The day started off well enough. It was raining when we checked out of our airport hotel at o'dark hundred (4:30am) and headed to the parking lot. Also easy. Get in line at the airport for them to open security at 5am. Also easy. Get through security and get some muffins and breakfast sandwiches to eat before loading the plane. Flying to Denver was no problem, especially since Jacob was enjoying his new Christmas present, a netbook with itunes (and several of his favorite videos) loaded onto it. The real problem started when we got to Denver. We flew into gate B24 and our flight to Casper was scheduled to leave an hour later from gate B96...at the other end of the concourse. I flagged down an electric cart driver who agreed to take us if we met him about 1o gates down. Fine. As we are dragging Jacob along, I look up at the Departures board and start yelling for Rick...the flight to Casper was cancelled. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. We eventually get to our gate,where Rick is then sent back about 10 gates to customer service. He gets us on the standby list for the next flight to Casper, leaving about 2 hours later, except we are number 40 on the standby list...for a flight that has 40 seats. The next two flights that day are also booked solid, and the next flight with available seats was going to be Saturday. It was Thursday. At that point Rick sat down and booted up his computer and the ipad and went to work cancelling our tickets to Casper, cancelling our tickets from Casper back to Denver the following week, and adjusting our car rental reservation from Casper to Denver, all while I, who had not slept for 28 hours, tried not to have a meltdown. He was slightly more successful than I was. The couldn't transfer our small SUV rental from Casper, and to rent any SUV in Denver was $1400, so this is what we ended up with:
A Ford Focus, now and forever referred to as the Clown Car. We could only fit 3 of the carry on suitcases and Rick's computer bag in the "trunk", so the 4th suitcase had to sit between the boys in the backseat. Brandon's backpack was at his feet and he sat cross legged most of the trip, and I had my backpack, Jacob's backpack, and everyone's coats wedged up with me in the front seat. If we crashed, I was set for extra padding.
Finally we got going. Roads were off an on good, so it was nice to at least get to this point.
In Wyoming, we stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom and stretch our legs. The boys were more than happy to play in the snow.
Brandon kept throwing snowballs at Rick, who was telling him to stop or he'd end up headfirst in a snowbank. He didn't stop.
As we were reaching Casper, where we were supposed to have lunch (which was switched to dinner) with my friend Wayne and his wife we realized that Jacob was being really quiet. Uh oh. A nap for Jacob means no sleep that night, for him or mom. He woke up easily enough, but we should have left him alone. Five minutes later, without warning, he did his first day of vacation ritual and started throwing up in the rental car. I grabbed the only container that I could reach, his dvd player bag, and threw myself sideways to try and reach him in the back seat. Poor guy. We got pulled into a service station, where of course the Wyoming wind had picked up, and I froze my fingers and ass off getting him cleaned up enough to take him inside to change his clothes. He was a trooper though, and managed to catch almost all of the uh..stuff in his hands and managed to get almost none on the rental car. So much better than the Colorado trip :)
We finally made it to dinner with Wayne and Debbie and also invited my sister her boyfriend Allen and their daughter Bonnie to dinner, since our plans with them the following week were in flux with having to drive back to Denver instead of flying out of Casper.
Lovely. I had been up for 37 hours at this point. The roads were bad enough just before we got to Casper (we saw two different accidents, one with 3 cars and one with four) we decided to eat the cost of the first night prepaid hotel rental in Thermopolis and stay in Casper. Luckily Rick had some hotel points he could use.
The next day we piled back in and Rick took this lovely shot of me bricked in with our bags and such.
Outside of Shoshone. I miss seeing snow, just not dealing with it.
And the canyon was as lovely as ever. Slow going, but that was ok, because we were almost there. Got checked in at the hotel before heading out to mom and dad's house in Kirby for lunch at Butch's Place (where I got to say hi to the first boy I ever kissed. Small place, Wyoming is). From there we hung out at Mom and Dad's house until Randy, Betty and Dean got there and I fixed a low country shrimp boil for dinner and Brandon made a chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert. (We took turns cooking dinner. Betty made pheasant the next night and we all pitched in for Christmas dinner)
