Colorado – Part 1 – Edited | Sara Dyben Photography

It all started with a really good airport hotdog. In ATL. At 11pm. That was dessert. We had already stuffed our faces with yummy baked ziti at PBI. Our flights were delayed, you see, and we weren’t sure when we were going to get to Denver. Hot dogs do the trick.

The Rental Car. Now. Let me pause for a moment to say the trip started out as an adventure. Delayed flights (which consequently meant delayed everything else–balloon ride, 1. Basically, our plans changed right at the beginning of the trip. Well, really the only plans we had were to go on the hot air balloon and watch Melisa’s two tennis matches. We watched the tennis matches. And rode in the hot air balloon…eventually.

Anyway–rental car. So we arrive in Denver sometime around 1:30am (or around there). We got outside to the rental car bus waiting area to see our rental agency bus pulling away. Good timing. It’s an adventure, remember? (Luckily we are both very much easy going people so it wasn’t an issue–plus it was vacation). So we waited. It’ll come around soon, we figured. 45 minutes go by. No rental car bus from our agency. We call, “someone is on the way.” Yea, right. So another agency picked us up–they had seen us the past 10 times they had driven through the terminal. We get to the office of our agency. As soon as we walk in the front door we hear “Sorry, we don’t have any more cars left.” “What!? We have a reservation.” “Nope, sorry. Just gave the last one away.” “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?” (patience is starting to wear off now). “No, sorry, can you wait until the morning?” “Are we supposed to sleep outside, we have to drive to Boulder tonight? Plus, it’s after 2am.” (OK, so that was moreso a thought than words “OK, wait, actually, we have one more. It needs an oil change, there’s a huge crack in the windshield, and it hasn’t been cleaned. Let me go clean it.” “Whatever, we just want to get to Boulder.” 30 seconds goes by. “Here are the keys, the car is cleaned. Now, let’s check you in….oh..dangit…the computers are down. Hang on let me get a paper contract.” “Sir, we have our reservation confirmation here that lists what we are supposed to pay–please just make sure it reflects this.” “Yes, OK, so $28/day, so that’s $133, plus tax and other fees..” “Sir, the $133 is our total amount. 28*4 is not 133.” “Oh, ok yea, I just have to write it down like this…” 20 minutes later…we leave the rental car agency. And finally arrive in Boulder at some crazy hour of the morning. I was up for a full 24 hours that day. I don’t even remember the last time I did that–maybe Junior year in college?

This, my friends, was our “full size car.” Aka. The Rocket–or what John referred to as “the skateboard on wheels with a motor.” Looks good for mountain driving, huh?

Beautiful view! After hanging with Melisa some Friday morning, we headed to lunch and then Melisa’s tennis match!

Thankfully John can ID anything in the sky and so I got the entire story of gliders. Not hang-gliders. Gliders. They are really cool–start off hooked to an airplane with an engine. When the rope is released they just glide in circles until they land.