Big Bird goes to Denver

We picked up Kevin and Lara at noon so that we could have a traditional lunch at Applebee’s before the 2:40 flight to Denver en route to San Antonio. We all crammed into Hunnybear’s Nissan Altima and fought through heavy lunch-hour traffic at Southcenter to get there. When we arrived, we were told by the hostess that there would be a five-to-ten minute wait, and then she asked if that would be OK. I said “no.” I don’t think she had ever heard that answer before. I explained that we had to catch a flight. I looked around and saw one large table in the corner and asked about it. That table, we were told, is reserved for parties of seven or more. Oh. So we wait five to ten minutes, then the manager comes, looks at us, and seats us as—you guessed it—the large table in the corner. “You’ll have lots of room to spread out,” he boasted.

We finished lunch and drove over the San Francisco-like hill to the airport. I love doing that. The car always feels like it’s about to flip over backwards. MasterPark, as always, is a delight, and this time I’ve remembered to ask Hunnybear to print out a coupon from their Internet site, http://www.masterparking.com so we can get the $9.75 rate instead of the usual $12.95. Plus Alaska Miles! As usual, they load and unload all our luggage. Delightful.

I shepherd Kevin and Lara into the 1K line, where one of my favorite agents, Susan, greets us. Hunnybear and I have already confirmed a business-class upgrade on this 747, but what to my wondering eyes should appear but a pair of boarding passes labeled 4A and 4B! Now I may only have flown 96,000 miles this year, but I know that 4A and 4B are not in business class on a 747. So I ask if there’s been a change of equipment. She says it’s a 747. Yes! The vaunted double-upgrade! Now comes the amazing treatment. She can’t find seats together for Kevin and Lara, so she phones the gate and asks if she can give them an operational upgrade into business! No problem. We are very appreciative.

We hit the Red Carpet club briefly, then proceed on board. Boy do I love turning left. This big bird has 36 FC seats, and the rest of the cabin is divided about equally into coach and business. Upstairs is also business. This is by far the easiest place to get an operational upgrade on, since they sell far more coach seats than exist. Today’s flight was completely full, and we sipped champagne as we looked over our shoulder to see passengers trickle in for quite some time. Seattle has no facility to board from two jetways simultaneously, so boarding takes quite a while. We have the old seats—no massage, no personal video, no noise-reducing headsets, but they do have the electric footrests although the recline is manual. As always, the crew is totally delighted to be flying the jumbo jet, so they’re all glowing and smiling, and I just know we’re going to have a great flight. We tell Kevin and Lara we’ll be up front having our pedicure.

We have the projection TV on this flight, which I like. On the flight I took last month from ORD-SFO, they had the newest bestest seats with personal VCRs, and they didn’t even bother to show the main feature on the big screen in FC. That’s too bad, because I like that big screen. It’s kind of nice for Kevin and Lara that they still have something to look forward to. Lara’s face lit up when I told here that there were massage seats…

The closet opened on takeoff, as almost always happens on 747s. As always the landing gear made a tremendous noise here in the nose of the 747, which can be unsettling if you’re not expecting it. First-Class and business-class service are almost identical on this two-hour flight, the only difference being a Mrs. Fields cookie versus a pack of Pepperidge Farm Milanos and a hot towel in FC. No nuts, just a pretzel/cheese cracker mix. Fortunately Hunnybear and I have our own private stash of nuts filched from airport lounges around the world. The snack was a choice of chicken-salad trio or prosciutto ham sandwich. We both ordered the chicken, then watched as FA Ann Marie painstakingly set a crisscross pattern of tiny tablecloths across the large console in the middle of FC. It reminded me of those carnival games where you have to cover a spot with five metal disks. Neither one is easy.

Before Friends began, they showed a short film reassuring everyone that planes would not fall from the sky because of any Y2K issues. Nice touch. We have nothing to panic about but panic itself. The wine was once again the excellent Louis Martini cabernet or the Calterra chardonnay. The chicken salad was very healthy—big chunks of chicken accompanied by sautéed vegetables and an unfortunate choice of bulgar wheat for the starch. It looked like paper pulp and tasted like Play-Doh. Hunnybear got a chocolate-chip Mrs. Fields cookie and I received an oatmeal one. We switched of course.

First class on a 747 is the ultimate in domestic travel. While this short flight did not have all the amenities, such as special crystal and china, I’ll take this any time over the Shuttle.

We landed in Denver about 10 minutes late, leaving a half-hour until our flight to SAT left. I quickly downloaded my email in the RCC West, telling the ladies at the foot of the escalators in a hushed voice that while my flight left from the East, I was coming to their RCC because it was the better of the two. I winked conspiratorially, then bounced up the escalator and did the email exchange in record time.

I arrived at gate B45 in the midst of boarding. Kevin and Lara each had a middle seat in the exit row, so I suggested that they swap one of them for a window in row 24, thinking that it would be easier to get someone in the middle seat of row 24 to switch than to get someone with a window or aisle to take a middle. We ended up moving four people around, but finally got them seats together in row 24. Hunnybear and I sat in seats 1A and B.

Service on the 90-minute flight to San Antonio was exemplary. Since we boarded late, we missed the ceremonial smashing of the ice by the first flight attendant; however, we had a rare tandem safety announcement. One stewardess had a coughing fit in the middle of explaining the seat belts, so she seamlessly switched with the second-string quarterback in mid-announcement. It was done so smoothly that I don’t think anyone in coach noticed. Preflight drinks and coat-hanging service were offered the moment we stepped aboard, followed by an incredible choice of mixed grill (filet, chicken sausage, and lamb chop) and citrus salmon for dinner! I thought we’d get a chicken Caesar salad! I think it’s just that we’re flying at the dinner hour, but that is really amazing food service for a short flight. Hunnybear and I each ordered a glass of sparkling mineral water with lime, and toasted the Queen. Dessert was the patented United Airlines tricolor neon cheesecake. There’s a kind of Creamsicle orange on the bottom, a thin stripe of raspberry, and a chartreuse on the top, the color of green tennis balls. The mixed grill came with a very nice risotto. The beef was overdone, unfortunately, as is almost always the case.

After a hot-towel service the temperature of the surface of the sun, we touched down about 10 minutes early. Then the dream ended.

The nightmare begins

They lost our luggage. All four pieces. The agent says it’s in Denver, and the next flight doesn’t get in until 3:30 tomorrow afternoon! We ask them to deliver the bags to the Westin Riverwalk and proceed to the Hertz van. In a kind of surreal reversal, the driver announces that I, the Hertz #1 Gold member, will be dropped at the #1 Gold booth, while all the other passengers will be taken directly to their cars. I don’t think they quite get the concept of #1 Gold here. Anyway, we get to the kiosk and my name appears twice. Both cars are completely at the other end of the row and both are Ford Tauruses with Neverlost. We pick the dirty blue one over the dirty red one.

The Neverlost doesn’t know about the Westin Riverwalk, open less than a week, and so we enter the address. Unfortunately, the confirmation from Westin says 420 Market St. and Neverlost offers a choice of E. Market and W. Market. We choose wrong, but that gives us a chance to have more fun with Neverlost. It takes us around the block through a traffic jam, but eventually gets us there.

We are shocked to find that this hotel is still under construction. Scaffolding surrounds the building, which has brick facing installed only halfway up the walls and construction dust everywhere. The interior is beautiful, and the staff bends over backwards to help. Michelle, the front-desk manager, gives us the best rooms they have, which are only on the sixth floor because the top nine floors aren’t open yet! Hunnybear and I get a room with two balconies and a pocket-sized river view but mostly a view of the pool, which is still under construction. It’s a corner room, but there are windows on only one wall, which we find curious. The marble bathroom is enormous with a giant bath and separate shower. The bed is very nice and supposedly Heavenly, but not as great as either the one at La Cantera or the W Seattle. It has a polyester duvet instead of the beautiful white comforter at La Cantera.

We call down to see if we can get some toiletries to tide us over until our luggage arrives. They bring toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors, and shaving cream, and insist on sending someone out to purchase contact-lens solution for us. Wow.

We walk along the river looking for a place still serving food at a quarter to midnight and settle upon a place I had heard was good, Boudro’s. We get a table overlooking the paseo and the river and settle in with a round of margaritas (I have my dry Herradura, the rest have the frozen prickly-pear special). This place, this Riverwalk, is magical. It’s not like any place I’ve ever seen. If I had to compare it, the closest thing that comes to mind is Disneyland. Sitting looking at a hundred-year-old tree towering over us, watching people who just walk around—they paseo—that’s what they do! We have a terrific waiter named Charles, a soft-spoken young man reminiscent of a head-shaven Robert DiNiro. We had six or seven rounds of margaritas and ordered everything Charles recommended including the ice-cream balls for dessert. It was fabulous.

When we return through the construction dust to the Westin, we find the contact-lens solution waiting for us. They brought up extra towels for us. The same guy, Chris, seems to be doing all the actual work. We gave him lots of tips.

a new day

We are awakened at six a.m. by the alarm clock, then again at 7:30 by construction noise from the pool below. Grr. Later we found that Kevin and Lara’s alarm clock also went off at 6! Since Michelle told us we were the first ones to sleep in these rooms, somebody installed these clocks turned on!

We had lunch at Rio Rio on the Riverwalk. Good chicken mole and a super pitcher of frozen Herradura margaritas. Then we visited the Alamo, where some guy named Crockett apparently had a battle, and then we strolled over to the Tower of the Americas, San Antonio’s copy of the Space Needle. It was only $3 to go up, so we did.

Texas is flat.

The Tower is in a park surrounded by beautiful waterfalls. We sat on a bench for awhile looking at the sunlight sparkle in the water, then we headed back to the hotel for a rest and to wait for the baggage. E.T.A.: 8 p.m.

Next: Steaks on the River