The Adventures of the Henley Family: We are there!....well...not really.

Okay, we were able to get on the Thursday afternoon flight out of Knoxville to Denver. As you know, with Bronwyn's flight benefits we get standby or "space available" seating. So, we can fly, but there has to be space on the plane. We've gotten pretty good at flying over the last couple of years, but you never know when things can happen (mechanical issues, weather problems, etc.,).

Bronwyn's job with SkyWest ended this past Sunday (Skywest's ground-handling service is being replaced with ComAir). But, we still get 90 additional days to use travel pass benefits on SkyWest. So, we're trying to take advantage of the free travel while it lasts. We are trying to maximize our traveling while it's free until September 22nd.

Here's three of Stephen's WebKinz pets that tagged along for the trip. They seemed to have a good attitude waiting in the airport terminal for the Fresno flight.

Once we got to Denver, our plan was to take the flight to Fresno, CA and spend the night there. Fresno would be our "basecamp" and we were going to commute daily to Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. We had two shots to get to Fresno once we got to Denver on Thursday. They were both pretty full according to the early numbers, but we've always learned that we should show up anyway because people miss flights, change plans, and for whatever reason, we usually manage to get on the planes despite the capacity predictions.

Well, one of those "things can happen" things that I mentioned above...happened. Come to find out, Fresno State just won the College World Series!! As you can imagine, all the Fresno folks were heading home.....on.....OUR PLANE.

Congratulations...Fresno State World Champions.

"After hitting two home runs and driving in all six of his team's runs, Fresno State right fielder Steve Detwiler finished things by catching the final out."

So, in classic "Adventures of the Henley Family" spirit, we vowed one day to still see the great trees of Yosemite, but perservered with an alternate plan. Fortunately, we had not booked a hotel or car yet (you never know when things might happen). So, I found an internet connection at the Denver airport, bid on a one-night stay in Denver on Priceline and grabbed a Priceline car rental for our road-trip.

We won a $44 bid for the Denver Doubletree hotel....

....and picked-up a $21.95 daily car rental with Alamo. As typically happens, they bumped us up for free from a compact size to a mid-size car. It gets 38 mpg! (although later after I tested a few fill-ups, it gets closer to 33mpg)