Boulder, Colorado Trip: Day 7

Having packed everything up last night and taken it down to the car, I awoke this morning a few minutes after 5:00 and started making sure I had absolutely everything else I needed to take with me back home to California.

Checking out of the Millennium Harvest Hotel in Boulder, CO
Once I got everything together and made one last scan of the room, I went downstairs to the lobby and checked out of the hotel, paying for the movies I had purchased on my own personal credit card.

Driving back to Denver International Airport and returning the Rental to Budget
From there it was out in the 23 degree weather to the car for the drive back to Denver International airport to return the car at the Budget Rental Car lot.  The return of the car was quick and painless and involved nothing on my part other than agreeing to leave the charges on the same card it was rented on.

It was bitterly cold in Denver.  I was wearing thin sweatpants and that was a major mistake. Lesson learned.

Catching my flight back to L.A.
A few minutes waiting in a shuttle bus led to a short trip to the United terminal at the airport.  Although it involved a train ride and a rather long walk, I made it through the execrable TSA security checkpoint relatively stress-free, with just a minor delay related to a bottle of screen cleaner fluid that was in my laptop bag.  Of course, the TSA jacked the bottle, but I didn't care.  Whatever.

The Flight
I made it to my gate with a few minutes to spare and before I knew it, we were boarded and I got a Window seat in 20A, where i was joined by a nice woman and her little daughter who was just an angel.

The flight itself was completely uneventful and I felt absolutely ZERO motion sickness. It was absolutely awesome.  I passed the 95-minute flight by watching  the "Steal This Film Part II" movie on my iPhone and dozing on and off.  Towards the end of the flight, I got a couple of pictures of some mountainous ranges over  Arizona that turned out better than expected. 

Below is one of the better ones:

Back in Cali
We landed at LAX just after 10:30 and it took forever to walk from my gate over to the United baggage claim area where I was able to get my suitcase.  After picking up my suitcase, I walked outside and found a Taxi in short order that drove me over to La Gran Via Bakery to see the wife.

Eventually I made it home just before noon. 

This concludes my series of posts on my 2008 week-long business trip to Colorado for cross-training.