Let the Memorial Day adventure begin

Tomorrow, Belinda, Grandpa and I are going to step out of our comfort zone. We're going to fly to Denver to visit my niece Mary, her husband Luke and their two young sons Joshua and Jonas.

The idea of flying to Denver intrigued me when I learned that Frontier Airlines flew non-stop between Bismarck and Denver and didn't charge an arm and a leg to do it. Mary and her family moved to Denver in February, so we now had a reason to do it.

The Colorado Rockies aren't playing at home over the Memorial Day weekend, so no one can think that I'm really using my niece as an excuse to see a professional baseball game -- although the thought did cross my mind.

Belinda and I have both been to Denver before but not as a couple. Both of us went before we were married....and we didn't travel together. When I went, I was working for Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative and I traveled to Aurora to learn how to use a Compugraphic typesetter. It might as well have been a lead-based Linotype machine, because both of them have long been put out to pasture and probably can only be seen today in museums.

Anyway, my hotel was right beside the training center so I didn't see a lot of Denver, but I do remember that the traffic was terrible, there was a street named after Martin Luther King, and airport was a mess....but that was more than 25 years ago. I can only imagine that Denver has grown up since 1984, has a new airport and the traffic is probably even worse today.

However, we won't have to go to Denver...unless Luke or Mary are driving. We will land at the airport that is east of Denver and go to the Baker residence, that is also east of Denver.

Now Belinda and I like to fly so the trip is not out of our comfort zone. It is, however, for Grandpa Van Dyke. Although he traveled by plane during World War 2 in India, Pakistan and Burma when he was in the Army Air Corps, he didn't do a lot of flying when he was a civilian. I remember he flew to Houston once when he was employed with Continental Pipeline Company. I think they wanted him to move his family to Houston, but dad was too close to retirement and wanted to stay in Montana.

He also flew from Roundup to Mandan in a single engine aircraft when he moved to North Dakota in July 2006. This flight was mostly so he wouldn't get out of the car and try to head back to Roundup when we were somewhere around Miles City or Glenidve. It seemed safer that he would stay in the airplane than he would in a car. Plus, the trip was an hour and a half by airplane and it was six hours by car.

So dad will be flying and earning his wings once again. I think that it shouldn't be much of a problem as he only has to sit on the plane for 90 minutes between Bismarck and Denver. If they serve us a cold pop and a bag of peanuts, it takes almost 90 minutes for the flight attendants to serve everyone on the plane and pick up the trash.

My next worry is dad sleeping in a different house. Dad seems to get nervous when he's not sleeping in his own bed, and if he doesn't sleep, I don't sleep. My "cure" for this is a couple of Benadryl. They seem to put him to sleep, and once a sleep, he rests for a long time.

So tomorrow will begin an adventure. Hopefully, everything goes according to Hoyle and we all enjoy our Memorial Day vacation.