slight dismay we discovered that Stephanie’s suitcase was 27.4 Kg and mine was 22.7. The weight allowance per bag is usually 23 Kg and if you’re over that, they get the big fines out.
However, the lady on the BA baggage desk said that they give you an extra 2 kilos allowance for the return journey. So all we had to do was to repack (again) and even out the weight between our 2 cases and we would be fine.
So having repacked for the second time, we sneaked in at about half a pound under the limit for each bag (although when we collected the bags at Heathrow they were both marked up with heavy bag/extra charge stickers, but we escaped without incident). And then it was onwards to security.
We stared down in horror from the balcony at the huge queue for security. The sea of football shirts told us that it was extra long because of the Denver Bronco’s game which had recently finished. But joining the queue we were very pleasantly surprised that we kept moving the whole time. The well oiled machine which was their security operation seemed to work like clockwork. Apart from my trousers failing the scanner and having to be investigated by the officer on the desk we were through (I was quite relieved it wasn’t a more intensive search as the marigold gloves I’d bought to do the washing up in our suite were safely in my suitcase).
Preparing our Plane at Denver
There was a huge queue at all the food outlets, and we decided that a sandwich would probably tide us over until dinner on the plane. So I went off in search of the only cold food outlet in the place right at the far end of the building. It turned out to be a kiosk, with sub rolls with only 2 types of filling, Italian or turkey and Swiss cheese. As one lady was complaining that there were no prices on anything, I did think that probably meant that they were expensive. $7.60 for what turned out the be half a sub roll, cut in 2 and squished together tightly with cling film. It wasn’t even very nice. It was definitely an occasion to take your own sandwiches. But then I’d lost my appetite as we arrived at the airport, so really it was only for Stephanie.
While Stephanie wolfed down the roll (it had been a long time since breakfast) and I nibbled halfheartedly on a corner we watched the maintenance man open the cockpit windows and clean them with a squeegee. I had no idea that the cockpit windows even opened!
A while later, as they announced the boarding order, it was time for my second Valium and then we were off…
