We’re here in Colorado; and it’s been a
very long travel day that was exciting, tedious, busy, and far too slow;
depending on what part of our day we’re discussing.
Getting up early wasn’t hard despite the
lack of sleep; and giving Michael his wake-up call was fun for me – and gave us
something to do while Rowen was using my bathroom to grab a shower. We were all ready for the day within a half
hour; though Rowen and I couldn’t have our hair totally dried by then. We managed to get ready without waking Ethan,
Ehlana, or their friends; but Mom and Dad got up to see us off. Tim’s parents both looked as though they
wished they were still sleeping; but declined Tim’s offer to drive us to the
airport. He was a bit disappointed about
that; but we managed to keep him entertained during the drive to the
airport. We did the drive as part of a
mini caravan; and part of the reason for that was because there were then extra
drivers available to help out with getting everyone going on the trip to the
airport while also getting some of the vehicles into parking lots either before
or after the travelers were dropped off at the departures terminal entrance.
Once at the airport, we had a blast of
hurry up and wait that wasn’t too terrible because our flight was one of the first
heading out in the morning, but we were still there early; and had extra time
once we’d finished jumping through all of the hoops that make air travel such a
royal pain now. We had breakfast while
we waited for our boarding time; and then pretty much just sat around watching
the action going on around us.
This might be a good point to mention that
my assigned chaperones for the week are Brent and Sharon Palmer. They’re in charge of Michael, Tim, Rowen, and
four more teens including Anna-Marie; but I’m definitely in their group for a
reason. I don’t expect to have any
problems with Dark Magi this week; but I’m sure that Brent and Sharon don’t
mind getting to go with us for the extreme snow adventure while being here for
me should I need the help.
Moving along, we eventually were on our
plane and had a one-stop, two-jet flight out to Denver. The stop and plane change was fairly short;
but we still spent hours on the jets; and then had another long delay in Denver
as we retrieved our luggage; rented the ten-passenger vans we needed to haul
everyone around for the week; and then drove to Winter Park. It wasn’t really fun to me, but it was
raining when we left home; and we had a bit of rain while on the drive to our
hotel too. It was also warmer than
expected; so there was definitely some snow melt going on today – just as it
was melting yesterday; judging by the snow report I’ve been checking every day
for the past week.
The drive out to Winter Park has a lot of
amazing scenery to enjoy – if you’re not one of the drivers of those over-sized
vans. We were with Brent and Sharon in
their van – and with their entire group; and we brought up the rear of our
caravan while the Robinsons led the way to the hotel. It was late-afternoon by the time we got
there – even with the time change; so we went straight to the hotel and checked
in. Getting that done took a while;
though the adults in our group split up to get that done while we – the teens
and kids – either watched the luggage or took turns doing a bit of
exploring. From there, we split up onto
two different floors for our rooms, and while I know that we didn’t all get to
have mountain-view rooms; Rowen and I did get to have one of them – and the
view is spectacular!
We’ll be out there snowboarding on that
mountain tomorrow, but to be honest; I was glad that we didn’t have time to go
to the resort today. I was tired by
then; and we still hadn’t even gone out to dinner yet. Our chaperones allowed us forty-five minutes
to freshen up and settle into our rooms; and then we gathered in the lobby
before going out to eat. There is a
decent selection of restaurants of varying types available around here, but our
small town showed up with the kids and teens because we all wanted to go to
Pizza Hut for our first dinner in Winter Park. Try not to let that scare you, but when you
rarely have anything other than frozen pizza or those pizza kits in a box;
Pizza Hut is teen food heaven! ;^)
Yes, I’m saying that even when my boyfriend’s
father is a gourmet chef; and I’m also saying that I loved the pizza; spending
that time with my friends; and even the play time we had with Mr. and Mrs.
Robinson’s kids when they wanted to hang out with Michael, Tim, Rowen, and me
instead of with their parents. After a long
travel day, that was the least we could do for the parents in our group; but we
didn’t continue with kid control after we got back to the hotel – mostly because
the youngest kids were ordered off to bed for the night.
Turning in early was an option, but
Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I went on a full tour of the hotel first; and then
headed back to our room – Rowen’s and mine.
We talked about trying out the hot tub, but decided against that; mostly
because there were other guests there using it; and I didn’t want to be in a
comparatively small room with a group of strangers while wearing a swimsuit.
So my small town was showing for that too;
but it’s the way I am; and Rowen was with me on that one – even though Tim
voted for the girlfriends in swimsuits time.
I do want to try out that hot tub sometime while we’re here; but maybe
we can do that with the other teens in our own group sometime when we can do
that without a bunch of spectators. I’ll
keep you posted on how that goes for us.
As for tonight, it wasn’t all that late
when we got back to our room; so we watched some television and cuddled in
pairs on the two beds. A roommate swap
was discussed, but we decided to be good tonight – if only because we’re all
tired – and we didn’t want to risk messing things up with our chaperones on our
first night here.
I’m not actually worried about that, since
I fully expect that there will be other teen roommate swaps with the rest of
our friends too, but I really am tired; so it isn’t as if Michael and I would
have been doing anything other than sleeping tonight if he had stayed and Rowen
had gone to their room with Tim for the night.
Rowen’s already asleep as I write this, and
the boys went to their room about forty-five minutes ago. I suppose that none of what I’ve written
about for today sounds very exciting, but travel days really aren’t the best
part of any holiday. If they were, then
people would just fly around on planes and drive to and from airports all day,
every day; and skip the destination play time.
We’re going to get started on that first thing in the morning, though,
and we have a time change to deal with too; so it’s time for me to wrap this up
and get some sleep.
After the boys left, Rowen and I got ready
for bed; I’ve done my usual bedtime computing that is only slightly different
than normal because I’m working through Mom’s encrypted network tunnel while on
the hotel wireless network. That adds a
bit of a delay for everything; but allows me to still have access to our normal
systems too – and keeps my computing private.
I didn’t have any family business work to take care of, but did have a
handful of email to read and respond to – including from Mom and Ehlana; and
some more from my cousins and favorite collegians looking for travel
updates. That was all fun, but I’m glad
that I don’t have extra work to do tonight.
That also means that I’m done with this update and can go off to sleep;
so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
