Way back in July when we went on our family RV trip Out West, our trip got off to a rocky (mountain) start. Our Frontier flight to Las Vegas, via Denver, was canceled, which set us on a path that included buying new tickets on a different airline and vouchers from Frontier for a future date.
Deciding where to go with these vouchers was no easy feat. Frontier doesn’t fly everywhere. They were $500 per person, and we didn’t want to spend much more than that, which rules out California destinations. We had to redeem the vouchers by the end of September, which ruled out using them for a Michigan bowl game because we wouldn’t know where they would play (Though I should’ve known they’d be back at the Citrus Bowl).
We debated a Thanksgiving trip, but everyone rejected my idea of Oklahoma City for Thanksgiving. “Totally weird” was one response and “Um, no.” was another. No one seemed to care that I’m trying to get to all 50 states by age 50, and Oklahoma is one of the 10 or so I have left.
We finally landed on Denver. It’s a direct flight, eliminating things going wrong with layovers. It was just a little bit more than our vouchers and best part, we have friends who live in Denver that we’ve been wanting to visit.
Day one was Satruday, Dec. 28, and our flight was at 12:25. As of 10:30 a.m., the flight was on time. By 10:45 a.m. when we arrived at the airport, it was delayed two hours. So we were off to a good start.
No one could agree on airport lunch so we ended up getting lunch from three separate restaurants in four different transactions, but no worries because we had time. Lots of time. The flight finally left almost three hours late.
One reason Frontier is cheap is they don’t waste money on frills like free snacks on the plane so by the time we landed in Denver we were all hungry. We promised the kids food as soon as we got the bags and rental car if they could “just hang on.” In hindsight, we should have gotten some $4 chips and drinks because what was coming next was a trying two hours.
Bags retrieved, we hop on the Avis bus and make it to the very small Avis Preferred Office to pick up our car. The agent was a “low talker” (the first of our Seinfeld-esque moments) and very quietly told me that they didn’t have a car quite yet and would “bring one down” as soon as they had one. I said that did not sound promising and asked if he could put a time frame on that. He could not.
So we sat and waited and waited. The kids were good sports but hungry. So hungry. And teetering on hangry. There was no vending machine in sight and we were in the middle of the rental car lot so there was nowhere to go.
The small building got more and more crowded as people came in with their suitcases, kids and skis hoping to get on the road. and every time the automatic sliding door opened, it ushered in gusts of very cold air along with new people whose rental car dreams had yet to be crushed.
After a little while we were told the car was now there and just had to be cleaned and then would be “brought down.” I don’t know where the cars were coming down from or how much cleaning a rental car could need, but it was another hour before ours finally showed up.
By this time, it was 8:30 Denver time. Our plans of the Denver Zoo Lights (tickets for 7:30) and dinner had been snuffed out so we decided to just go to the hotel and call it a night.
As we left, I told a newly arriving family “good luck” and she looked puzzled. She had no idea what she had ahead of her. I just hope she packed snacks.