that said i should begin, or at least do each entry based on each day. friday morning rolled around and of course i couldn't sleep much, i think i got up at around 7 or 8. basically packing a lot of my stuff finally and trying to make sure i had everything. of course i didn't have to be anywhere till around 11 [since my flight left dulles at 1pm] so of course i finished packing within half an hour and was completly restless for some 2 hours. i think i must've gone from the living room to my room about 20 times trying to make sure i had everything, and basically trying to will time to move forward.

finally though it actually was 11 so we headed off towards dulles, and again there was a steady downfall of rain complete with a grey sky. i thought to myself "if it's raining in denver i'm going to cry," and i had checked the weather for denver earlier and it said scattered showers, so i did have some reason to worry.

there was little incident in getting dropped off at dulles and getting checked in. about the biggest one was that as i'm sitting there trying to find my gate i keep walking around going "where's it at?" because i had looked at my ticket and it said 27D, so i went down to d concourse and tried to find gate 27, only there was no gate 27. i could see 26, 28, and 29 but no 27. i didn't worry too much since i was over an hour early and figured they hadn't gotten to the gate and would get there around noon. so i sat down and had a bite to eat at pizza-hut, the pizza was a bit cold but not terrible.

it was then that i looked at my ticket and realized i had been looking at my seat assignment and not my gate number. thankfully my gate and seat assignment were similar and i only had to walk a few feet away to find gate 23 D. there were actually people at that gate, and the little podium even said St.Louis/Denver on it so i felt a lot better.

there's not much to write about the flight to st.louis, i killed time before boarding and once on the plane i had an isle seat near the back and wasn't seated next to some fat person who took up both arm rests, so i was a happy person. the flight was smooth and my biggest problem was that i realized the two books i had brought to keep me entertained weren't doing a very good job of that. i'd read one for a while, then get bored of it and pick up the other one. only for that process to repeat itself, it wasn't such a problem on the flight to st.louis because i managed to catch some sleep for part of the flight, but on the 2nd half to denver i had some problems of killing time.

aftet touching down in st.louis i got off the plane and decided i'd get something to eat at burger king since the flight had no food service. i grabbed a burger and took a look at the book store to see if there were any books there that caught my eye but sadly none did. so i went back to my gate area and sat listening to adam richman till we could re-board the plane. while i was sitting there i also wrote in the journal sara gave me, mostly because i wanted to talk to her and my attempt at giving her a call fell through since she couldn't hear me very well thanks to a crappy phone.

finally we re-board the plane and lo and behold an older lady sits next to me, this is amusing because one of the last things i wrote in the journal was that i hoped an older lady sat next to me so that i could talk to her about things, because whenever i take a flight anywhere it seems i get an old lady next to me and we talk about the trip and other things. it's just neato. and yea the old lady and i did talk, she was super-nice.

like the flight to st.louis the one to denver was none-descript as well. save for my lack of reading materials, nothing happened. no turblance or anything even.

finally as we're about to land in denver i look out the window and see clear skies. i laugh and tell the lady next to me that i'm so happy it's clear. then i look again and go "where're the mountains? aren't there supposed to be a lot of mountains here?" she kind of laughs and tells me they are around here. i mean really from movies and tv i basically expected denver [and well most of colorado for that matter] to be smack dab in the middle of gigantic mountains. little did i know that denver really is a bit east of all the mountiains. anyway, we land and deboard and i start to make my way to baggage claim [where i'm supposed to meet sara]. so all this time i'm not nervous really, not on the flight, not on landing, but as soon as i step foot on the little tram that takes you from the concourse to baggage claim [and also plays the goofiest music to say that the doors are opening/closing] i start to get nervous. what if i've changed, what if she doesn't like me when she see's me. all sorts of things, but i realize i can't exactly chicken out now so i manage to stop freaking out too much.

i get to the baggage area and come up an escelator into the airport 'lobby', i look up and am simply awed "oh fuck that's awesome," is what i think i said. because really i had totally forgotten that denver int'l was the airport they spent a ton of money on and the roof of the thing is super-artsy-fartsy. eventually i get my eyes back to normal height and start to pick my way upwards, only i forget where exactly i'm supposed to go, and remember that i have to call sara so that she doesn't get too suprised [though the thought did enter my mind that i shouldn't and that i would sneak up on her and suprise her, but i figured it wouldn't be good to start off a visit with a jimmy-kick] so i call her up and tell her i'm here and whatnot, then i tell her i can't remember what baggage claim i'm at and she tells me that i'm dumb and it's 3. i tell her i know i am and that i'll see her soon and start heading towards the baggage claim.

when i finally get there i realize the baggage isn't in yet and so i start to look for her, finally i see her walking towards me talking on the phone [of course!] and so i head over to her, and duh she looks awesome as i give her a hug and a kiss and we begin to wait for my one bag to come, oh yea and i gave her a card i had written her and told her i wanted to get a flower of some sort but didn't see any stupid florist in the airport. of course as i'm standing there next to her i'm super nervous. should i hold her hand? should i not? i'm totally nervous and figure i might as well hold her hand since it seems my bag's near the last of the bags.

after about 5 minutes the bag comes and we head out to her car, as soon as we step out of the airport i'm again happy i'm here. the weathers gorgeous a nice 70 or 80 degree day with a bit of cloud-cover. we start driving and again i ask her "where're the mountains!?" and she tells me to keep looking ahead of us and that i should be able to see the outline of them. i do eventually but they're really hard to see so i can't tell how big a lot of them are.

alright this is super-long and i realize i'm gonna have to split things up even more, so expect another entry either later today, or tomorrow mornin.

scud