Battle of the Alamo

Flight was OK. Didn’t sleep but watched Senna twice. Had to watch it again a second time as couldn’t hear much the sound the first time with the BA headphones. Eventually fished out the iPod ones from the overhead locker for success. Watched all of Bridesmaids too.

On arrival into Denver the Rockies looked epic in the distance. Got told off for trying to take a picture out the window as I headed up the walkway to US Immigration. Was one of the first through in less than 5 minutes. They now take all your fingerprints. They’re probably back in London right now for the UK government to use against me at a future point. Upcoming Scottish riots maybe.

Carousel started up quite early and my bags came out not first but impressively early and together so I was off and running. Next hurdle to be the shuttle bus to the Alamo. Not the one in Texas, but the rental car depot at the airport. When I got to the bus everything went pear-shaped.

A guy getting off has been down the depot already and according to him and what the driver is also saying (she’ s just doing her job, but doing remarkably honest for which I complimented her) it’s a shambles down there. They’ve given away all their cars and can’t honour bookings. Loads of people are down there, they’re trying to gather up cars from other places etc. Labor day Saturday is the main cause. The guy leaves to seek his alternate arrangements. I decide to head down there and face the possible consequences. I’m first on the bus. The driver doesn’t mention any of the situation this to the rest of the customers who then fill up the bus.

We get to the Alamo. I keep quiet about the rumours as I wish to escape the bus quick with my luggage. One guy with little luggage beats me into the queue inside the office. 20 people ahead of me who were already there, ominously there’s a lot of people standing outside too. Turns out they’re waiting for cars.

I eventually get processed, takes a long time. There’s a few Brits there to talk too. Good camaraderie. Just like the Blitz I’m sure. I get processed eventually. Given paperwork and I join queue outside. The woman behind the counter wasn’t saying much about the situation and I wasn’t pressing her too hard, the true situation and nuances would reveal themselves outside in the next queue.

It’s not complete chaos out there, but I could see how things could break down at the edges. I can turn this story into an epic, I’d been expected the worse since the airport, it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride so some details may drop out.
The single obvious member of staff gave a little speech to the 30-40 people out there. The options quickly appeared as :-

(1) Taxi at their expense (reimbursed later, yeah right) to your hotel. Not much use if you’re trying to ambitiously get to a Motel 6 in Cheyenne, Wyoming on the first night. The car shall be delivered to you the next day.
(2) Hang in there waiting for a car with no guarantee you’ll get one tonight.
(3) Hotel at their expense in the Denver area.

It was chaotic but no-one else joined the queue for quite a while, I think they must have started turning the people just behind me in the queue inside away completely. Lots of people staying locally, or even as far out as Boulder (my normal haunt) got taken by taxis or courtesy buses to hotels. This whittled down the herd a bit. The chaos led to at least a couple of obnoxious guys, New Yorkers I thought, managing to jump ahead of people in the queue for the occasional appearing vehicle from which there were re-percussions and better care was taken care of who was next to the incoming vehicle. I got confirmation where I was in line several times to reassure myself I wasn’t going to get steamrollered by anyone behind me. There was one master handwritten list which mistakes were being made on. Names getting written in the wrong order and scored off by mistake etc. People who’d accepted hotel transfers were getting mixed up with ones that needed vehicles tonight, I took control to ensure my interests were looked after and they knew who I was and where I was in the remaining queue. You’ve got to engage, other people were failing to engage due to either language issues or fatigue from long trips. I had a laugh with a few people as we stood around. You’ve got, otherwise it could disintegrate. Make sure everybody left knows and agrees where they are in the “line”.

To cut to the chase I eventually got a massive Dodge Durango SUV. It was being loaded up by the guy in front of me, but the trunk door didn’t work so he rejected it. I grabbed it. My cases slipped in through one of the back doors just as easily into the trunk. I declared I would happily accept that imperfection. I also was given 10% off etc. Plus free gas on the return, I’ll work it all out in 3 weeks. More about that vehicle later. It’s awesome, even using it in the dark confirmed it’s the best one yet. Too bad the boot doesn’t open, maybe I should have waited for the one after the next one. No danger of me taking that risk.

Took off in the pitch black at approx. 10pm. The rental car fiasco had lost me about 3 hours. Never looked at any maps, but I knew approximately what I was doing. Picked up I-70. Headed up to I-25 then up in the dark the 100+ miles across the border. Through Denver, Loveland, Fort Collins etc. in the dark. SUV handle well. Speed kept creeping up, had to ease off a few times.

Checked into Motel 6 at 2345 local time. Almost forgot to pay for Wifi. $3.17 so that I can sum up the Alamo situation. Words don’t do it justice! It could have been a complete disaster, I’m sure other people in situation suffered but through a combination of perseverance, timing and luck I triumped. At least a few gave up too early and surrendered in my humble opinion. No backbone(!) Whereas me, I’d been planning this trip for more than 18 months. A night in Denver was not on my list of desireables.

Spent 5 minutes in the room and then went a couple of miles back down I-25 across I-80 to a 24 hour Denny’s I’d seen on the final approach. Ordered breakfast, it was 7am my time after all. Drank 2 glasses of lemon water to rehydrate. Back to motel. Tried to sleep for a bit, main train tracks nearby so there’s horns going all the time. Motel 6 is crumbling to bits, but it’s a bed. It was pretty full but they’d kept my room luckily. TV works fine. I’ll lie down after this for 2-3 hours then hit the road. Probably have another breakfast en route.

Today has a “plan”. I’m still on schedule despite the Alamo attempt at chucking in a spanner. I have 2 targets today. They are both slight detours, one is #44 in a series, and the other is #15. No prizes for guessing what I may be. Neither involve much hiking. I need to ease myself in gently today after last night! I’m tired. I knew I had to force myself out to Denny’s for that food. Good call.