Yosemite Trip: Day One

It is 3:30 pm Sunday afternoon in Kalispell, Montana. I’m all packed up and ready to head out to Glacier International Airport where I will be catching a plane to Salt Lake City where I have a three hour layover before continuing on down to Fresno, CA.

It is a blustery day here in Kalispell, Montana, the wind is gusting to nearly thirty miles an hour and the snowflakes are swirling about in a mad frenzy. I’ve got to admit, I am a little bit disappointed that it is cloudy and snowy today. I was hoping for a clear sunny day for my departure. It is a rapturous experience to fly out of the Flathead Valley on a sunny blue-sky day. Oh well, I guess I should be grateful since earlier in the week the weather forecasters were predicting much worse weather than what we are receiving today.

My plane isn’t scheduled to depart until 5:00 pm, but I need to be at the airport by 3:30, to meet up with the rest of my traveling companions and get checked-in.

Glacier International Airport is a nice airport to fly in and out of. It is rather small by comparison to other international airports, which makes it easy to get around, and much less stressful than trying to ferret your way through the typical maze that most other more large-scale airports provide.

I’ll give you an update when I get to Salt Lake.

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6:50 pm – Well we just landed in Salt Lake City we are about fifteen minutes behind schedule. Our plane had to circle above Glacier International Airport for about fifteen minutes before it could land because it was waiting for several other private jets to land first.

It’s not a big deal though as far as I am concerned. I have about a three-hour layover here in Salt Lake City before I catch my connecting flight to Fresno, CA, so I’m not too worried about punctuality at this point in time.

The flight into Salt Lake City was nice. The skies were clear, and the lights of Salt Lake City shined bright next to the void blackness of the Great Salt Lake. I always love flying into a city after dark. Salt Lake City looked like a computer motherboard stretching out across the flat desert floor from my vantage point thousands of feet above the ground.

It’s a bit chilly and a little windy here in Salt Lake. The corridor that leads from where we unloaded the plane to the main terminal seemed to go on forever, and it is not that well insulated, although it is mostly enclosed so at least we were out of the wind.

I have about three hours to kill so I’m going to go find some place to get some dinner, and I will pick up this blog again once I get to Fresno…

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My plane finally touched down at the Fresno airport at about twenty after 10:00 pm, it was a pretty smooth flight coming in…not too much turbulence and arrival were pretty close to being on time. Unfortunately, there was a long line at the dollar rent-a-car counter and I had to wait about twenty minutes or so before I was able to get my car.

As I waited in line, I saw my luggage spinning around the luggage carousel several times. I asked one of my traveling companions to snag it for me because I did not want to lose my place in the car rental line. I explained to my friend what my luggage looked like, but he must not have understood, or he never saw it on the conveyor, because it disappeared behind the black vinyl curtain at the end of the conveyor belt, never to emerge again.

It is now close to 11:00 pm and we still have about an hours drive ahead of us before we get to our final destination for the night, the Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp. All I want to do right now is find my rental car and drive as quickly as I can to the cozy bed that awaits me at the Tenaya Lodge.

Now I have to go talk to the customer service personnel at the Delta Connection counter…

11:30 pm - Wow…that took longer than expected. The line at the Delta counter was almost as slow as the line at the Dollar counter. Anyway, I am finally sitting comfortably in my Jeep Cherokee Laredo, luggage safely at hand, and I am en route to the Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp. It is going to be late by the time I get to the Tenaya, so it will probably be tomorrow before I write anymore.

Have a great night and I’ll talk to you tomorrow…

Go To "Day Two" >>