Day 1 Arrival in SLC

"Brigham City: Gateway to the World's Greatest Wild Bird Refuge" That's tomorrow's stop.

Whew! Bed at 11p and up at 3a. My butt is dragging to say the least. Walked the half mile from Melodie's house to her gate to wait for the shuttle. Hot, humid and makeup dripping down my face. To airport in plenty of time and arrived Denver 30 minutes EARLY! Overcast, gloomy and 54 degrees upon arrival at 9a in Denver. Got to walk a country mile to the next gate for our connection. Funny thing! We checked the board before walking from gate 2 to gate 75 and noticed that there were THREE different airlines and flight numbers listed for that gate but the destination and time of departure was the same. Curious. Upon reaching gate 75, there were hundreds of people waiting for their plane and the lines were cued for "gates 67-69, 70-72, 73-75 and 76-79"! what a mess! Too much to deal with just then since our plane wasn't going to depart for another 2 hours. So we claimed a spot and ate a sandwich as if we knew we were ready to go at a moment's announcement.

The people cleared out and our plane was supposed to board soon so I checked with the counter to be sure we were A-O.K. NOPE! Nope? Nope. You can't carry on your bag and your backpack can't be more than 7" thick to fit into the overhead. You're on a much smaller jet with little space, the little ticket taker said. Now what? All she could suggest was to move our things around, tag our carry-ons as having gone through security and hand them to the baggage guy on the tarmac before climbing the stairs to our "jet"?

To get to the plane at this end of the world of jetways, we had to carry our bags down two flights of stairs and walk yet ANOTHER country mile to the bitter end of the jetway passing door after door for each individual gate number until we reached 75. Remember, they only go 79 and 75-79 were all together at the final doorway. It WAS a jet all right but a 48-passenger jet. Squished into the plane two-by-two for the hour flight wasn't fun especially since the windows were the perfect height for an 8 year old. Spent my time flying VFR (visual flight restrictions) as if I were flying the plane and took pictures of the landscape below. Great landing and found a woman in the left seat to boot! I was thrilled!



Got our car, grocery shopped, bought liquor at the state store. Oh yes, the clerk in WalMart laughed when I asked where the wine was! She said we only sell beer here. Where are you from? Florida has beer and wine in a WalMart. You're in Utah now and you can't buy anything here but beer. You'll have to go to the State Liquor Store. Yup! "Go out here, turn left on Main, turn left on Forest, you'll see the post office and it's across the street. Just head towards the mountain." Right. Which mountain? Almost every road heads towards a mountain! The directions were good. Got our Zinfandel and talked Melodie into a bottle of Crown since it doesn't have to be refrigerated and will last longer than the wine. Quizzed the cashier at WalMart for restaurant suggestions and took his high recommendation for the Beijing Buffet and we feasted with a hot pot of Jasmine tea.

HOJO is our overnight and we're catching up on our blog after we finally got into a "clean" room. Must organize but we're ready to take on the next 21 days. Is this our road into Wyoming tomorrow?