Rocky mountain road trip day 1

I had planned on taking a trip to the Rockies with the family for years now. Then covid. So now, in 2022, scant weeks before my first born departs for university, I've thrown caution to the wind and we are travelling to the west coast. I am trying to remember my lessons from our Swiss trip from 15 years ago. Try to only plan one activity per day, but there is just SO much to see and do. You will bear witness to my successes and failures over the next 2 weeks! I had provided a packing list earlier in the week and asked my progeny to pack in advance to minimize the last minute stress of packing. It helped, but was certainly not stress-free. I snipped the scapes off my garlic and took them to Kyoko after giving the garden a good soak. Here is the "before" photo.

My friend Yanfei volunteered to come tend to my plants, but I am letting mother nature have her way. Plus, I wanted to turn off the water to the house before we left...

We made it out of the house at 3:30 pm for our 9:35pm flight 😳

We splurged for the Pearson Express train, and it was packed! Standing room for the Taylor's

We were 3rd in line for baggage drop off at Swoop, 4.5 hours ahead of our flight. The counter didn't open for another 1.5 hours.

The security line was pretty fast, although I had time to repeatedly give the stink eye to a couple of line jumpers as we wound our way through the serpentine path. Terminal 3 did not have near enough food options. At 7pm, every food vendor had massive lines. Eventually we were fed and on the plane. David and Michael were very excited. 

Our flight arrived an hour late, and our bags were another hour to get off the plane.  Day 2 is when the real fun begins!