Let me give you a transliterated impression of flying in one of those little prop planes, a 30-seater or so. They move a little differently than the big Boeing jets and make different sounds. They go something like this:

grgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgr wwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ZHZHZZHZHZHZHZHZHZHZZHZH ga-GOOM-ga-GOOM-ga-GOOM brrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR chuggachugga ga-GOOM-ga-GOOM dgtdtgdtgdtgdtgdtgdgtdgtgdDGTGDTGDTGDGTDGTGDTGTDG
wwwaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhh SHSHHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHS ga-BOOM!!-ga-ga-ga-ga-BOOM!! zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhz wwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ung-ung-ung-ung...ung...ung...*sweat and vomit spectacularly*

Now let me give you an impression of the air valves on the ceiling that are supposed to cool you off:

.............................

Needless to say, we were glad to get off that plane.

So we had a three hour lay-over in LaGuardia, which is a nice enough airport, I suppose. We spent a lot of the time sitting on the other side of security and watching people file through. For all the increased security restrictions as of the day before, getting people in and out of the airports, on and off the planes, was very efficient everywhere we went.

The day before, see, these doofbags were caught trying to fly from the UK to the US with liquid explosives. The security level for UK->US traffic was raised to red, and everywhere else to orange. You couldn't have any liquids, gels, or creams in your carry-on luggage. We later found out they made Stephen throw away all his hair gel, and he was nervous and panicky when he landed, and Dave had to calm him down and administer CPR and punch him in the face a few times to bring him back to his senses, although I think the punching part was just for fun.

We boarded our connecting flight to Denver and then rediscovered that non-stupid planes have working air conditioning and are capable of controlled flight. The in-flight movie was Mission: Impossible III, which I haven't seen but refused to watch, on the grounds that watching movies on planes ruins them. Bad picture, bad sound, content edits, and a generally uncomfortable environment are all less than ideal for movie-watching.

We landed in Denver, found our luggage, and met up with LaZorra, all without trouble, although initially we were on opposite ends of the airport and had to make use of that handy little invention known as the cell phone to meet up. We greeted each other. She got weirded out by finally meeting actual Internet psychos in person. Then we headed out to pick up our rental car.

The vehicle we got turned out to be an upgrade from what we requested. They must have run out of the next size down. But it was fortunate, because it gave us extra seats to cart people around later in the weekend. The bitter irony is that, with the extra room, we could have also given Maryam and TalkingDog a ride from the airport, but it was too late by that point.

We discovered first-hand the convenience of planned cities -- most non-Californian western cities -- specifically that they can be navigated. All the horizontal streets are incrementally numbered, and all the vertical streets are named alphabetically. If you miss a turn, you just take the next one, and you'll be ok. Contrast this with New York City, where, if you miss a turn, you are executed by the local populace. Or with Boston, where, if you miss a turn, you'll still be just as lost as if you don't, so you might as well navigate at random.

Sunday's lunch was purchased at Super Target: the now customary burgers and dogs, with assorted chips and soda. Also bottled water, to help fend off the symptoms of elevation sickness. The meat came out perfectly: only three burgers and two hot dogs were left over.

After that, we were starving and needed dinner. Why, I don't know, as it was only just after 9pm. So we drove around randomly and found a Coldstone ice cream place. Leen and LaZorra were all, "ICE CEAM!!!" and had to stop. I wasn't so thrilled with ice cream for dinner, but I was even less thrilled with the idea of driving around aimlessly until we found a suitable place, so I was happy to stop. Then we got out of the car and discovered, oh, there's a Quizno's right next door. YES! ...And then we discovered they had closed four minutes prior. Bah. I hate you, food. I don't need food. Go eat yourself, food. I don't care anyway.

So we found the hotel and plunged through. ahmoacah, ever the early one, was lounging in the lobby, along with Randy and Enigma. Introductions were made, and LaZorra freaked out a little more but did not show it. Randy helped us unload. Shortly afterward, Ticia came down, and less shortly afterward, Stephen and Mia and Dave came down. We hung out in the lobby to wait for the others, and we did not get kicked out.

Those remaining: Maryam and TalkingDog, and famous and wintermute. I called both. The former pair had gotten a ride from the airport and were wanting at the bus exchange down the road for the second bus that would take them to the hotel. famous and wintermute were at the car rental place. Good, good.

Except Maryam called ages later, saying that they had discovered that the second bus had stopped running for the day some two hours ago. So Leen and I piled in our car with ahmoacah (who basically knew the way to the bus stop) to pick them up. When we got back, famous and wintermute had arrived.

Rather than make a whole lot of noise in the lobby, I suggested we convene in the conference room, which was right by the lobby and all set up for the following day. It was a nice room, bigger than some we've crammed inside, but there was a big problem: the room was super hot, and the air conditioner didn't blow out cool air nearly as much as it should. Setting it high made it blow like low. Dave, in particular need of cooling off, sat right in front of it, and Stephen complained that he was ruining all the air for the rest of us. Well, he was. The air quickly went from hot to hot and Dave-tainted.

The hotel key cards advertised Domino's Pizza on it. Perfect -- food! wintermute hadn't eaten either, so he and I planned to split a pizza. He called up, and the estimated delivery time was an hour and a half, so he said not to bother. They were less busy then before, apparently -- about five minutes before we arrived, Enigma had ordered a pizza, and they told him it would take two hours, although it ultimately only took 30 minutes. Talk about erring on the high side. I don't think it takes two hours to turn a live pig into pepperoni.

The saving grace was that our room had a microwave in it. That allowed us to break into the hot dogs for Sunday and chow down on those. Supper at last!

In the neighborhood of midnight, we decided to adjourn for the night, although Dave, Stephen, and Mia stuck it out a while longer. As we all filed out of the conference room, PenaltyShot and her boyfriend Seth were just arriving. "Did we miss everything?" she wondered, but nobody noticed them -- most of us had rooms down the hall, in the opposite direction from the lobby -- except Enigma, who rode the elevator up with them. He introduced himself to them, then tried to introduce himself to the other woman riding up in the elevator with them before realizing she wasn't one of us at all. To my eternal shame, this was only the first time in the weekend PenaltyShot and Seth got left behind, and the fact that the later story worked out for the better anyhow is small comfort. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we finally retired for the night -- we shared a room with famous, wintermute, and LaZorra -- we discovered how quickly LaZorra can fall into a sound sleep. The lights were still on, the rest of us were still talking, and she lay down, and conk, out.

Just like this post!

Conk, out.