Adventure awaits beneath the clouds!

The Game is Afoot!!

So let the Utah National Park frenzy begin!!  Am writing this from our room at the lovely Howard Johnson motel (or as i discovered by reading through the blurb on the room service menu, a member of the "limited-service lodging industry").  And jolly respectable it is too.  Beds.  A loo.  Free wi-fi and free breakfast of refined white flour bakery products tomorrow, so can't argue with that.  Though our air conditioner seems a little random.  Do AC units have a "post-flight fart" setting?   I just let off a little quiet indiscrete one right next to it - and it roared into action.  A little overkill, I though, but maybe there's a Utah bylaw about farting in hotel rooms and its only doing its civic duty?  I don't think I'll ask the flip flop clad guy manning the front desk when we leave tomorrow morning - it'll just have to be one of those never to be answered questions.  Anyway, enough of that drivel, our road trip proper starts tomorrow with a 4hr drive from Salt Lake City to Moab, where we are spending a couple of days exploring Arches National Park and Canyonlands NP.  There will be Fiery Furnace hiking and paddleboarding a plenty, so its going to be a really fun few days.

Our flight from SFO to SLC took only 1hr 45mins and was pretty smooth with only a few little bumps.  Our pilot for this trip was - I kid thee not - Captain Sherlock!!  Very terribly exciting for all us Arthur Conan Doyle fans.  Alas, no heinous crimes were committed that required his presence to be summoned from the flight deck (although someone did request to KEEP the can of coke during the complimentary beverage service and i think, in United's eyes that counts as grand larceny, so it was touch and go at times).  There was also a rather bemused looking fly on board, buzzing around, occasionally looking out of a window and wondering how the hell he can be flying quite so fast.  Poor little bugger is going to have a very long wing-powered buzz back to California...  Thats was about the extent of the in-flight entertainment, other than the loved up couple in front of us (annoying and young) and the older guy behind us who would comment loudly to his wife sitting in a seat across the aisle from him (I wonder why?) about pretty much anything and everything.  So that was fun.  But all was well - the flight landing was very smooth, so absolutely no complaints about that.

Well, hello back there SLC.  Reckon you can do something
with those pesky temperatures?  Are you trying to kill us??

The bags came through in super-quick time so it wasn't that long before we found ourselves at Tyler's desk at AVIS rental car - and we subjected the poor boy to a charm offensive and wise-crack-athon that he was powerless to resist!  It started out with the other lady behind the AVIS desk who, I believe, was engaged in the very critical role of paper clip counting and moving pieces of paper from one side of her desk to another.  On seeing us waiting, she asked us "Are you preferred AVIS members?" to which I replied, honestly, "no we're not".   To which she replied "Well, Tyler will take care of you then, when he's finished with his customers" and then continued to practice receipt origami instead of any semblance of customer service.  So this triggered my (usually silent) smart arse gene and so I piped up "Yes - we're preferred"...... "We are extremely preferred members".......... "We're actually so preferred its embarrassing, so we'd like you to keep that under wraps if you could"  

Tyler, SLC Avis - top guy!!!

Cue non-response from the lady, but the guy at the end, Tyler, was cracking up overhearing these comments.  So we knew, as we approached him, finally admitting that we were lousy nobodies with no status and who nobody loved, we'd already started to lure him into to our web of flattery in the pursuit of discounts....  He was a totally solid guy and we had a lot of fun bantering back and forth with him.  Proof that sharing a laugh and a smile is the best way to get a car upgrade, we managed to snag a great deal where we added Lori on the reservation for only $10 AND in the process, got upgraded to an awesome black SUV, the Ford Edge.  Holy crap - its badass.  We both need to buy black-framed Wayfarers sunnies STAT to drive this mutha (which will make it a little tricky at night, but we'll manage).  We'll post some pics of it tomorrow, but its the perfect vehicle for the long driving days, so thank you, Tyler - you just made our week a whole hell of a lot more comfortable.

And now its time to sleep.  Free Howard Johnson breakfast tomorrow.  I'm deeply curious.....  Roll on Day 2!!!