We are not amused

Denver's Airport has to be the least people-friendly airport I've ever been to. There are others that are old and beat up and not very well planned, but Denver's got no excuses like that. They just hate their plane travelers.

To start with, you have to ride a subway between the terminals and the baggage claim/ticketing area. Then you have very poor signage telling you where to go to get your bags, and you have to walk a quarter mile to get there. Then you have a choice of 10 carousels to choose from, all of which offer the same flight information, so there's no telling where your bag is actually coming out. And if you dare ask one of the baggage attendants who pull off the bags that haven't been claimed because people are searching 10 different carousels trying to figure out where the hell they're supposed to be, they look at you like you're stupid and say something like "Number 7." Which would great if that were true...but it isn't. So even THEY don't know.

It's my own damn fault, I know. I stupidly bought a bottle of honey in Seattle and didn't want to toss it out, so I put it in my bag and checked it since Southwest doesn't charge for bags and this was a non-stop flight to Denver. Well...there I am, waiting at carousel 7 for my bag, which isn't coming and isn't coming and isn't coming...and then carousel 8 has its bags get stuck in this brilliant system and it takes some guy from maintenance ten minutes to get there because he probably had to ride the friggin' subway, too, and I turn to watch and I see a bag that looks very much like mine...but it can't be mine because mine's coming out on carousel 7. Right?

Guess whose bag it was? And it wasn't till it had rounded the finally unstuck carousel 8 that I went to actually look and saw my name on the check ticket.

You think that's the end of the adventure? No. I'm renting a car. And all the rental places are 10 miles away by shuttle bus. On a freeway. Sitting sideways with no seat belt. And then you get off at this exit where all the rental agencies are lined up like they're dealerships. Then it's another 30 miles down a freeway that only lets you go 55 legally before I get to my hotel.

Denver's airport hates people.

Oh...as for the packing job? I could have started at 9:30...but my boxes and materials weren't here, yet. FedEx didn't really want to deliver them till I was checked into the hotel. I've had boxes and materials delivered and held before...in LA, in Boise, in Lake Forest, Illinois...but not in Denver. So I didn't get started till nearly 1pm.

I also feel that Denver's urban planners hate people, considering how some of these roads are laid out...but that's a whole different rant.