American West Bus Tour Day 1/20 - Arlona hits 40!
We start a new adventure today, a bus tour - something totally new for us. As you can see from the map above, we're bussing from Sante Fe, New Mexico to Missoula, Montana through several National Parks and attractions. We will then rent a car and drive across Montana, spending the night in North Dakota before heading south to Rapid City, Mt. Rushmore, and other South Dakota spots. We will end our drive in Omaha, Nebraska, and then fly home. This trip will take me to several places I visited as a kid but Arlona has never seen them. In addition, we will go to several new places for both of us. This will also propel us closer to our goal of setting foot in all 50 states, moving Arlona from 39 and me from 44 to either 48 or 49 states, depending on whether we cut through Idaho. That will leave Oregon and possibly Idaho as the only states we will still need to visit.
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| Our bags, eagerly awaiting our driver |
Our driver arrived late. He was scheduled for 9:15 but arrived at 9:45. We arrived at the airport at 11:00 for our 11:45 boarding time and 12:15 departure. Skycaps checked us in immediately at the curb, we walked right up to TSA and then walked right onto the shuttle tram to the gates. Favor was smiling upon us. The Southwest app notified us that our bags were loaded on the plane. All was good at MCO.
Our flight to Houston departed more or less on time. The flight attendants had to remain seated for the first 20-25 minutes of the flight as we cut through some of the effects of Hurricane Francine which made landfall yesterday in New Orleans. The rest of the flight was uneventful other than the landing. I expect the Houston Hobby folks had to fill in the runway with new concrete where we must have dug a trench. Wow - we landed hard!
We had a quick turn in Houston - only 40 minutes. Well, that was until our flight got delayed, and then delayed again. I expected it was an issue with the inbound plane as it wasn't at the gate yet. It turns out it was already here and in a hangar. My guess is that we were waiting for a crew. We'll never know. We boarded and departed over an hour late. That wasn't a big deal for us as this was our last leg and we had no plans tonight.
It was a smooth flight right up until we got close to Albuquerque and then the serious bumps showed up. We enjoyed another hard (but nowhere near as hard as the first flight) landing and we were in New Mexico - Arlona's 40th state. I was here in the early 80s for work so my state count remains at 44.
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| Our crash pad for the evening - the Days Inn Airport - a short 8-minute shuttle ride from the airport |
We were hungry so we made the 6-minute walk to a Fuddruckers that we passed en route to the hotel.
We had some decent if not great burgers for dinner and then walked to a local convenience store to grab a couple bottles of cold caffeine (Diet Coke - the tiny store had nearly nothing else) for the morning.
We walked back to the hotel and turned in for the night. We reset all our clocks and such to our new time zone - Mountain Time. We watched a little TV before turning in.
Tomorrow, we will grab breakfast here (yay for free hotel breakfasts!) and take the shuttle back to the airport where we will meet our tour director, Geoff, and take a bus to Santa Fe for the start of the tour.
A new tour adventure begins!
You should be able to cross Idaho off your list, your extension part of the trip is taking you through a corner of it. We spent a lot of time up there in that corner, our daughter went to college in Rexburg.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been waiting for your next adventure! We enjoyed these national parks on RV trips with our kids. You should have a spectacular trip ~ enjoy!
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