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Friday, September 22

Breakfast at McDonald's in Burlington at 9am before hitting the road.

Colorado / Kansas border at 10:30am. Stopped for pictures (of course). Please set your watch forward to Central Time.

Late lunch at Chili's in Salina, KS at 3pm. Filled up the tank in Salina, too.

Got on the Kansas Turnpike and headed for the Oklahoma border. Got there at 5:30pm.

Peed in Paul's Valley, OK at 8pm and filled up the tank.

Stopped for dinner at 9pm at Applebee's in Ardmore, OK.

Got to the Texas border at 10:15pm. The picture above was the only one I took with a flash the entire trip.

Got back to Dallas at 11:45pm.

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Wednesday, September 20

After breakfast at Burger King, we headed to downtown Denver to visit the Downtown Aquarium. The pictures above are all from there. Yes, they have tigers at the aquarium. Go figure. We wandered around in there from about 10:45am until 3:45pm.

Then we drove up to Broomfield, where I've been before (I helped with the installation of the voice system on their ZIP Shuttle, the free shuttle that takes people around the Flatiron Crossing area). We had lunch at Red Robin, and then rode the ZIP Shuttle around the loop. I recognized the driver and called him by name, which kind of surprised Lisa.

After our little bus ride, we watched The Black Dahlia at the AMC theaters in Flatiron Crossing. Good movie, but a little hard to "get" on the first watch. Might be a good one to pick up in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart someday.

After driving back to Denver, we found a Super 8 motel in a better part of town.

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Thursday, September 21

We slept in and ended up having breakfast at lunchtime at the Denver Diner.

Then we headed for the Denver Zoo, and got there about 1:30pm. We probably should have tried to arrive earlier to spend more time there. There was some confusion about when the zoo closed - one sign said 5pm and another said 6pm. According to their website, the admission gates close at 5pm, but shortly after 5pm, most of the animals were brought indoors, and there wasn't much to see anymore. We thought we had until 6pm, but if I'd known what it was going to be like after 5pm, I would have gone to see favorites first instead of saving them to the end. I only saw a few monkeys, and no birds of prey.

We left the zoo about 5:30pm and decided to get a jump on the drive home since we had already checked out of the Super 8. We had decided to go back the long way (but on more major highways), so we headed east.

Stopped for gas in Deer Trail, CO at about 6:15pm; and had dinner in Limon, CO at Denny's about 7:30pm.

We got to Burlington, CO at about 8:45pm and spent the night at Chaparral Motor Inn.

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Tuesday, September 19

I made reservations for the Royal Gorge Railroad. This is the main thing that I wanted to do in Colorado, and the reason we stopped first at Ca\u00f1on City. I've been over the bridge (it's been a number of years), but hadn't ridden the train through the canyon. I bought tickets for the 12:30pm trip, and they said we should be there around noon, and would start boarding at 12:15pm.

We slept in, packed up, checked out of the hotel, and went to Denny's for breakfast about 10am. Then we set off for the mouth of the Royal Gorge.

There are quite a few pictures above. We waited around for the previous group to arrive, and then loaded onto the train. There were a couple of open cars with just rails around them so you could get a better view not only to the sides but upwards, as well. The river ran on the left of the train as we were going up the canyon. There was an old water line that was constructed of wood and wrapped in wire many years ago. It was obviously not in use anymore, and breaking apart. You'll see pictures of the bridge (long claimed to be the world's highest suspension bridge at 1,053 feet) as taken from below. The train only goes about 15 mph, but in a couple of shady, windy places, it was actually chilly on the observation car. Whooo hooo! I really enjoyed this.

Filled up the gas tank and got slurpees at the "Loaf 'N Jug" quicky mart, and then headed back into town.

We stopped at the Holy Cross Winery and visited their tasting room. The winery and the abbey are separate buildings, and apparently the abbey was converted into a monastary a number of years earlier. And since that time, the monastary had ceased operation and the land was sold to the state corrections system. The winery leases its land and building from the new owners, and there's an agreement that the original abbey/monastary building's exterior will be left unaltered. Only a small percentage of the grapes are grown on the premises - most are a collection from other vineyards in the area. I enjoyed the visit and bought a mixed case of their wines. I would have liked a tour of the winery itself, but it was their busy time and they weren't offering tours that day.

After imbibing in some wine, we hopped into the car (shhhh) and made the short drive to Denver, where we drove all over the place looking at hotels and trying to determine the "bad" parts of town and the "good" parts of town. We ended up in the Westway Motel, which was in the "bad" part of town.

For dinner, we went to Dino's Italian Food in Lakewood, which turned out to be very good. We walked in at about 9:45pm, and were told they were open until 11pm. They even make their own sausage on the premises for the meatballs and links.

So, after the fiasco at Enterprise, we headed back to my house. Browsing through the Passbook, I found a wide variety of rental car places. However, from my initial checking, I knew that many of the smaller local branches would be closed on Saturday, and the nearest place to pick up some types of rental cars on Saturday was all the way out at the airport (25 miles away). So I called the toll-free number for Budget shown on one of the coupons.

The lady that answered the phone was very nice. She asked for my ZIP code and told me they had a location about 2 miles from where I lived that was open until 3:00 on Saturday. Thinking she's just give me their phone number, she instead asked me what size car I wanted, and when I wanted it. I told her an intermediate size, and immediately, for a week. She gave me a price that was less than what Enterprise had quoted (even without the fictional extra $105 for unlimited mileage), and asked if I wanted to reserve it. This might turn out to be easy.

I asked questions - about mileage, about driving out of state even beyond neighboring states, and was given all the right answers. She asked me for my name, phone number, and type of credit card, gave me the address for their local office, and told me there'd be a car waiting. Wow. So Lisa drove me to the place, and we walked in about 12:45.

I'd just taken in the Passbook and after they'd pulled up my paperwork and copied my credit card and driver's license I asked the gal if it was better to use the $20 off coupon or the free upgrade coupon. She said "Well, I don't have any intermediate cars available right now, so I'm already going to give you a free upgrade to full size, so use the $20 off."

I drove off the Budget lot in a loaded 2006 Ford Taurus at a little after 1:00 with a smile on my face. The folks at Budget know how to do customer service, and they'll get my future business.

We drove both cars to a restaurant for a quick lunch and then Lisa scooted back to work.

Nearly a month ago, I called the Enterprise lot near where I live to see what kind of rate they could give me for an "intermediate" size car for our trip. The guy I talked to quoted a price, and I asked if there was a problem with driving to Colorado since some car rental places don't allow you to take the car out of state, and others don't allow you to go beyond neighboring states. He told me they allow 1500 miles free per week and additional miles cost .25 each. (Yikes!) But for $15 a day, you can get unlimited mileage. Okay, that's an extra $105. I have a Passbook with coupons for 10% off or a free upgrade, and I wanted to figure out what was most beneficial. I told him I would either call back or book the reservation online.

About a week before the trip, after poking around their website and deciding it was better to take 10% off an intermediate than it was to pay for a compact and get an upgrade to intermediate, I made the reservation online. I even entered the coupon code and it took 10% off the total. But I couldn't find the unlimited mileage option. In fact, it said at the bottom:

MILEAGE IS UNLIMITED WITHIN TEXAS, ARKANSAS, OKLAHOMA, AND LOUISIANA. IF TRAVELING OUTSIDE OF THESE STATES, MILEAGE WILL BE CHARGED AT 200 MILES FREE DAY, 1500 FREE WEEK, AND 3000 FREE MONTH. EACH ADDITIONAL MILE WILL BE .25 MILE.

So I called the local lot again and asked how to go about making the reservation with unlimited mileage. This time I talked to a lady who told me not to worry about that, but to just let them know I wanted that when I picked up the car - it was just another option like all the different types of insurance. Great. So I asked her if I could arrange for a ride. She asked when I was renting the car and I told her from noon on Saturday, September 16th to the following Saturday the 23rd. She said I should just call them a couple hours before noon to arrange for them to come get me. Super.

Saturday morning I called the same number again, told them my name and that I had a reservation at noon and was wondering if I could arrange to get a ride there to get the car. Hesitation. The guy said "Well, normally that's not a problem, but there's only two of us here on the weekend, and we can't really leave only one person here." Oh oh. I grumbled and he told me it's never a problem Monday through Friday. He asked me where I lived, and I told him - less than a mile away. Hesitation again. He said call him back if I really needed a ride, but they probably wouldn't be able to do it on a Saturday. So I called Lisa and she ended up taking a two hour lunch break from work, driving all the way from where she works to my house to get me and take me to Enterprise. Grrrrr.

So when we get there, the first thing I notice is that there's one employee in the lot showing a car to somebody and THREE other employees inside the building. I gave my name and handed them the printout I had with the reservation number on it. The guy asks for my driver's licence and credit card and starts getting the paperwork in order. I mention that I want the unlimited mileage option because we'll be taking the car into Colorado. He looks at me and tells me the car can't be driven beyond neighboring states. SAY WHAT? I explain to him about the two different phone conversations I've had with two different people. I show him the verbage ("IF TRAVELING OUTSIDE OF THESE STATES...") on the printout I have. He apologizes that somebody gave me that misinformation, but that was their policy.

Well, Geek got pissed. Yes, I gave the little jerk behind the counter a piece of my mind. He just stood there stupid and handed me the rental agreement to sign. As if this doesn't make any difference. I told him what I thought of his "only two people here". I told him what I thought of their "We'll pick you up" slogan. I told him what I thought of the two people I'd talked to on the phone. I told him what I thought of their website. And I handed him back the contract and told him to tear it up. And that their main office would be getting a letter from me explaining my dissatisfaction. He mumbled something that Lisa thought might have been "I'll look forward to it". When I asked him WHAT? I got no answer. I was NOT speaking quietly. I only regret that their other customer was outside and (probably) out of earshot.

I think Lisa was embarrassed. We headed back to my house to make some phone calls.