My day

Yesterday was a long day for this little ginger snap.  I flew in to Denver, spent the day in the area as a busy bee and then flew home late yesterday.  The view driving from the airport always stuns me; the mountains on the horizon are absolutely incredible.

I had a couple hours to kill prior to my flight home when all of my errands were done so I stopped in and got my hair cut at Super Cuts – a local salon.  :)  I was talking to the gal who was chopping off my man-mane about the mountains.  As a life-long Colorado resident, she never notices them; they’re just the typical backdrop to her life.  Whereas, for an Okie like me, who’s lived his entire life on the plains with a backdrop of nothing, they’re fascinating to me.  And exciting.  And captivating.  It’s amazing how much where we’re raised influences our perception of what’s normal or what’s majestic.  If I had grown up in Colorado, I probably wouldn’t be so enamored with the mountains.  On the other hand, if I had grown up in Colorado and moved to Oklahoma (the exact opposite of my reality), I imagine I’d always miss them quietly watching me from the background.

I’m rambling.  Can you tell I love the mountains?  I do.  Just in case that was in question.  :)

So, basically, my day looked like this:

Get up at the butt-crack-o-dawn, help get Bean ready for daycare.  Send him on his was with his Daddy.

Get myself ready, check my bag for all of the essentials: iPhone (with charger), iPad (with charger), GPS (with charger and base), tickets, car keys, ID, cash, gum (for altitude changes).

Sidenote: I spoke with my doctor about treatments for altitude sickness (I can get a little flu-ish feeling when above about 7,500 miles above sea level).  Did you know that the current treatment for altitude sickness is a prescription of Viagra?  Crazy, right?  I’m please to report that I worked my way through the entire city of Denver without Viagra being required.  :)

Double Sidenote: I did deal with some minor affects of altitude.  I didn’t get sick but I was winded going up and down stairs too quickly.

Headed to the airport.

Got pulled out of line to be manually searched after the base for my GPS got me flagged via the x-ray machine.

Flew to Denver.  Uneventful flight.

Land in Denver.  Make my way to rental car pick up area. In Denver, you ride buses to pick up rental cars at off-site locations for each company.  I hopped onto the shuttle for Enterprise.

Arrive at Enterprise.  They can’t find my reservation.  In a moment of utter embarrassment and humiliation, I remember my rental is with Dollar.  Argh.  I ride back to the airport on the Enterprise shuttle in shame.

I catch the shuttle to the Dollar facility and get my car.

I drive to the condo that we’ve put an offer in on and spend about an hour familiarizing myself with the area.

I drive from the condo to my office to check the route and time it (obviously remembering that a) there’s no snow on the roads and b) this wasn’t rush hour).

I stop and grab lunch at Burger King, a local burger joint.  :)

I stop in at a King Soopers, a grocery store chain that we don’t have in Oklahoma.  I was sooper impressed with how clean and well-stocked the store was.

I headed back to the condo for inspections and to walk through the place for the first time.

I spend most of the time walking through the condo taking a million pictures, texting Jer and getting a feel for the place.

Our inspector was better than Holmes on Homes; he’s been doing it 30 years and was thorough, informative and really funny.

After finding out that the furnace was leaking carbon monoxide, I panicked a little.

Then I recovered; there’s always something to be repaired/replaced with a house.

Our Realtor stopped in and I love her.  On top of being a Realtor, she’s a real estate attorney and she’s the bomb.  She’s funny.

The inspections wrapped up.  Overall, it’s a good property in a good location with a few things that need to be updated (which we’ll ask the seller to address).

I leave the condo and that’s when I met my friend and the local hair salon.

After getting my hurr did, I stopped in at Starbucks, had a coffee and a piece of banana bread while transferring pictures from my camera to my iPad, and then uploading them for Jeremy to see (since he couldn’t get away to join me in Denver).

From there I headed back to return the rental car.  After 2 wrong turns and a 15 minute delay due to a wreck, I’m back on track.

After getting there, the guy who took realized he left his portable printer in another car and some traveler out in Denver has his printer.  After talking him down from a freak out (he was sure he’d be fired), he emailed me my receipt so I could get to the airport.

The shuttle takes forever to come.  It finally does and I get back to the airport.  At this point, I have 45 minutes until my plane takes off.

Luckily, the line at security is short and I make it through without any problems.

Flight home isn’t full so we’re spread out, which is nice.  Even nicer: wifi on the plane.  HELLZYEAH!  Tangent break: I love wifi on planes.  This made the flight actually enjoyable.  Jer was at home with Bean, who hadn’t been feeling great.  Thanks to iMessage on my iPad and Jer’s iPhone, we were able to message the entire flight, share pictures and video and I could catch up on news, update Facebook, manage PiL and even download an episode of American Horror Story I missed.  Every flight should have wifi – it should be mandatory.

Got home and to my car with out any fuss.  Drove home, kissed my husband (who was barely awake) and crashed.

It was a long, stressful day (my first time driving all of the Denver metro area on my own) but it was also pretty awesome.  It reaffirmed my love for our new home town and made my desire to get there grow exponentially. As I drove around the area surrounding the condo, it felt like home.  Not in some metaphorical way – it actually felt like our little suburb here in Oklahoma: clean, quiet, spacious, well-maintained and lots of young families.  The only difference was the beautiful backdrop that surrounds everything.

So, Denver, here we come.  :)  But, for now, I’ll settle for a nap.