Leaving Colorado

We had a really great weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado, at a family reunion with my first wife's cousins. We stayed at an inn with a big common room. Because we got some rainy weather we had to use the common room a couple of times instead of picnicking at a lake-side park. This worked out quite well, so I think we learned something for future family gatherings. The key thing was being together, and staying here made that really easy.

We also had time for exploring, shopping and riding some mountainside amusements, depending on individual tastes.

Now we are on our way to San Francisco, where we'll see more relatives. Getting to San Francisco, we chose Frontier Airlines. Apparently we got a real deal on the seats, because they won't even pour us a glass of orange juice unless we give them more money. I saw how much Frontier wanted more money when I printed out our boarding passes at the hotel this morning. I already knew that if we wanted to check any luggage it would cost us an extra $20 per bag, but I discovered that if I had not done the online check-in then they would have charged us money at the airport for our carry-on bags.

They also threatened to charge a fee if either of our bags exceeded their strict size limit. I suspect that Alla's bag may have failed, but nobody noticed.

We watched with amusement as the stewardess decided who got free drinks and who didn't. I could have a glass of water for free if I didn't want any ice. Ice costs extra. Somehow I decided to splurge on a Kind bar for a little more than it would have cost in a fancy grocery store. At first it looked like I couldn't have one after all because they had already sold the last one somewhere in the five rows ahead of us. Then, miraculously, they found one more at the back of the plane somewhere.

This whole revenue-scrounging plan bugs me enough that I don't expect to fly this airline ever again. I'm glad we have choices.