How to almost ruin a vacation in one sentence

Last Wednesday evening I planned to fly from NashVegas to Denver for a ski vacation. I had my stuff all packed, ticket and boarding pass printed out and at the airport the required two hours ahead of time. I took my carry on and strode up to the ticket counter. The nice lady behind asked me for my ID which I promptly handed to her, then it happened.



The lady asked me if I had another ID that wasn't expired...huh....WTF?!....WTF?! My drivers' license is no good?! Sonofabitch... And sure enough, my license had been expired since I turned 40 earlier in the month. Expired without notice from the state, no reminder to renew, anger. Not at the airline agent but at the situation and the ramifications of not having proper ID. Now there would be no rental car to drive myself to the mountains and hit the slopes, I would have to hope that my brother and sister in-law wouldn't mind driving me the hour+ to the ski areas.

When I got back to NashVegas, I would look forward to the time I will get to spend getting my license at the DMV. Hell Yeah, that will be time well spent.

Upon arrival in Denver, my Verizon phone could not find the network, turning it off and on, nothing; just the same message: No Service. Luckily I brought my old phone and was able to change phones so I could call and stay in touch with my family.



When I finally got a phone that worked my wife left me a message saying to call her ASAFP. Great I thought, everything else has gone so well, this has to be good news. It was even better news that I thought; our bank had called and said they had found some charges on our check card that seemed unusual and they were going to cancel the ones we had, on Friday, and send us new ones...in 3-5 business days.



Super...no ID and now no way to pay for things except cash. Anyone know how many places won't take cash anymore? Too many. Ski rental; use the card to reserve them and maybe pay with cash, lift tickets; one window accepts cash and there might be someone there or not. All this has happened before I have skied one single run, I haven't even gotten my skis yet, that was a smaller fiasco on Thursday; it would at least wait until I'd had a bourbon or two.



Despite all this I skied three incredible days in Colorado, three days of powder, and three days that made me forget how lousy the trip started. It snowed the first two days I went and it was cold enough that most people stayed home so we had the mountain pretty much to ourselves Thur and Fri. Saturday it was a nuthouse but there was still some powder and who could ask for anything more than that? I am so grateful that my brother and sister-in-law who drove me around for three days, and put me up in their house. I'm going back to Colorado soon, probably not this season but for sure next year, I just love to ski too much to not go back.