A COVID Home Companion: The Maiden Voyage Of The Titsworth (Part II, Day I - The Long Journey Home)

 Let's start at the very beginning.  In the Original Plan, we had decided to transport our tent, sleeping bags, and camping mattress on the plane (we are mileage plan members, so we get one free checked bag each) for use the first three nights which overlapped with Laurie's parents' stay after driving the first leg.  It was easy enough to accomplish in theory after we ordered bags large enough to deal with the length of the tent and the size of the mattress.  In theory.  Approximately 18 hours before our flight was scheduled to lift off, the Very Large Online Shopping Site cancelled one of our bags, leaving me in a small scale panic with regard to The Plan.  While it would certainly have been more optimal if we had received the roller bag that we wanted, we could get a second bag just like the other bag that did come same day delivery.  It then became a matter of principal to remove the same-day delivery fee as we were not the ones to cancel the bag in the first place but did, in fact, need a bag for successful execution of The Plan.  In the end not much was lost save for several hours waiting for the new bag to arrive which could have been used for a much more comfortable packing experience.  Ultimately it was no harm, no foul however as we, the tent, the mattress, the sleeping bags, and snacks to last until the apocalypse were packed and made our morning flight to Denver International Airport (AKA The Home of the Lizard People).  

It never ceases to amaze me, given how much we have traveled,  the extent to which we can push time to its utmost limits and still somehow manage to comfortably catch our flights.  I suppose, however, it is what it is and must be accepted as it certainly shows now signs of changing.  It's fine though... we made the flight with everything we meant to take and were wheels up to Denver.

 

If you have lived an active rental car lifestyle, you may know this - if you have not, now you know this: it is almost always significantly cheaper to get your rental car from a location not named The Airport.  This case was no different, so even considering the rideshare to get to the location, we were saving quite a bit of money to hop a ride to get to our rental car in a suburb of Denver. Ride ride ride we get to the location and are met by an employee who says (in spite of us holding a reservation to pick up at 2:00) that they actually close at 2 and release their entire remaining inventory to anyone who happens to want a car, regardless of reservation status.  Arriving at 2:30 (not bad, we didn't think), we were plunged into uncertainty.  Lesson learned: Always know when the rental car office closes.  We must have been doing appropriate karma things overall, though, and although our reserved vehicle was gone, there was still a vehicle, larger than our reservation, that we ended up with.  It had 1200 total miles on it.  Not too shabby.  So. No worries, and we hit the road.  

The beast that we ended up with had about half a tank of gas, and since neither Laurie nor I managed to pack sunglasses (idk why. Colorado doesn't have sun?), the first stop was for gas and sunglasses.  With these things procured, we were on the open road to complete our day's travel.  First stop, Estes Park to meet up with Laurie's folks and The Titsworth herself.  Remember all the moving parts involved here because it's about to get really impressive in here: Laurie's folks were bringing the van across kansas (better them than me, tbf) and were splitting their drive over two days.  We were flying to Denver. We were getting to an off-site rental car office.  We needed to eat and get sunglasses and fuel.  We needed to get to Estes Park. 

Rocky Mountain National Park (at the time of this action) is still on a reduced capacity plan.  As we were actually staying in the park (Moraine Park Campground), we were covered for the van and the rental car - we just had to get them to the gate at the same time. Hence the importance of the meetup in Estes Park.  Moving parts and such, fast forward. Laurie and I reach Estes Park within 5 minutes of Laurie's parents.  It is certainly skill rather than luck that led to this being the case.  Impressive.  I know.  OK so we meet up, everyone stretches their legs and some additional provisions are acquired from the Safeway prior to the remaining 7 miles to our campsite and first real chance to sit and breathe for a second.  

I would love to say that we drove right to the campsite.  If I did that, however, I would be lying.  It was close though.  With time to spare, we still overcame a small directional glitch, made it to the site and prepared the tent for Laurie and I to sleep in with time enough to head down and around the corner for an attempt to see some elk and in a perfect world, hear them bugling.  I think I'll hold the Saga of Left Elk and Right Elk for a point in the future, but not only did we see elk and bugling, we saw nature drama unfold. It was some real Sir David Attenborough stuff, though.  (RIP Boaty McBoatface).  

 

If you recall back to The Plan, we had made a series of reservations to get us used to multiple ways of using The Titsworth's capabilities.  Moraine Park Campground, like all (I think) campgrounds inside RMNP is a primitive situation with no hookups.  It did, though, get us into the park on the day without further need for reservation, so it made good sense.  The site was nice and more than sufficient to hold the van and our tent.  Save for a slight reshaping of the fresh, clean license plate on the rental vehicle on a large rock when landing, this leg of the camping went off without a hitch. Overlooking a relatively small-ish field and mountains all around, it was a very nice start to life with The Titsworth and also provided us our first puzzle to work out for our long-term enjoyment of the van.  The cab over main bed was not for Laurie's folks and we ended up punting it as well for the duration of the trip as the fold-out couch was more than sufficient for Laurie and I to both sleep on and the cab over space was an admirable impromptu storage for our bags and pillows and chairs.  One for the future: What to do with the cab over space long-term? 

Oh, I nearly forgot! Do you remember the contractual obligation to put a window sticker on your newly acquired van/RV?  Well of course that made the packing list and the morning of our departure from  Moraine Park Campground, it was installed.  We are now fully compliant with all RV owner contract stipulations. I think.