Denver, Day 3: The Deliciousness of Strip Malls

Robbie and I had another restless night. I think he woke up at 4 or 5 and I stayed in bed until 6. I talked to Scooby’s mom and my parents and the consensus was that there was no point in flying standby because all but one Bozeman flight had been cancelled already.

So I decided to go hit up the breakfast buffet. Robbie wasn’t in the mood to eat, so I went downstairs and gorged myself alone, which felt really depressing. At one point, I called my family in Montana and they were planning on skiing and watching movies. As I hung up, I managed to convince myself that crying at a table by myself over a heaping pile of scrambled eggs was a bad idea.

As I walked back up to our room, I passed two women talking to each other about their travel nightmares. As I walked past, I heard a familiar word. Bozeman. I turned around and struck up a conversation. As it turns out, this middle-aged woman was also heading to Big Sky with her husband and two sons. I told her that I was almost desperate enough to take the Greyhound bus at this point.

“Greyhound?” She asked with her eyes wide. And I explained that she could get on the bus at 10 p.m. and be in Big Sky by 3 p.m. tomorrow. I’ve never seen someone so excited. She ran into her room to tell her family the “good” news.

Another woman began talking to me on my way back to the room. I asked her why it appeared that so many people had their luggage when all of the airport officials had told me that it wasn’t possible to retrieve my suitcase. She informed me that all of the luggage (thousands of passengers worth) was sitting in a giant room in the airport and anyone so inclined could go in and grab their bag. Or any bag at all. This news made me feel a bit sick.

Luckily, I had two things to look forward to: Wal-Mart was open for business and the Scooby Snacks was flying into Denver later that afternoon on his way to his parent’s ski house.

I left the hotel with instructions to pick up some boxers for Robbie. A woman at the hotel entrance told me that one of the shuttle drivers was about to drive her over to the Wal-Mart, which seemed like a better plan than walking over a highway on a snowy, shoulderless access bridge.

I have never been so excited to set foot in Wal-Mart. I grabbed a cart and started too look around. I decided that I needed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt along with new underwear. I grabbed my new clean clothes and left them in the cart while I wandered off to find boxers. Not three minutes later, when I returned with Rob’s new boxers in hand, my cart was gone.

This was a problem, particularly because almost everything was out of stock. I think I found the last size small pants and t-shirt inside of the store, so if I lost my cart, I’d have to get an XXL instead, which wasn’t going to cut it.

I started to wander around and noticed a man pushing a cart. The contents looked like mine and the guy was practically sprinting away from me with a guilty look on his face. As I caught up to him, sure enough, the contents of his cart were mine, but he had pushed everything to the back of the cart and started to add his own potential purchases.

“Umm. This is my cart,” I told him. His response was extremely logical:

“Oh, well there were none left..."

“So you just took someone else’s?” I wondered and then amid his nervous apologies, I grabbed my clothes, said “happy holidays” to him as sarcastically as possible and walked away.

Not a great way to start the day.

Luckily, putting on new clothes was enough to make me forget that big, dumb, cart-stealing animal.

I did yoga for half an hour, watched some television and then prepared to head to the airport on the shuttle to meet the Scooby. On my way out, Robbie returned from his morning adventure. After I returned from Wal-Mart, he decided that he wanted to go across the way as well, and headed over to Ross. When he returned, he was wet and limping slightly. He had walked over the highway, across access bridge, and he had fallen down. He was obviously in pain, but all we could do was laugh.

“I probably looked pretty funny,” he said.

“I wish I could have seen it,” I admitted.

I was so desperate to get out of the hotel that going to the airport to see Scooby seemed like the most fun ever. When I saw him standing amid a million people in the main terminal, I almost knocked him over with one very aggressive bear hug. Seeing a familiar face in Denver (other than Robbie’s, of course) was the highlight of my day. Even better than clean clothes.

We hung out for about an hour before he had to catch his shuttle up to Breckenridge at which point I caught a bus back to chez Renaissance. I found Rob exactly where I expected to—the bar. He was chatting with another new friend, this time the bartender. We had a typical Renaissance Hotel night. Drinking and chatting followed by a buffet dinner followed by him snoring in bed at 8 p.m. while I glumly watched television.

I turned the light out by 9 and didn’t bother setting the alarm, even though we wanted to head to the airport around 5 to try to fly standby before our 3 p.m. flight. I knew we’d be awake. Neither of us could sleep for more than an hour at a time.