Thursday, July 24, 2014

 

We really wanted to leave our car in Colorado Springs (because that was where we’d be flying into), and the fares weren’t much more to fly out of Colorado Springs and change planes in Denver for a direct flight to Orlando. But when we got up at 5:15 a.m., the flight was showing that it would be an hour late, and would get is into Denver after our connecting flight had already departed. Still, we drove to the Colorado Springs airport and got there really early anyway. The FBO that would be taking care of Uncle Stacy’s plane on our return trip let us park for free in their lot and drove us over to the commercial terminal. One of the staff members took chocks out from under their minivan shuttle before unlocking the doors for us.

 

The flight was still showing that it was late, which didn’t make any sense, since the weather was fine. So Berck went up to a United ticket agent to see what we could do. The next flight to Orlando from Denver wouldn’t get in until around 11 p.m., and we had planned to go say hi to Berck’s grandma and then have dinner with his mom and Uncle Stacy and his wife. The ticket agent typed furiously on his terminal and frowned at what he was seeing. Then suddenly he said, “Go. Go quickly to gate 11. There’s a flight leaving right now for Chicago. I’ll call the gate agent while you’re on your way. Go now!”

 

So we took off running. Fortunately, hardly anyone else was in the security line, and Colorado Springs hasn’t gotten any body scanners yet, so we didn’t have to waste time going through a pat down. When we got to the gate, the gate agent was also typing furiously at her terminal and frowning. “You’re in 1 Charlie  and 3 Delta,” she said. Berck asked her if she could print us new boarding passes. “No,” she answered, “This is all screwed up. I’m going to have to fix all this.” Berck asked her to at least right down the our flights on the back of his useless boarding pass, which she did, then we hurried on board. The guy sitting next to me graciously swapped with Berck so we could sit together. I slept for most of the flight while Berck started and finished one book and started another one.

 

In Chicago, we had a pretty long layover, so Berck let the way to an Auntie Anne’s for a pretzel (I watched them make them so I could copy their technique at home… I make really yummy pretzels from their recipe.) Then I followed him to Frontera Tortas, which, according to one magazine, is the number one airport restaurant in the U.S. We split two very good tortas and each had a couple of good local Chicago beers. Then we got into a huge argument about grammar.

 

Our flight to Orlando was completely full, except for the seat next to me… we don’t know why they seated us apart. And it was full of kids going to Disney World. But we got to Orlando fine, and Berck’s mom picked us up. We drove to Granma’s house and visited with her a bit, then continued to Uncle Stacy’s house, where Aunt Marisol had prepared us a fantastic dinner of steak and grilled peppers, zucchini, and corn. We were just eating dessert when three of Berck’s cousins,the K’s, arrived. Uncle Stacy and Aunt Marisol went to bed, and the rest of stayed up till almost 2 drinking wine and talking. One of the K’s had just gotten back from two years in the Peace Corps in Peru, and we got to hear a bunch of great stories.