Saturday, July 16, 2011

The Journey Home

I am sad to say, but this is the last entry for our blog for this trip. The trip went by so fast. Barry did an excellent job of planning, and we just had a wonderful time. We have been talking about funny stories all day all the while doing laundry and unpacking.

Jacob and I went to the Harry Potter movie Thursday night at midnight. We got back to our hotel about 2:30 am and went straight to bed. Now we planned it to where we stayed at a hotel close to the theatre which was a great location. We walked to dinner one night, and we were able to walk to the theatre the next. We had a great time. We saw teenagers dressed as their favorite characters and they counted down the clock to when the movie was to start and took pictures of each other; it was great. Jacob and I just decided to dress as Muggles (non magic folk). I did surprise Jacob with a Harry Potter t-shirt. So we both wore one. There was lots of cheering and clapping during the show and Jacob and I joined in. All I have to say is, "Thanks Harry for an enjoyable and memorable ride."

We all slept in on Friday, which was a good thing considering Jacob and I were out partying all night. We started with breakfast at the hotel. We had pretty much packed up the night before, so it didn't take long for us to be ready to go.

The plan was to drive to Denver, about 70 miles, and visit the Denver Mint. We only had 4 tickets and we couldn't get a fifth one, so Barry let the four of us go in because he had been before. It was about a 20 minute tour that told the history about the mint and money in general. The mint doesn't make coins everyday, but we did get to see a couple of machines making pennies. The kids loved this. We also saw a couple of bins that had thousands of dollars of quarters. We had a really good tour guide. There were about 30 of us, but he took the time to answer all of the kids' questions. He a couple of times gathered all of the kids in the group and explained specifically how the coins are bagged and counted. The last 5 minutes of the tour took us through the original part of the mint.The murals on the walls and the green glassed chandeliers (that weigh 3,000 pounds) were absolutely beautiful! We thoroughly enjoyed the short tour. I think that we spent the first 15 minutes getting used to an armed guard in front of us and one behind us though.

We finished the tour, and headed straight for the Denver airport. We were about 15 minutes away. We turned in our vehicle and proceeded to ticketing only to find a mass of people waiting in line. I mentioned in earlier blogs about having severe thunderstorms in which the prominent precipitant was hail. Well, this long line was a result of that bad weather. So many airlines had to cancel or delay flights, that there was chaos everywhere. It was organized chaos, but chaos none the less. We did make our plane, but we did not get lunch. Fortunately, I packed some leftover snacks and junk food. Unfortunately, we had to split up on the plane and only Samuel and I ended up with a large quantity of snacks. It was the first time that I had ever had a Poptart on an airplane.

Anyway, we ended up at home about 9:15 last night, after a stop for milk and bread, only to find a fresh pan of homemade brownies and a fresh gallon of milk. Now that's a homecoming! We had a wonderful time seeing and visiting so many things that we had never seen and talking to new people on our trip, but all agreed that it was nice to be in our bed last night. We all slept well. There is no place like home!

Thanks to all who have been following our journey!

Until we travel again . . .

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