Saturday 12th August 2017

We were awake well before six, heads full of all the things we needed to do before the taxi arrived at nine. Coffee was made, and breakfast eaten. I wanted to batch edit the last shots from a church I had shot in June, as once the trip was under way, and after, it would be forgotten. Jools goes out to move plant pots so her Dad can water them easier, flowers are deadheaded. I help too, just so you know I am not totally photography orientated.

I go round the house checking windows, double checking windows and giving the windows one final check, and we were done. All we could do was hope the taxi was on time.

It was fashionably five minutes late, but when it pulled up, made it all real now. We were off and would not be back for 16 days. He takes the cases, loads them in the van, I lock the back door then have to go back to get the small camera. But I had realised before we left.

Call me Ricky the driver said; so I called him Rickaayyyy, and he groaned. An old Easternders reference for the non-Brit readers. We all get in, nothing had been forgotten, or if it had, was now too late. We were off.

THe route as as I have described on many occasions; through Dover then to Folkestone then onto the motorway up to London and then round the M25. Traffic got heavier, but for the mst part we travelled at 70, and talked all the way, as Ricky wanted to know about us, and our jobs, so i could tell him all what I knew about wind turbines. Not as dull as it sounded, but I think he was interested, i know he was, as he said, and I think told him all about how the higher voltages are, the lower resistances are, a result of electrical laws. He was amazed we knew. I was amazed I remembered.

We inch towards the airport as traffic really slows us down, he takes us round the ring road of the airport instead of using the motorway, and saves about half an hour.

We arrive at before eleven, have nearly four hours to wait, so we get the cases out and go into the terminal to find where to check in, and after using the self service kiosk to get our boarding pass, we are told we could use the Club World desks, ths checking in and on our way to security withing 5 minutes.

5 more minutes we were through security, and walking through the huge duty free shop, now like an Ikea in that they don’t ever want you to leave without buying something.

After checking out a couple of the shops; I wanted to see if Dixons had the new Canon camera, but the assistannt did not know what a 6D was, so I was happy to leave. I had looked at the shiny things and didn’t see one anyway.

I have a card getting us into the lounge, but seems that our ticket did that anyway, as we had Club World seats, I got a bit confused with Business Class, which it wasn’t, but turned out to be comfortable once we boarded.

We found a place to sit, and have a drink, some lunch; vegetable chili for me whilst we people watched and then the early Prem game kicked off on TV. I find where the wine is, and have a glass of red whilst Liverpool struggle against Watford.

An hour before the flight was due, the gate is announced, and we make our way down wide corridors to gate 34, where hundreds of others were already there, of course.

As a privilege card holder, I got to board early, so was able to store my large camera bag in the overhead bin, and try to work out how the reclining seat with footstool was going to work. I have a bloke next to me, who in the course of the next 10 hours would do his best to ruin the flight for me. He would get up several times of an hour, putting his coat on, taking it off, taking the stool apart, adjusting it higher, lower, getting a coffee, complaining about the audio in his headphones, his meal and so on. And each time banging into me, thus making sleep impossible, even if I was trying. Interesting that his wife put the privacy screen up between them several times.

But we are off, in a 747, but well fitted out, and waited on by friendly staff, who served us lots of food and drink, and made sure we had all we needed. There was insalata caprese, or a variation of anyway, followed by seared beef, a well done small steak as it happened, but nice enough. And I watched the Lego Batman Movie, which was OK.

We fly over the Atlantic, Iceland, Greenland and through Canada, and in just over nine hours flying, we were dropping down into Denver. From my seat i could just see a small area out of the window in the door just behind the trailing edge of the wing, so once we get lower I can see the parched grass.

This is Colorado.

There is the usual scramble getting off, but we line up, then walk the rote march through the airport to the immigration hall, line up some more to register on a terminal, have our photos taken, then go down some stairs to line up some more, have our passport checked, finger prints taken and photo taken again. But once we had answered why we were coming to America, we were free to go. Welcome to America.

We had to catch a shuttle bus to the car hire lot, and by the time it left there was no room inside. First stop was for privileged members, and although I did not use the card to book the car, thought we should see if the card worked. We struggle to get our cases off through the other passengers, but once inside the office I show the card, she tapped at the computer and asks if we wanted a Mustang of Camero. Mustang please.

She handed me my card and a printout, and were told go to bay B02, the keys were inside. THank you and have a nice day.

We have a diamond white mustang convertable, which is not big enough for all our luggage, at least in the boot, so one case is on the back seat. We program the sat nave to Fort Collins and I start her up. The engine roars into life.

Out of the airport and onto the toll road, across undulating countryside, scattered houses and farms and in light traffic. Away to the west the Rockies start to to rise and disappear into a haze in the evening sunshine.

Trucks and lorries hammer past us, but we chug along at senty, the engine growling away, quite happy.

In an hour we turn off into Fort Collins, along a wide dual carriageway, across many sets of traffic lights, through the commercial centre and out the other side. We had passed the hotel and failed to see it. We turned round and where the road switched from being west to east, and two blocks further east there was the small sign for the Marriot.

It had a huge lot, so we park a hundred yard walk away from the entrance, unload the car then walk in, where two very friendly receptionists greeted us, founf the reservation and gave us our key. So nice and so easy.

After dumping the cases we go down to the bar for a drink, and end up having the best nachos I have ever had. A bold claim I know. I have a local beer, then a mai tai and another beer. And our body clock by then was telling us it was nealy four in the morning, we called it a night and went back to the room and bed.