Have Teens Will Travel

The first day of our summer vacation has finally arrived.  Had arranged for a ride to the airport so we wouldn’t have to leave car parked for two weeks. Double checked to make sure we had everything – passports, wallet, etc  (Last time we flew out west my hubby forgot his driver’s license! He had switched wallets for the trip – but luckily we had left early enough that he had the taxi driver take him home to get it and he made it back in time to catch flight.).

Arrived at airport 90 minutes before flight. Lines to get through security were not too long. Greeted by an enthusiastic TSA agent. This guy was very cool. He had this little routine he went through with every person that sounded something like this, “Going to Denver – check,  Gate 48 – check, Leaving on July 1 – check!”  Nice to have someone with enthusiasm and a positive attitude to make the security experience less of a drag.

Speaking of experience – we went through the new full body scanner at Orlando airport, and then I even got patted down by an agent. Oh joy! Kept my cool throughout. One snafu that hindered an uneventful (so far) travel experience – I  realized on the plane that I had left the rechargeable batteries for the camera at home plugged into the wall. Keeping fingers crossed that this won’t be a problem… but daughter reassures me that these batteries have a fail safe where they shut off after charging. Let’s hope so!

Landed in Denver a couple minutes ahead of time, which was a good thing since we had to hike from gate B22 to gate B91 – thank goodness we had an hour to kill between flights. It was good exercise anyway. Spent the flight time listening to a recorded webinar and reading a book on Facebook marketing. Trying to be productive now since I won’t be doing much work on vacation. That’s the plan anyway!

Landed in Boise, Idaho and proceeded to Thrifty rental car counter to pick up our car. Had gotten a good price on the rental, but now found out that it was going to cost $10 per day extra to have 2 drivers! On the other hand, they upgraded us from a full-size car to a minivan, which was good since my hubby had been stressing about the prospects of not having enough room in the trunk for all of our stuff.  Kids picked up suitcases while we got the car – (it’s so nice to be able to have help like that – they’re old enough to handle that responsibility.)

Our first stop was to Wal-Mart to pick up some toiletries and bottled water. Time to put the new GPS to the test. Her directions sounded funky, so we promptly ignored her, which led husband to comment, “Why do we have this if we’re going to ignore it?” We then started following her advice, and arrived at Wal-Mart in no time.

After a quick lunch at Burger King, we finally hit the road. Lovely scenery, driving along the Salmon river, watching rapids, Sawtooth range, seeing snowcaps on mountains ( daughter loved those). Took lots of pictures and passed the time playing 21 questions.  Here are a couple of pics:

Somewhere along the Salmon River, ID

Finally arrived in Salmon, Idaho at 8:00 p.m. local time (10 pm by our body clocks!) and ate dinner at Bertram’s Brewery and Restaurant. I ate delicious Sacajawea chili with stout ale. Can’t remember what everyone else had. Too tired!  We had good service, and the prices were not too bad. After dinner, we checked into the Stagecoach Inn. The receptionist was busy, so she had me start filling in forms while she waited on another guest since I was pre-registered. (It’s nice to be acknowledged, and not made to wait.) The room number suggested we were on the second floor – a disappointing development since we were bringing in all of our luggage (2 big suitcases, 2 small, assorted backpacks, computers, etc. ) but it turned out there was a downstairs – so we wound up being on the main floor after all. Good deal. Nice room -  2 queen beds – and a decent shower.

The motel sat on the bank of the Salmon river. Here’s the view from the back: 

Tomorrow we head to Canada!