We just spent four days in Colorado visiting family and attending the Westminster, CO (Chuck’s hometown)Â Centennial kick-off event. It was a pretty low-key affair, with a very small town feel to it (though with a population of over 100,000 people it’s not all that small anymore – when Chuck’s family moved there, it had a population of around 3,000!). Chuck’s stepdad Jerry was honored at the event as one of the 100 most influential citizens of Westminster’s first 100 years. They had plaques made for all 100 folks, and if the individuals themselves or their families were present, they were honored by name. Chuck’s brother and two sisters were also in attendance, as were two of his nephews and one grandnephew. It was pretty neat when the four of them went up to get Jerry’s plaque. It’s been a long time since they were all in the same place at the same time.
After the centennial celebration, we spent a few more days just visiting. Oh, we also helped Chuck’s sister buy her first Apple computer, a laptop, and then spent half a day getting her familiar with how they work. Whenever we switch someone from PCs to Macs we call it a good day, so that was fun.
We got to see one snowfall, just enough to be pretty, and it was cold enough to make us appreciate living in So Cal. The altitude kicked both Chuck and my butts. We tried running one day and ended up gasping and run/walking most of the way. I never was able to make it up a flight of stairs without stopping to catch my breath.
We flew on Southwest, and saw firsthand the advantage of using their Early Bird check-in deal. Our return flight left Denver at 8:30pm on Sunday, so at EXACTLY 8:30pm on Saturday I logged on to check us in and we received boarding numbers of A54 and A59 – as in we just barely got into the A group. Clearly Southwest is saving the lower A’s for people paying the Early Bird $10 fee. We still had okay seats and since we had no carry-on bags we didn’t have to sweat overhead compartment space so it wasn’t a big deal, but it’s an interesting new development in the ongoing battle to get good seats on Southwest flights. The age of smartphones has made check-in more of a competition – clearly there is an app for that and a lot of people have it!
Anyway, pics of the trip are here.