7:00 AM MT—This is it. The last morning. Officially, the group trip ended last night with dinner because we are all parting ways today. Some people have already left.
7:30 AM MT—Breakfast is beginning. I step out of my room at the exact same time as Bill and Denise are getting off the elevator. We share our last meal and they get ready to get their rental car from Enterprise. They are heading from here to Albuquerque, NM for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, which is another tour through Colette. They head home after that.
9:00 AM MT—I head out for a walk and discover a small farmer’s market in a parking lot behind the hotel. Produce looks good, but since I’m flying across country, I don’t feel that I can buy anything. It doesn’t matter anyway because I have no room in my luggage.
11:53 AM MT— Headed back to Denver International Airport. There are about 15 of us on the bus including Maria and Richard, of course. We are all flying United but have wildly different flight times. I have a 3:45 flight back to Boston and should be back home by 11:00. But Lise and Don have the worst of it, as far as I know. Their flight to NJ doesn’t leave until 5:00, putting them at home at about 1:30 AM. And they have to go back to work on Monday.
6:PM ET—”Ladies and gentlemen, it there is a medical professional on board, please hit your call button”. A passenger a few rows behind me had a diabetic reaction. Everything ended up OK, but I did start thinking about if we would have to divert. Where would we end up? Chicago? DC? We’re not far enough into the flight for New York.
9:30 PM ET—-We are landing in Boston nearly 40 minutes early. Our original flight plan took us over the Great Lakes to avoid some weather. But before we left the weather had cleared up enough to get us home by a more direct route.
10:30 PM ET—I am home and going to bed. I don’t have to go back to work until Tuesday, but the formal vacation is now really over. Tomorrow, I unpack, do laundry, and get settled back in. It was a good time with some wonderful people. I will be doing something like this again.
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