Colorado 2007 - Page 1

Monday 10th September

Winter Park Colorado

Having woken at 3.30am, it was time to get going and be ready to commence my journey to Winter Park - Colorado, by way of a taxi ride to Gatwick Airport - London a journey I have done a many a time. Upon arrival at the Gatwick I was greeted with organised mayhem, people getting too or arriving from flights from the four corners of the globe.

Having checked in with the airline and gone through security and checked in with Gatwick's Special Assistance Team without whom boarding an aircraft of any discription would be impossible.

I am now installed in my seat on board the aircraft bound for Minneapolis I always get concerned at this time as I hope a pray that my wheelchair dose indeed get placed in the hold of the aircraft and is not left on the tarmac, because once the aircraft has taken off that's it a done deal!

After 9 hours the aircraft came into land at Minneapolis where I was meat at the aircraft's door with help to get off the aircraft and more importantly my wheelchair was waiting for me PHEW!!!

After clearing US Security, Customs and Immigration which all took forever, I still had to pass US Security, this time to have my wheelchair security cleared, then had to re-check in my baggage, all of this took time and resulted in a bit of a rush to make the boarding gate for the next leg of my journey Minneapolis to Denver International Airport - Denver Colorado, this flight was dream compared to  the trams Atlantic part 2 hours and I found my self in Denver International airport, with help to get off the aircraft and again the best sight for sore eyes my wheelchair. 

Because I had gone through US Security, Immigration etc.. at Minneapolis it was straight through to baggage re-claim to collect my bag and then on to find my booked taxi, again this was as straight forward as it gets as my taxi and driver were waiting for me, however I did notice that the taxi driver had his head in the engine bay looking a bit puzzled, it transpired that the taxi was as dead as a door nail, Bugger!
 
After a bit of hanging around a tow truck arrived from the Airport's Ground Crew Vehicle Department between the taxi driver and the tow truck driver they got the taxi going again, so it was now time to start the final leg of my journey Denver to Winter Park.

4 hours later I arrived in Winter Park and the Best Western motel, upon arriving at the Motel I checked in only to discover that the room I had been allocated had a bed which was too high for me to get in to, so nothing for it a night sleeping in my wheelchair, I say sleeping, to be honest I don't remember to much sleeping going on.

Tuesday 11th September

Best Western, Winter Park

After a restless night, bang on 6am I was in the reception of the Motel waiting for the front desk to open which it where upon I explained the problem, namely that the bed was to high for me to get into, this turned out to be an error on the part of the room booking staff, so it was, I was allocated the correct room with a lower bed, so no more sleeping in my wheelchair.

The rest of Tuesday was spent settling into my correct room wrong and making up for lost sleep, I did take a quick spin round a wheelchair accessible mountain bike trail which was nice as the weather was lovely, I also heard from my long time friend Barb, who lives about an hour in a cabin on the shore of Grand Lake, which is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, having caught up on not seeing each other for 6 years we planned to meet up the following day.