L. Goldsmith Philmont 98 Journal: July 1, 1998

	Larry Goldsmith's 1998 Philmont Journal
July 1, 1998: On the way...
The preparation is finally over. We are packed and ready to be on our way to Philmont! As my cohort in this would say, "Put me in Coach. I'm ready." The contingent of 110 of us are scheduled to fly out of Newark Airport to Denver on two different United Airlines flights that leave at 5:30 PM and 6:15 PM. Our Crew was scheduled to go out on the 6:15 flight on which there would be 81 of us. To get us all checked in, we are all scheduled to arrive at Newark by 3:30 PM. In order to not break with tradition for my third trip to Philmont, I am again (for the third time) going to ride to the airport with Walt Tanner. To get the logistics right, I pick him up at 1:40 PM and bring him back to my place where we will be picked up by members of our Crew. Since Walt is the Contingent Leader and has all of the tickets, he wants to arrive a little early so we are targeting arrival at 3:15 PM. At 2:20 PM are we picked up and we arrive at Newark at 3:05 PM. I estimate that a little of 50% of the Contingent was there ahead of us. As usual, there is always some little problem. Adam arrived without his Contingent hat. It turns out that Walt had one in his possession. In order to make a point, we decide to charge Adam $20 for the hat but indicate that we may be able to refund him a major portion of that if everything goes smoothly. We have been stressing that lack of a proper uniform -- including the Contingent hat -- could jeopardize one's ability to board the airplane. Once he gets the hat, we find it almost impossible to get him to keep it on! Every time that either Denis or I look at him, the hat is in is hand instead of on top of his head! If we told him once ... Check-in when as smoothly as could be reasonably expected with a group of 110. We were all checked in by 4:40 PM so we let the Scouts go off and wander until 5:15 PM when it was time to head out to the gate. We started to board at 5:45 PM and of course with 81 of us on the flight -- and with us sitting by Crew instead of the seats as assigned on the boarding passes, there was a problem with a passenger assigned to one of the seats that we had a Scout sitting in. Blake, our Assistant Crew Leader, ended up without a seat for awhile. But it finally got taken care of in time to allow the plane to push off from the gate on time at 6:15 PM. Unfortunately, we didn't actually take-off until 7:10 PM. The plane was a Boeing 737 and our Crew ended up sitting in seats 7A, 7B, 7C, 7D, 7E, 7F, 8B, 8E, 8F, and 11B. Blake was in 11B instead of 8A because of the confusion. The airline meal that was served was really hot -- as was the cart! I was sitting in one of the aisle seats and while they were serving, they parked the cart right up against my leg at one point which caused me to jump. They also weren't as well prepared as they should have been as they ran out of sodas before they could serve a second round. We landed in Denver at 8:50 PM MDT. The crews from the other flight had retrieved their gear and the buses arrived while we were waiting for our gear. We loaded and pulled away from the airport before 10 and headed towards Colorado Springs. We arrived at our destination for the night, the Colorado Springs National Guard Armory at 11:15 PM. Unfortunately, there was no one there when we arrived. After numerous calls to try to find someone to come to let us in, we finally were able to get in at 12:40 AM. Lights out on a long day were at 1:15 AM!