Wayfaring Day 147 - Travel Day

November 23, 2025 Sunday

Today is our travel day for going home. We haven’t been “home” since at least November 1 depending on the definition of “home”. We haven’t been to our home base one day this month. Tuesday we may spend a night there but that is uncertain. We have several difficult family situations going on so our plans have to stay fluid.

Our check out time was 10:00 and that is almost exactly when we vacated the property. We drove toward the airport stopping to fill the tank on our rental car before entering the airport. Everything went well at the Denver airport. No problems at any juncture and the plane pushed back 8 minutes early.

We landed at 4:46 which was early. We thought we might actually be able to catch the train to our sons house at 5:28. Unfortunately we were in for a very poor airport experience. The first issue was that we did not have a gate for the plane. Our early arrival evaporated as did our chance to catch the 5:28 train as our deplaning happened at 5:30. We had to walk about 20 gates around the terminal to get to baggage claim. The baggage claim number changed twice which really didn’t matter since the two carousels are next to each other. We waited quite a while for our bags but finally got our bags and headed down to the shuttle areas. However, we discovered the bus that serves the terminals is on the upper level. We elevatored up to the upper level and quickly caught a bus to take us to the terminal where the train boards. The driver was inexperienced and drove slow and in confusion. By the time the shuttle had us to the terminal it was already past the time for the 6:28 train. Had we arrived earlier to the terminal we may not have been able to navigate our way to the train anyway. There are almost no signs and almost every light down at the departure level was out. The airport actually had a portable light to help light up the area you walk through to the trains. At this point we called our son to come pick us up. Other people also abandoned the train and went to get an Uber.

By the time our son arrived, 2 hours and 30 minutes after touchdown, it was only about 15 minutes until the next train but we figured we made it to his house about 30 minutes earlier than if we rode the train. In keeping with our not naming places and other details we will not name the airport but suffice it to say this airport is most likely one of the most difficult to navigate and one of the most poorly operated major airports in the US.

We did get to visit with our son and grandson for a little while before we transferred our bags to our car and left for Amy’s sister’s house. It was a low traffic drive across the city due to it being a Sunday. The traffic outside the city was even less. In 47 miles we met maybe four cars and did not see one car on our side of the road. The only issue was that with about 10 miles to go we had to drive through a line of thunderstorms which meant driving through about three waves of very heavy rain. We made it to Amy’s sister’s house at about 11:30 which was about as expected. We watched some tv for an hour or so and then went to bed. Not a great travel day but less frustrating when you are not in a hurry and don’t have to go to work the next day or the next day or the next day…….