Arrival

Well, we got here! Safely and soundly.

Booking in on line and printing the passes was excellent. I even chose our seats. Got to Heathrow and checking in using the bag drop was easy. As usual there was the hanging about, 3 hours. The take off was late 'cos of a rain storm but there we are.

The flight was very pleasant. Although 9 hours long it wasn't too bad. BA seems to have bucked their ideas up quite a bit. Free alcoholic drinks on their flights, unlike American Airlines or United! The in-flight stuff was okay. I spent quite a lot time reading a Monsieur Pamplemosse by Micheal Bond, he of Paddington Bear fame, very entertaining. Gorden Kaye ('Allo 'Allo) would be excellent in the role.

We were apprehensive about arriving at Denver after experiencing Immigration at LA, SF and Salt Lake. They couldn't have been more different; friendly, helpful and pleasant. There were helpers checking that the green forms were filled in correctly and gently directing people to the desks. The other airports could take a lead from this on.

Picked the car up and couldn't work out where the hand brake was! It wasn't so much a hand brake but a foot operated hand brake - don't ask! It's a 4l(!) Chrysler(?) Pacifica 4WD. Very spacious and so light on the steering. However there seemed to be more controls on the steering wheel, dashboard and surroundings than a space shuttle. By now it was getting dark and there were distant rain clouds.

The satnav came into it's own here. It neatly directed us to the interstate, however, no voice! I'd been driving ten minutes when we hit the first rain. Now, it's dark, unfamiliar and raining; this is not good. So I just took it steady and we skirted around the bottom of Denver and just followed I70. We kept hitting some bad patches of rain and it was just like being back home except warmer. We went through the Eisenhower Memorial tunnel which goes straight through the Rockies and, I am reliably informed, has two huge concrete doors that can come down and block the tunnel. The idea was to stop any invading force from the west being able to use it.

Nothing exciting happened except that on the other carriageway about five miles from out hotel there had been an accident and the traffic was stacked back for at least three miles.

Just as we got close to the city of Dillon the satnav crashed! So we had to pull off and find a place to stop and reset it. In doing this we did tale the wrong turning off and after resetting it we found we were about 5 miles from our hotel. Off we went back up onto the I70 and came off at the correct juction this time and promptly misread the instruction on the screen and took a left instead of a right. After checking our position again(!) we drove back up to the lioghts where we had gone wrong and sure enough there was the Best Western. By now it was 10:50 and we had been on the go for 20 hours and it's time for sleep.

Pre-Flight

Pre-Flight

We're booked on and I've changed seats! Quite painless and the BA site came on-line at 3.45 as it should have. It worked really smoothly. Having had to deal with similar sites before I was not looking forward to using it but I was very pleasantly surprised at the ease of use. Well done BA.

The passes are printed as is the itinerary. I'm still pack, unpacking, repacking.... argghhhhh! It's difficult, I find it difficult, deciding what to take and what not to, for three weeks. It's the electronic bits and pieces. I'm reluctant to put them in case for the hold as I'm never too certain how well they'll fair. I suppose if push comes to shove I can. Also I bought another set of bags, £20, comprising holdall, rucksack, gym bag and boot bag. These are excellent value. The holdall be useful on the way back as an extra bag; the rucksack is for me; the gym bag will be excellent for washing; the boot bag for putting all the electronic bits in.

I've had a dodgy shoulder joint for three weeks now. I moved the layout of my computer equipment and I think that it did my shoulder with the new position of my mouse. I bought some Deep Heat and have rubbed it in... aaahhhhh relief at last. I won't be able to use it on the flight when it'll be really useful.

Time to sign off. The next time I write this will be, God willing, is in the USA

Preparation

Welcome to My Holiday Blog

Ready, Steady, Go...
Denver to Denver and San Diego to SF

It's now 36 hours to go before we fly out. This is the big holiday! We're going to be away for just over three weeks and I'm driving nearly every day!

I've planned this journey out carefully but even so I suspect there'll be problems. I would imagine that they'll be road diversions but this time the satnav will guide us, I hope. It'll save using the maps although I've MS Roads and Trips on the laptop. We've all the documents, money, etc. The satnav is programmed up for the first leg and for the second part the itinerary is ready to go too. I'm just wondering what I've forgotten, if anything. We're taking plates and cutlery so we can buy in and use the microwave ovens.

What makes this exciting is all the places we're going to visit. If you look at the map all it really gives is the broad sweep. Denver, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Cody, Mount Rushmore, Deadwood are just some of the places we'll visit.

After that(!) leg we head over to San Diego and go up to SF via LA and Salinas.

Here's the list:

• Denver
• Dillon
• Glenwood Springs
• Grand Junction
• Dinosaur National Monument
• Vernal
• Pinedale
• Jackson
• Grand Tetons
• Yellowstone
• Cody
• Little Bighorn Battlefield
• Buffalo
• Mount Rushmore
• Wind Cave National Park
• Deadwood
• Fort Laramie
• Denver
• San Diego
• Los Angeles
• Santa Barbara
• Salinas
• Berkley
• San Francisco

It's going to be interesting all the way. I'll up-load some pictures as we go along and try and fill this in each day.