Today started fairly early. It’s time to go home.
We got up and ready and we were out the door about 5:15. Check out was quick, and pretty soon we had the luggage loaded in the Prius for the last time and were headed for the airport.
It was easy enough to find rental car return for Alamo, and despite a lot of cars seemingly coming in at once, someone was right there to scan us out. We grabbed our luggage, headed around the side of the rental car center building, and got on a bus a couple minutes later. It was a short ride over to the airport, and pretty soon we were checking in.
This, of course, was a process. The machine that Nick’s boarding pass printed on was acting up, so his boarding pass printed with two names on it, his and the person who had been before him. So I moved over to a different kiosk to do my check in (these flights had been booked on points, so we were on separate reservations). Mine printed correctly, so I tagged my bag, and then we headed over to bag check, where she got Nick’s boarding pass situation squared away and collected both of our bags.
And then we were off. Security was slow moving, even in the pre-check lane, and the x-ray didn’t love something in my bag, so it was my turn for the cursory luggage check, and then we were on our way. As we navigated the terminal, we saw a bit of sunrise over the mountains.
We had a bit of a wait for our 7:45 flight, and Nick stayed awake, so we ended up discussing next year’s school vacations. Discussion turned into looking, and then booking for February vacation. And by this I really mean we completely revamped our vacation plans for next year and booked flights…while waiting to board a flight!
Eventually we boarded. The flight to Denver was uneventful and short, albeit a bit bumpy. Denver was…chaos. They’ve dramatically expanded this terminal since we were last here (literally added 30 gates to it) so it is massive. I’m positive there were more people in the Southwest terminal that morning than pass through Manchester Airport in a year. It was nuts.
Our next flight was a bit delayed so we decided to get some breakfast. Nick wanted a sit down place, so we studied the website and found the one place that would still be serving breakfast at that point in the morning. We headed there and found that they had already cut off food service for the transition to lunch even though the website said they’d be serving breakfast for another half hour. So…we ended up going to Einstein Bagels. Nick got a breakfast sandwich to eat then and I got a turkey and cheese bagel sandwich to eat on the plane.
After Nick had consumed breakfast, we found our gate. We didn’t have to wait here very long before boarding began for our flight to Boston. While waiting, though, I made adjustments to those newly booked February vacation flights, for a more reasonable layover time in the winter.
Once boarded, we were in the air pretty quickly. We had a massive tail wind, so although we were close to an hour delayed, we only got into Boston about 10 minutes late. The flight was unremarkable.
In Boston we found baggage claim, our luggage emerged eventually, and then we headed out to find our car service. We found the driver easily enough, and soon enough we were on our way back to NH. The ride was as uneventful as any ride out of Boston can be. We were dropped off at my mom’s house, where Nick loaded up the luggage, I snagged the keys from the house, and we headed home, to get ready for the work week.
Final thoughts:
New Mexico is a state of extremes and this was a trip of extremes. We were on mountain tops and underground. We saw 90 degrees, we saw 30 degrees. And we saw incredible scenery (and some not so scenic things).
White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns should absolutely be on bucket lists. Both are just incredible.
Nick’s GI stuff had to have been medication side effects. I never ended up sick and there’s no way, sharing a hotel room, that I would have avoided getting sick if it was a stomach bug.
We drove over 1200 miles, stayed in 5 hotels, went to 3 big national parks and 4 smaller national park sites. My in-laws’ total was more like 12 or 13 total national park sites for the trip, but they had a couple days more than we did. Needless to say, I came home TIRED!
Despite exhaustion and Nick’s GI stuff, as well as Nick’s mental block about the food, it was another really good trip!
New Mexico is a state of extremes and this was a trip of extremes. We were on mountain tops and underground. We saw 90 degrees, we saw 30 degrees. And we saw incredible scenery (and some not so scenic things).
White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns should absolutely be on bucket lists. Both are just incredible.
Nick’s GI stuff had to have been medication side effects. I never ended up sick and there’s no way, sharing a hotel room, that I would have avoided getting sick if it was a stomach bug.
We drove over 1200 miles, stayed in 5 hotels, went to 3 big national parks and 4 smaller national park sites. My in-laws’ total was more like 12 or 13 total national park sites for the trip, but they had a couple days more than we did. Needless to say, I came home TIRED!
Despite exhaustion and Nick’s GI stuff, as well as Nick’s mental block about the food, it was another really good trip!
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