Wild wild west, a real cliffhanger! Trip report

[Songbird76]

We've been planning this trip for 2 years. I'VE been planning this trip for 2 years. More than 2 years actually. After our 2019 Disney trip, my husband asked me if I minded doing a girls trip next time with my daughter....he's not a huge Disney fan, and my son gets overwhelmed and mostly wants to stay in the hotel and play on his computer. For our next family vacation, we decided to go to Yellowstone, which my daughter has been wanting to do for years. My husband isn't so much invested in trip planning. I'll ask for his input and he'll tell me just to tell him where to be at what time, and he'll be there. Not particularly helpful.

I read books, I downloaded maps, I looked up websites. When you live in Europe, you don't make a trip to the US for just a week. It's not worth the price of the tickets. But visiting Yellowstone for 3 weeks did not seem like a good idea either. And my daughter happened to have an assignment for her school program to work in an English Speaking environment to prove that she can, in fact, understand and speak English with native speakers. My brother happens to own a restaurant in Centennial, Wyoming, a perfect opportunity for her to show her English skills. I also have a cousin who lives in Pinedale who was told he was going to die within days several months back, but the doctor misread some blood tests, and he is in fact not in danger of imminent death, but I had not seen him for decades. So we decided to do a whole Wyoming tour and also catch the Badlands, which we had missed on our 2016 trip. 4 weeks to make the rounds.

Who: My husband, myself, E (16), and A (14)



Where: Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado.

When: July 11th - August 11th (12th if you count landing back in the Netherlands)

 

[Figgy1]

The Figgy family is all in and says HI!

 

[Songbird76]

We've always had family bring us to the airport so we didn't have to leave the car in longterm parking, but that wasn't an option this time. My FIL has parkinsons, and my MIL had a stroke in March and shouldn't really be driving. She has no short term memory since the stroke and won't remember where she parked, or possibly even where she's driving. We won't fit all of our stuff in our car. I had been really frustrated with my husband because he hadn't helped me with the planning and I was feeling really overwhelmed. A couple of weeks before the trip, he asked to check the hotels I had booked, which he hadn't wanted to help with, because he wanted to see if he could get better deals with his "genius level 2" on Booking.com. He wanted me to book the CHEAPEST hotels and I refused most of them because I didn't want to stay in a hole. Then he says "So have you figured out how we're getting to the airport with all our stuff yet?" I was getting really tired of his attitude and lack of helpfulness. The only way I could think of was to take the train. It runs directly to the airport, but you have to carry all your luggage with you. Not ideal. The upside to my lack of options was that it finally motivated him to look for an alternative. He found us a taxi bus. We decided to stay in an Airport hotel the night before our flight because the news was saying you weren't allowed in until 4 hours before your flight and because of a shortage of workers, people were still missing their flights. There were also farmers protesting against environmental laws by driving their tractors on interstates and blocking traffic. We wanted to be on airport property to avoid delays!

I could not sleep the night before. The last time I looked at the clock it was 6:35 am. I woke up again at 7:25. The dryer kept telling me the water reservoir was full even though it wasn't, so it kept beeping every few minutes and I'd have to get up to pull it out and put it back in, then restart the dryer. I just gave up and got out of bed and cleaned out the fridge, cleaned the stove and counters, cleaned the toilets, and then finished the last minute packing things like toothbrushes and the now clean and dry laundry. I had some leftover KFC for lunch, and our taxi came at 2. It was really nice!



Especially nice that I didn't have to fight over who was going to drive. I am not comfortable driving in a city and I JUST got my Dutch licence in November. No way was I ready for Amsterdam, but my husband was not really wanting to take on anything for this trip, so it was nice not to have the anxiety. Let someone else drive!

The rooms at the hotel are definitely not meant for vacationers. They are meant for a quick stop over between flights. Small, not much room for luggage, very basic. We got 2 rooms because they didn't have rooms with 2 double beds. I stayed in one room with E, and my husband stayed in the other with A.


There were no drawers to put anything in or USB outlets to plug a phone into. But it was ok for a night.

We went to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner. The service was terrible! When we got there, there was no one else there and the hostess just kind of pointed us in a general direction of the table. What she was doing that couldn't wait for 30 seconds to seat us, I don't know. The server forgot to take our drink order so we had to call her back. E doesn't really like soda, so she ordered orange juice and they brought her a bottle, already opened, no straw, and it was completely separated because they had forgotten to shake it. I had ordered a Pepsi max, but she brought regular pepsi. It took FOREVER to flag someone down to get us new drinks. I don't remember what my husband ordered, but E and I had ordered steaks, medium, and when the server brought our food, she just set everything randomly on the table without asking who had what, so we just had to all reach across the table to grab our own plate. I honestly hate the tipping system and wish the US would get rid of it, but this is the downside to that. In Europe, there's not much incentive for servers to be really good.

We cut into our steaks. Mine is RARE. E's is well-done, like....shoe leather well-done. My husband went ahead and started eating while we tried to flag someone down to send our inedible steaks back. He was done before our food was fixed, so he took A to McDonald's next door while we waited for our meals. At least we got veggies with our meals.

I got up at 5 the next morning to shower and get ready to go. A had a terribly stuffy nose, so we did a quick self test to make sure he didn't have covid, and then checked out and headed to the shuttle bus stop to go to the airport! Let the vacationing begin! We hope.

 

[Songbird76]

The Figgy family is all in and says HI!

Welcome!! I'll warn you, it's a bumpy road!!

Actual footage of our trip.

 

[Darstarr]

Drama already…

 

[MinnieM123]

@Songbird76 -- I'm here!

 

[erstwo]

Exciting! The Badlands is one of my favorite places on earth. Beautiful in a way that is hard to put into words. Looking forward to it!

 

[Songbird76]

Drama already…

What is it @bee always calls it? DRAMMA!!? There was plenty of it!

 

[Songbird76]

Drama already…

@Songbird76 -- I'm here!

Exciting! The Badlands is one of my favorite places on earth. Beautiful in a way that is hard to put into words. Looking forward to it!

Welcome! And please:

 

[Songbird76]

A few weeks before our trip, it was announced that Schiphol airport in Amsterdam was having issues with the number of employees and they had asked airlines to please look into condensing flights where possible, or canceling some to relieve the pressure. In May, when there were school breaks for a couple of weeks, there were tons of stranded passengers who missed their flights because it took so long to get checked in and get through security. Airlines didn't want to miss out on revenue since this was the first time in 2 years that people could finally travel internationally, which in the Netherlands, no one flies domestically....you could drive from one end of the country to the other in the time it would take you to get to the airport, go through check in and security and fly somewhere else. They are in desperate need of making up that lost revenue. So they didn't scrap any flights. The airport manager announced that they would be cancelling 30% of flights, and the airlines wouldn't have a choice about which flights those were. Normally, we'd be able to go Dusseldorf or Frankfurt Germany, or to Belgium, but everywhere in Europe had the same issues. Germany was canceling 50% of their flights, France was cancelling a bunch, Belgium, too. So we just had to hope our flight would not be a casualty of the worker shortage. Additionally, the airport mandated that you could not arrive more than 4 hours ahead of your flight. We took a shuttle that would get us there about 4 hours and 15 minutes ahead of time.



It didn't look too bad. There were definitely people there, but it seemed just normal busy. We looked up our gate number. They had people at the escalators to the check-in area. You could not enter until 4 hours before your flight. We were ready to go literally the minute that 4 hour window opened for us. We got checked in and had to pay for our baggage...the only baggage that was free was hand baggage. That wouldn't cut it for a month long overseas trip for 4 people. Then we had to get through security....and this is what we were met with.


E set a timer. How long will it take to get through this line?? Will we make our flight?

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

I'm in!

 

[Songbird76]

We were moving at a decent pace. I think it was about an hour in that we hit a stairwell. We had to go upstairs to continue in the line! A doesn't do well with stairs. Especially open stairs where you can look through them like these are. E and I went up as fast as we could....we knew we had limited time to get through security and wanted to make sure all these people didn't pass us on the stairs. M stayed with A. We figured we'd secure our place in line and then M and A would catch up with us. I kept turning around and checking for them, waving to them, but they did not come up to where we were. We are going through the line switchbacks and I'm starting to get apprehensive because they haven't caught up. Then there's an airport personel woman who says to us "We're scaling down this line to close it, so if you'll move over to that line, it will be faster." Ok. So we get into the "faster" line....where it says the estimated time is another hour or something. Yikes. We haven't traveled far in this line when I notice that the line we are in is now closed off and my husband and son are not in it! So I go back to the woman, who is now standing at the closed-off entrance to our line. I start by saying "Hi, I have a question. I notice that this line is now closed off and that one over there..." and she snaps at me "If you had listened to me, I told you that we were scaling back that line and this one will be faster." Now I'm normally a very patient, easy-going person. I have to be because I have a child with autism who needs clear instructions, calm, etc. But I don't tolerate people treating me like I'm an idiot. I said "Ok, but you're going to listen to ME now. I heard you. My problem is that my husband and son are in THAT line!" And she snaps again "Well WHY did you separate!!??" She didn't even give me a chance to explain that my autistic child doesn't like stairs and we got separated when we had to fight the crowds at the stairway coming up before she said "We're not going back and forth. We're not doing that!" They would not allow us to go back to the other line, and we couldn't even see my husband to get him to come to us....not that she would have let them. I was livid. But not much we could do about it now. We were stuck. It was crowded, it was HOT....no AC in most of the Netherlands. After about 2 hours, we were wishing we had some water. And we were nowhere near the front of the line yet. I was starting to get worried. If it was taking this long in the "faster" line, would my husband and son even make it?

This was where the "Faster" line started. Notice the sign that says it will be another hour.


We have to get through the metal detectors, passport check, and then get to our gate. Some guys start cutting in the line. I was like "Um, sorry, but no." The guy tells me that their flight is in 20 minutes. Either they cut, or they will miss it. I let it go. They continue on, cutting several switchbacks before an employee makes them go back. I doubt they made it. I get a message from my husband. They are already through and waiting for us at McDonalds. The "faster" line we are in still has a ways to go. We are finally in the last switchback. We are behind a very nice couple. She is from Canada and he is Dutch. They have recently started dating when her friend was going to school in the Netherlands and introduced them online and they hit it off. This is her first trip to meet him and they are traveling to Spain....in 30 minutes. IF they make their flight. We have about an hour. We send them on in front of us and help them grab bins to put their stuff in before we start on ours. The security guy does not appreciate this. To ease the security process, they have decided that we do not have to remove electronics from bags or take off shoes. Just put everything in a bin and go. We get through and start looking for the McDonalds. A helpful employee gives us a legitimate shortcut and directions. THANK YOU, KIND EMPLOYEE!! You are a hero!
We grab some food really quick because who knows what we'll get on the plane and when, and A won't plane food anyway, though why they didn't grab food while they waited for us for an HOUR!!! (Yeah, the "Faster" line took more than an HOUR longer than the one we were in before. If I knew that woman's name, I'd be complaining profusely about how she treated me) They could have already eaten and then we could have been much faster. We scarfed our food and rushed to our gate. We got there 3 minutes before the gate closed for boarding. 3 minutes. That witch! We could have been through there and sitting at our gate for an hour instead of running to catch our flight. We could have preboarded so A didn't have the overwhelming panic that always accompanies boarding in a crowd. Instead, we nearly missed our flight.

 

[Songbird76]

I'm in!

 

[Songbird76]

I forgot to look at my notes, so I forgot a couple of things. When we had gotten up in the morning, I panicked at first because we had 2 rooms, and they weren't adjoining, and I couldn't remember which suitcase had my toiletries in it, and I knew I'd never be able to wake A or M up to get them if they were in their room. Fortunately, I had them, so it was fine.

M was ticked at me. He was worried the suitcases were too heavy. I said we'd just have to see...if we had to pay extra, we had to pay extra. He said "After we throw away all the stroopwaffels and candy and stuff, sure." I said I wasn't on board with that....those were gifts for people. I'm not throwing away all the gifts I got for people! I had done almost all the packing myself. I made sure he grabbed his own stuff, but I had to make sure we had all the stuff like the sunscreen, the flight documents, the itinerary, the binoculars, the gifts, all of A's clothing and necessities, the toiletries....anything that wasn't exclusively his was on me. If he isn't going to help with packing, he doesn't get to complain about what I pack! So when we went to McD's for breakfast, he made a point of not sitting with us. We had to wait like 2 minutes before it opened and he went around to the side to wait instead of waiting by the doors with us. It turned out to be a moot point...the suitcases were well within the weight limit. He threw his hissy for nothing. Later, he asked me where his jeans were. I just told him "You packed your stuff....I haven't touched them, so probably wherever you put them." It turns out he didn't pack them. He had no long pants with him at all.

 

[Figgy1]

I forgot to look at my notes, so I forgot a couple of things. When we had gotten up in the morning, I panicked at first because we had 2 rooms, and they weren't adjoining, and I couldn't remember which suitcase had my toiletries in it, and I knew I'd never be able to wake A or M up to get them if they were in their room. Fortunately, I had them, so it was fine.

M was ticked at me. He was worried the suitcases were too heavy. I said we'd just have to see...if we had to pay extra, we had to pay extra. He said "After we throw away all the stroopwaffels and candy and stuff, sure." I said I wasn't on board with that....those were gifts for people. I'm not throwing away all the gifts I got for people! I had done almost all the packing myself. I made sure he grabbed his own stuff, but I had to make sure we had all the stuff like the sunscreen, the flight documents, the itinerary, the binoculars, the gifts, all of A's clothing and necessities, the toiletries....anything that wasn't exclusively his was on me. If he isn't going to help with packing, he doesn't get to complain about what I pack! So when we went to McD's for breakfast, he made a point of not sitting with us. We had to wait like 2 minutes before it opened and he went around to the side to wait instead of waiting by the doors with us. It turned out to be a moot point...the suitcases were well within the weight limit. He threw his hissy for nothing. Later, he asked me where his jeans were. I just told him "You packed your stuff....I haven't touched them, so probably wherever you put them." It turns out he didn't pack them. He had no long pants with him at all.

Did you manage to find frying pans on sale?

 

[Songbird76]

Did you manage to find frying pans on sale?

I should have looked, but it was only like 6 in the morning and I was more focused on getting to the airport and through security!

 

[Sans Souci]

I am here, reading along.

Between the serpentine security lines and the snippy airport employee, I have second-hand anxiety reading this.

 

[Songbird76]

We made it onto the plane and I was actually pleasantly surprised that there seemed to be enough leg room. I wasn't expecting that. There were a TON of movies available, so I watched a version of Cinderella that was new and I had no idea existed, and then clueless because I've seen it a million times and wouldn't be bothered if I fell asleep, which I did. I also watched part of Encanto and slept through part of that as well for the same reason. Then E, A, and I played trivia...there were TV shows, games, news, all sorts of in flight entertainment and the trivia was fun. Between the 3 of us, we did pretty well. My husband was seated apart from us.

We landed right on time, but I was a bit worried. We only had an hour and a half to make our connecting flight. You always go through immigration in the first airport in which you land in a different country, so I knew we had to go through immigration in Detroit. Depending on how big the airport is and how many flights are coming in, it can be really fast or it could take a long time. In general, you will land in a secure area and not have to check in again for the 2nd flight. But Detroit airport is awful. I asked if we could go through the American passport line since I am an American Citizen and have an American passport. Nope. We were directed to the longer "All passports" line.

There are several desks open, and we went to what appeared to be the shortest line. I think it was short because no one was getting in it. And the reason no one was getting in it was apparent after a couple of minutes....it was the SLOWEST moving line. Every other line was funneling through 5 or 6 travel parties in the time that this guy got ONE through. We watched as everyone from our flight was already through and then the people coming off another flight 20 minutes later also got through. My husband says we were directed to this line, but I swear we could have just moved further down if we had wanted to. This guy was asking a TON of questions. How long have you lived in the Netherlands, are you wanting to stay in the US, what is your job, how many hours do you work? It took us like 15 minutes of questioning before he let us through. By the time it was our turn, I was sweating it, but I thought we'd be ok....until we were told we had to pick up our luggage and recheck it and go through security again. Really? WHY? WHY do they do this? You've just come off an airplane! Why do they make you leave the secure area and do it all again?? E and I went to get our luggage while M and A answered their questions, then we rushed to recheck the luggage. And then we had to get through security, and of COURSE 3 of our 4 carry-ons had to be screened separately. As soon as we were done, we ran to our next gate. We missed our connection by 3 minutes. Airport workers really did NOT want us to make our destination today!! (The ones doing security were really fun here, though. I said I didn't think we were going to make it and the guy says "Well not with THAT attitude!!!")

My husband is deaf...I mean, he can hear, but not well. I THINK he was wearing his hearing aides, but maybe not. As we approached the gate, the personel told us we needed to go to gate A54 or something....I didn't hear what he said, and my husband said 54, only I thought he said 64, and E said 74 for reassignment on another flight. But I only heard my husband, not what the airport guy said, and I didn't realize E had heard the airport guy, not my husband. Had I known that, we would have gone and asked, because I know I can't trust my husband's hearing. We walked halfway across the airport to get to 54 only to find that there was no one there...so then we went back to 64....no one there either. E says she thought the guy said 74. This is when I discovered that she had heard the actual guy, not my husband repeating the wrong number. E had been asking if we were sure, because she heard 74 and my husband was adamant that he had heard 54. When she said "I thought he said 74" to me, I thought she was talking about my husband....I didn't realize "HE" was the airport employee. Rather than walk all the way back, we found a Delta employee at a gate where we were and asked her for help. She got us straightened out....but the first flight to Denver was not for several hours. Like, after 8pm. What to do for hours in an airport? It was dinner time in the US, and we WERE pretty hungry. We got McDonald's for A and then we went to Longhorn Steakhouse. It was so good and our server was AWESOME. She joked with us and just made it really fun. We took our time....where did we have to go?

We finally made it onto the next flight and landed at about 10:30pm. We got our luggage...one of our suitcases had apparently come on the connection we missed. It was taken to the Delta baggage area for pickup, so we stood there waiting for it to come out on the carousel and it never did, but we got it eventually. We took a shuttle to the rental car strip and picked up our Subaru Outback. We got to our hotel around 1am....we were definitely in Colorado....the whole hallway smelled like....um....."pickles". If you are a Gilmore Girls fan, you know the code word "Pickles".

 

[Songbird76]

I am here, reading along.

Between the serpentine security lines and the snippy airport employee, I have second-hand anxiety reading this.

Welcome! I'm sorry to say there is probably worse anxiety to come.

 

[Songbird76]

July 12th

I had such a hard time sleeping at the beginning of our trip. I was waking up throughout the night and would finally give up around 5 or so and just go take my shower and get ready while the rest of the family slept.

Our hotel offered free breakfast, which I didn't expect to be stellar. Usually when a hotel offers free breakfast, it's like a bowl of cereal and maybe a mini muffin and some orange substance that resembles juice. This was actually good! They had eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, some pastries, a waffel iron. We ate a bunch because we were so hungry by then.

We went to Walmart to get toiletries. I only packed the little travel containers just for the trip over until we could get the good stuff that we can't get in the Netherlands. So we picked up shampoo and conditioner, soap, laundry detergent, trash bags and ziplock bags....the heavy stuff that just adds weight to your luggage, but that you will need over the course of your trip. We also bought really cheap cheap smartphones so that we could call people without using the Dutch phone plans that would cost 2 bucks per minute. Then M took A to the Movies to see Thor while E and I went to Target. We were done before they were, and we saw there was a bath and body works, so we went and bought a bunch of Cucumber Melon hand gel because it was the only thing they had in that scent, which is my favorite, and it's being discontinued.

When the boys were done, we went to Coldstone Creamery and made a mess with ice cream. Then we went back to the hotel and I did laundry while M set up the new phones. We went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We got fried mozzarella as an appetizer. E got Chicken Broccoli pasta, which we thought would be like alfredo, but it was disgusting. M got Spicy chicken and rice, and I got Chicken & biscuits because I LOVE the mashed potatoes it comes with. E ended up eating my dinner with me because hers was so bad and I couldn't finish mine anyway. For dessert, E and I ordered the Adam's peanutbutter cup cheesecake with fudge ripple, and Caramel Apple Cheesecake and shared them. The boys won't eat cheesecake. We found a McD's for A and called it a day.
Sorry, the pictures aren't great....the cheesecake one I just used my phone for. I was having issues in the low light with my camera. I'm not good at food photos.