Thursday 23rd September 2010
Travel Day....
So United Airlines, isn't their check-in fun. What we thought was an empty check-in was in fact first class. When we found the cattle class (after I’d been to customs...more below) the queue was massive, then came the mid-queue passport checks where they disappeared with our passports and asked Maria detailed questions (because she's Irish and they clearly cant be trusted).
This is the first time I’ve ever had to manage a carnet (It's like a passport for kit to check you're not buying kit abroad and saving money on avoiding VAT).
It involves writing down all the kit you want to take, serial and model numbers. This all has to be stamped on the way out and on arrival in the states. So having filled this all in the week before I was prepared if a little unsure as what I had to get stamped, but the Heathrow guys were quite helpful.
The United Airlines queue left us no time for any “shop” time at Heathrow, but I did manage to convince the others to register for the iris scan when we had gone through security. If you haven’t done this, it is free and means when you re-enter the UK, you can go through the iris scan booths instead of queueing, (and then you go and wait for your luggage with everyone else, but hey).
I do advise anyone flying United to take plenty of entertainment, the system had 5 really shit flims and 5 TV programmes. That was about it. Luckily I had an episode of Sherlock tucked away for such a crisis, although much to the annoyance of the other passengers, we did all talk a huge amount though the flight discussing a range of subjects including the all important critique of the office staff..(most of you fared well, but some....well....).
Funniest part of the flight was, after a bumpy approach and a pretty silent cabin, the plane touched down to a “Whoooooooohhhhhh” from a kid which made the whole plane laugh.
On the way out of the plane, first class passengers were reminded over the tannoy (to the whole plane) to pack away “ALL of your pillows blankets and complementary shoes” just to remind us of the luxury they had been experiencing.
Most flights to the middle of the states go to Chicago or Denver, we flew into Denver which is pretty sparse based on the approach to the airport and what we saw on our next flight on a tiny (Smallest plane I have ever been on) trip to Rapid City, South Dakota.
Our (only) flight attendant, Dana, looked like she had flown that route for the last 30 years and knew those safety procedures like the back of her hand.
We touched down in Rapid City to a tiny airport and went in search of Europcar....Oh they don't exist, but hold on Hertz have our reservation...Oh hang on so do National, Oh, but both details are incorrect and state we will be returning the car to the same location and don’t have any extra drivers. On setting every thing straight we are told it will quadruple the price. No problem, a quick call to the worldwide 24h helpline will sort this out.
Oh, they have no record of the booking as this is a UK centre. We took the car anyway.
We chose to stay near our first job at Crazy Horse monument, so a nice night drive through South Dakota to Custer was great fun to our “everything is amazing, cute, strange minds”.
On arrival at the Holiday Inn Express, we quickly were reminded that we were no longer in a 24h city as all the restaurants had closed bar one. With no further option we had our first (and certainly not last) fried food dinner. The bonus of this place is that they advertised over 100 beers. So we dutifully tried one each to close what was now hour 24 of our first day.
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