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31.08.2014 Day 10 Fly to Denver Colorado
The horror of this day is almost too fresh in my mind to write it down.
Event One:
It began at 5am when we needed to wake up to sort out our 'repack' and get on the road back to St Louis to catch the plane to Denver. After doing our packing the night before, this meant we had only caught 4 hours sleep.
Event Two:
We have been travelling around the States with the great help of a GPS actually lent to us by our Westpac friend Antony Raine. This GPS has been invaluable to us travelling around country roads and to odd little places. This morning, we drove off and set the GPS to St Louis Lambert International airport. Or did we??? After the two hour trip to St Louis, we found ourselves winding around deserted little roads that didn't seem to be right for taking us to a big airport. Eventually we stopped and asked at a shop, and found we were actually on the way to Chesterfield airport. The wrong airport!! A small airport on the outskirts of St Louis, and the international airport was a long long away.
That's ok, we had time -so we reset the GPS and drove off to find the right place. We arrived at the right airport much later with a sigh of relief. We needed some time because we wanted to buy a new suitcase. One I had purchased had collapsed on one side and needed replacing. BUT, we had to first drop off the rental car.
Event three:
Honestly we followed the signs, but after circling around the airport about 3 times. We couldn't find the rental car drop off area. Ken was swearing, and I was starting to panic. The signage was so shocking we kept taking the wrong turn offs, even with both of us looking carefully where we needed to go. But finally, through a process of elimination, we found the drop off, some distance from the airport. We then had to take a courtesy bus back to the terminal. We had been told that we needed to be at check in at least 1 ½ hours before the flight. That time was running out.
Now I don't know if it was because we had left so early, and we both desperately needed coffee and food, but we seemed to have our timing all out.
Event Four:
We rushed in and decided not to worry about buying a new suitcase, only to find that the broken one, was too heavy. The lady who checked us in, sold us a large MidWestern bag, and sent us away to repack.
Event Five:
It was when we started to repack that we found that something we were carrying which was quite fragile had broken. It was all wrapped up and everything, but the broken suitcase hadn't been supportive enough.
Brace yourselves - the broken item was an urn carrying Ken's brothers ashes. One of the reasons we came to the states was to retrieve these, as there was no family left to look after them. We had hoped to bring them back to NZ to scatter. I am not saying the breakage was severe, so it wasn't a disaster, it was just the top that had broken. But we realised we would have to repack the urn, tightly sealed again in a different suitcase. So there we were at the airport, repacking everything, and trying to be respectful and make sure the urn was sealed and safe.
We took the luggage back to check in, and then went through the security lines. This involves taking your shoes off, full body scans, taking computers out, and providing proof of identity and ticketing. We got through and sighed with relief, the luggage was sorted and we were ready for boarding in time.
Event Six:
THEN... we heard our names called on the speakers. Please return to check in! We headed back to find out that they had found the urn and the ashes. They informed us that we can't take it as packed luggage, but can carry it on board as hand luggage. So we had to repack again. We moved everything around, and put things we had as hand luggage into the suitcases to make space, and once sorted, our luggage went back into check in, and we headed off to go back through security again.
Event Seven:
So they asked, as they had before for our identity, and as before, we produced our NZ drivers licences, but OH NO.... they don't accept NZ drivers licences.. but but... we got through before. No... that person was wrong to let us go through, and was going to be disciplined, we had to produce our passports. So where were our passports? Back in our checked-in luggage that had already disappeared out to the plane.
Event Eight:
Suddenly we were faced with the possibility of our luggage including our passports going to Denver while we were unable to get through security in St Louis. We started stressing big time.
I gotta say, thank you , and huge gratitude to the woman who was head of security at St Louis airport.
She was very serious about the situation that we had been let through the high security area the first time without the right documentation, and she was apologetic that we had to repack all our luggage twice, (she didn't even know about the wrong airport, the rental car mess-up or that we had only had 4 hours sleep and no food). She and the Head of luggage joined Ken down at the luggage area and went to retrieve our luggage from the carousel. I was left upstairs by the security check-in, not really knowing what was happening.
Event Nine:
They took ages...as the luggage guy was looking for Ken's luggage not mine, and the passports were in my suitcase. Then finally they found my luggage, and they watched as Ken looked through my clothing to find the passports with our tickets home. Then because they witnessed he had not changed anything in the cases, (except having to repack again) they took the luggage back in without us having to take it through check in for a third time.
Event Ten:
Meanwhile I am standing upstairs with our carry-on luggage wondering where he was, and what was happening. I still hadn't eaten and my sugar levels must have been at an all time low. I was thinking, "We aren't supposed to catch this plane" and suddenly I just started to weep. It had all been just too stressful. After about ½ an hour and with 5 minutes to boarding, Ken and the nice security woman arrived back on the check-in floor. She took us through security personally, and because Ken had mentioned I was diabetic, and likely to be extremely edgy, she gave me a bag of munchies and a bottle of water as she was worried about me. Nice lady.
We ran with the ashes, and our carry on...and managed to arrive at the gate just as our turn to board was announced. We sat in the plane and just couldn't talk, then we both went to sleep.
Arrived in Denver, picked up our next rental car and drove to Wendy's and pigged out on burgers and milkshakes. Not the best, but food nevertheless. By the time we got to our hotel, we were so exhausted we dropped the luggage in a corner, crawled into bed and slept for the entire afternoon.
We still haven't got outside the hotel door. We both feel like we have been through a train wreak, and we hope that tomorrow we can wake and put this day behind us.
We also hope tomorrow, we can laugh about it all. Five repacks,security issues, broken things, two check-ins, no food and 4 hours sleep! It's a great travel story after all.
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