i'm back and just about recovered from my trip to denver. it was a crazy 36 hours. i was exhausted the entire time. partly because the two weeks leading up this trip have been crazy busy. hectic, and filled with assignments and projects, in addition to my everyday life and day job. i have created SO many projects in the last two weeks, that i lost track of a lot of them. and i was also exhausted because i only ended up getting about 90 minute of sleep before i left tuesday morning. lovely way to start out a trip.
i got up at 3:15am and drove to the airport. i'll be honest. i'd rather fly in the dark, so i can't see how high up i am in those planes. lol! pretty uneventful flight. nice plane, decent seatmates, and a two hour flight. they even had some tv shows playing, but i was clueless on how to hear them. i'm a dork, and won't ask questions. so i watched the shows, and guessed as to what was going on. i arrived about 9:30, and am quite proud of myself for finding my way out of the denver airport without getting lost. that place is HUGE. i even ended up on a high speed tram, just to get to the baggage area. kind of crazy. but i've gotten pretty good at this travel thing, and found my way out, and to the shuttle to take me to my sister's house.
my sister lives about 45 minutes away from denver. i have never seen any of the homes that she's lived in, over all these years. and she's lived a LOT of places. so it was nice that this trip gave me a chance to go and visit her for the day. she showed me around town, and we drove over to boulder, and walked around downtown and had lunch. later, we picked up the girls from school, and went back to their house. later, the whole family made dinner for me.
it was a nice and relaxing day, which was just what i asked for. i'm really not a touristy person, which i'm sure some will think is lame. lol! and she was trying to convince me to go on a hike up the mountains, but i was firm in my "no" response to that. which was probably for the best. i found that i had a really hard time breathing in denver. lol! at first, i felt silly that i couldn't seem to walk and talk at the same time. but turns out, it has to do with the altitude up there. it's normal, and something you have to adjust too. i drank a ton of water those 2 days, trying to stay hydrated.
my sister drove me to my hotel after dinner. i had been up for about 37 hours at that point, and wasn't very exciting to be around. i spread out all my stuff in my hotel room, and spent a few hours preparing for the next morning.
and this is where i was the next morning, bright and early, after 6 hours of sleep. i totally swiped this photo from linda barber, who was there the day before me. i didn't even bring a camera with me. i spent a few hours filming my segments, and they said i did really well. i'm not totally convinced i didn't look like a dork, and i stumbled here and there. but apparently, that makes me more real. that's what i was told. believe me, people. i'm very real 😉
i can't tell you too much more about what this was all about. not right now anyways. but it was a great experience, and not as nerve wracking as i thought it would be. everyone there was so nice and helpful, and made me feel very comfortable as i went thru my stuff. when we were done, i headed back to the airport with two of the girls from the production company.
i had over two hours until my flight. turns out, i needed one of those hours just to get my bag checked (even with it prepaid), thru security, and to the appropiate gate for my flight. like i said, that airport was HUGE. security was HUGE. i usually do pretty good at security. i'm ready and quick. but this time, i think the hugeness of it threw me off. i forgot to put my toiletries in my checked bag this time, so they were in my carry on. not in a quart sized bag. lovely. tossed them in the garbage. crossed my fingers that my makeup made it thru ok. forgot to take off my flip flops and got called back. how did i remember the belt, but not the flip flops? then they had to search my purse. forgot i had a thing of hand lotion in there. it was 3.1 oz, but he let me keep it. i was so frazzled by the time i made it thru. found my gate, and sat down to call some friends to pass the rest of my wait time.
flight home was a little crazy. small plane this time. really small. i had one of those before, and hated it. couldn't even put our carry on bags overhead, it was so small. i'm not really sure of the specifics on planes, but my belief is the smaller planes hit the turbulance more. and boy, did we hit it. we were hardly off the ground, and i was already convinced we were going down. yes, i'm a little dramatic. i held my breath, and went to my happy place. there was a 5 minute stretch, where i was convinced we weren't even moving in the air. i had a nice window view of the wing, but it honestly looked like we weren't going anywhere. then the pilot came back to use the bathroom, and i wanted to say "didn't you think to go BEFORE you came on here to take me home?".
speaking of the bathroom. funny flight story. first off, i have NEVER used the bathroom on a plane. not that i havn't had too. i just havn't done it. but my before flight bottle of water went right thru me, and i had no choice this time. luckily, i was 2 seats from the bathroom. which was literally right next to the back row of seats. small plane. the tiny little aisle, that a normal person can hardly fit thru, dead ended at the tiniest bathroom ever. turns out, being by the bathroom was also entertaining.
like when some lady got up to go, and was walking to the bathroom right behind another guy. he went into the bathroom, and she got peeved. she let out a few choice words and stormed back to her seat. i'm thinking "where did you think he was going". after all, you were both walking down the 14 inch wide aisle, that dead ends at the bathroom door. anyways. a while later, she did come back and go in there. and a while later, i smelled smoke. which convinced me once again, that we were going down. once again, i'm dramatic. then, another while later, the stewardesses (i'm 99% sure i spelled that wrong) came back and asked if the lady had been smoking in the bathroom. ok, that made sense as to why i smelled smoke. we were in fact, NOT going down. the back two row of passangers (all 8 of us) confirmed that she had been smoking in there. they chatted about whether they should try talking to her. and then they did go and have a talk with her. we continue the last 15 minutes of the flight, and then landed. but not where the plane normally stops. we're told to remain seated. that law enforcement was boarding the plane, to resolve an issue. and the back two rows let out some giggles, in a "you're busted" kind of way. the stewardesses told us later, that she had been drunk before she even got on the plane. they had debated if they were even going to let her on. personally, i love when people get busted, when they've broken the rules. and she broke a big one.
so that was my crazy flight home. got back to my normal sized airport. where i could walk off the plane, gather my baggage, walk to the parking garage and find my car, all in 10 minutes flat. love that. an hour drive later, i was home. i zoned out for a few hours on the computer. then unpacked everything, since i can't stand not doing it right away. i had to unpack my suitcase of scrap supplies too, since i had assignment due the next morning. ended up staying up until 2:00am, working on that. i've been home for two nights, and still havn't managed to get more than 5.5 hours of sleep a night. which is why i'm seriously dragging today. but it's ok, since it's dreary and rainy out. makes it ok to veg out. my tireness is also probably to blame as to how long this post turned out to be. i ramble when i'm tired 😉
Laura Vegas 