US Road Trip - May 2023 - My 50th Birthday Trip! - Day 1 and Day 2

Day 1 - Travel Day

Checked in for our flight to Denver, at London Heathrow, headed through priority security and went straight to Galleries Lounge South, and from dropping the car, it took about 30 minutes. Not bad going! 

After a cheeky glass of champagne and some nibbles in the lounge, our flight took off more or less on time at 2.45 pm. I know some people will turn their noses up, but yes; we flew Club World and if you get the opportunity, I would choose this over economy any day. I’m too old now to sit up straight for 10 hours when I don’t have to! After a couple of drinks and some food, I managed to sleep (or doze) for the majority of the flight and we landed in Denver, right on time at 5.30 pm (7 hours behind the UK).

Quickly processed through immigration and after grabbing our (four) suitcases, we jumped on the shuttle bus to collect our car from Avis. I would highly recommend Avis, especially if you are travelling from the UK as all insurance is automatically included so you don’t have to worry about anything. We have never actually got the car we request, which is fine by us and despite this time asking for a Mazda CX-5 we got a Toyota 4Runner - it’s huge and plenty big enough for all our luggage.

Just under 2 hours out of Denver International Airport, we arrived at The Hampton Inn & Suites in Silverthorne for our first night. Decent hotel. The room was fine, and the bed was comfy. We were both knackered after a long day, so we went for the only food that would cut it - Maccy Ds - and we were in bed and asleep by 9.30 pm.

Day 2 

The dreaded jetlag woke us at 3 am. We had a coffee in bed and then decided to just get up and get on our way. We were checked out by 4.30 am and on our way to Richfield, Utah, almost a 6-hour drive away - the sat nav told us we would be there by 10.30 am! 

After a Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts for a sugar fix at around 7 am, we made it to Downtown Grand Junction for breakfast at a cute little cafe called Cafe Sol around 8.30 am. We both had the American Breakfast and neither of us finished it! I love, love, love American bacon. Why can’t we get it like that at home?

Downtown Grand Junction looked like a quirky place to visit with lots of little shops and arty-farty things but we were way too early for any of this, so headed back to the car with a change of plan.......

.....As we were scheduled to arrive in Richfield way earlier than we expected and with not a lot to do there, we decided to scrap that and drive straight to Vegas - of course we did! After frantically texting our amazing host at Resorts World, she said she could comp us a room for a couple of nights with a bit of Resort Credit and Freeplay. We were already booked into Bellagio from the next day anyway and this just meant we wouldn’t have to check out of RW before we could check into Bellagio - win, win!

The drive through Colorado and Utah was incredible. The scenery was magnificent and the photos just didn’t do it justice, but I gave it a try - even if it was through the car window. We managed to see a bald eagle, but I wasn’t quick enough to take a photo. Rocks and mountains don’t move though, so I took plenty of those! I’ll upload more to my Facebook page and add the link in here.

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It was a tough drive and although I kept offering to take the wheel, Dave decided that he was going to drive the 9 hours all by himself. To be fair, it’s not a tough drive. Just two roads, the I70 and the I15 all the way and it didn’t get busy until we were 10 miles outside of Vegas. We had a few coffee breaks and stops for fuel and snacks and eventually arrived (after crossing another time zone) around 3.15 pm. We were staying in Crockfords West and we get free valet parking. Now we usually just park ourselves, but after 9 hours there was no way we were lugging 4 suitcases, two rucksacks and other bits and pieces across the hotel so we rocked up and gave that job to someone else!

The room wasn’t quite ready, so yes; we sat at the bar, had a cocktail and a beer and played some video poker. Dave got four aces. I got nothing and my wallet was $50 lighter. Dumped our cases in the room around 4.30 pm and grabbed some food from Street Foods at Resorts World. Chicken nuggets and fries for me, burger and fries for Dave and another healthy meal!

We were both tired, but the slots were calling. We’d split up to play different games and literally, within 10 minutes, Dave was on the phone telling me that he had won a hand pay and could I go and get his passport and ITIN from the room! $1558 later for him and a cheeky $600 win for me on All Aboard and missing out on Richfield was proving to be a fruitful decision. A few lemon drops may have passed my lips, but we were in bed and asleep by 9.15 pm - how we live the dream!