Eric Herman - Travelblogue: 2008 Spring/Summer Tour

I got up at about 5 am to get to the airport for my 7:15 flight back to Denver. I checked in my sound system and headed toward the gate and noticed an enormous line for the security check. I took a picture but it doesn't really even begin to show the extent of the line... it ran up a big flight of stairs, then down a hallway quite a way, then back up the same hallway past the point of the stairs, and finally into the security area. It took about an hour to get through and many of us ended up getting into the plane at about 7:05.

Roseann and the girls picked me up in Denver... this time taking the correct lane. I started to drive out on our way to Colorado Springs, but I suddenly got very tired. I didn't know you could get jet lag while traveling within the same time zone. We stopped and I got a nap, and then we continued on. I missed my GPS while I was gone... the rental car I used had one, but it wasn't as good as ours in several ways... but Roseann said that ours is passive-agressive and tried to kill her the other day by suggesting she drive off a cliff into a small creek while approaching the RV park.

We arrived at my sister Karen's house and had a happy reunion with her and her kids, Peter and Christina, and my folks, who flew in from Buffalo yesterday. We hadn't seen Karen and her family since spring of 2004, which of course means that they've never met Evee before now, and Becca was only a year and a half old. Since that time, Karen's family has had quite the journey... They had lived in Colorado Springs for several years prior to that, but then moved to Austria, then to Vermont, and then back to Colorado Springs earlier this year. It is really nice to see them and my parents again and we look forward to hanging out with them for a few days this week. We're just disappointed that my sister Diane wasn't able to make it here with her kids... we haven't all been together as a family since 2001. But hopefully we can organize some kind of complete family reunion while we're here and get together next year sometime.

The girls played with Christina for quite a while, who graciously played along with them (she's 14 now) with a strange combination of old Polly Pockets that Christina had and dinosaurs of Peters, and the rest of us talked and had dinner. Later, we played a game of Quiddler, which was fun. I started out strong but ended poorly and Christina did well throughout and won the game.

We made some plans for the coming days, and then headed to our RV park for the night.

The airport security line... well, part of it...