Sunday, 26 July 2015: Denver to Tallahassee and epilogue
Written 5 August 2015
Sunday morning, we were up and out early, and the GPS unerringly directed us to the airport, although we had to start ignoring it when we got close and wanted to go, no longer to the airport itself, but to the rental car return.
The rental car return transaction took longer than usual, and we had more luggage to wrangle than usual, and once again the Avis shuttle bus was packed, so we didn't have quite as much time at the airport as we usually like. Still, I had time to get myself a hot chocolate and a toasted bagel with cream cheese, lox, tomato, and onion, and David picked up a coffee and a muffin.
The flight to Atlanta was entirely glitchless, but our connection from Atlanta to Tallahassee was long delayed. Fortunately, we were scheduled to arrive home in the early afternoon, so an extra hour or two wasn't a problem. We had plenty of time there to grab a bite at EDT lunchtime, trying to get our bodies back on east-coast time. I thought is must be an equipment problem, because when we first checked, our plane was listed as "at the gate," but soon the gate agents were talking about their "finding a plane for us." The one they came up with was a little threadbare (you couldn't actually smell the mothballs, but I'll bet some were involved), and its overhead bins were "commuter style," i.e., about half the size of normal modern ones, but it flew well enough and got us home in time for dinner.
Epilogue
Many mysteries remain about the trip. What was that bird that I heard at Bear's Den and again in the park at El Dorado Canyon that sounded so much like a European greenfinch? Was that really a purple finch I saw at the Y or just an ordinary house finch? Was that a goldfinch I glimpsed a couple of times at El Dorado Canyon? What were all those myriad tiny flowers in Rocky Mountain National Park that I didn't get a chance to ask about. The yellow composites alone were probably a dozen species.
But one mystery is solved. It was the glove. Wednesday, 29 July, while we were warming up as usual on the Seminole driving range, the outside edge of my left hand, which had been fine for a couple of days, started hurting again. It must still be swollen, I thought, because the glove pinches on every swing. Then, wait a minute, I thought, and tried an old glove that I still had on my bag, worn through in a couple of places but serviceable in a pinch, and in fact, and the hand instantly felt better. At that point, I rummaged in the bottom of my bag, got out a new glove, still in its factory packaging, put it on, and played the entire round with only residual soreness in the left hand, not that feeling that I was reinjuring it on every stroke!
When I got home, I carefully compared the new glove to the glove I used in Colorado (which I had broken out, new, for the occasion and which was easily recognizable by its truncated forefinger). That exercise revealed that the Colorado glove was a serious failure of FootJoy quality control. The gloves I use consist of 11 pieces of "leather" (actually a synthetic of some kind, laid down on a fabric mesh base) stitched together with two stretch mesh inserts and four pieces of elastic reinforcement—they are pretty darn complicated. When I compared the points at which seams met an crossed, I found that the Colorado glove was assembled all slaunchwise. At the point where the seam was chafing my sore forefinger, no seam exists in a properly assembled glove! And the seam near the base of my little finger was so far out of alignment that the whole palm was too narrow, and that knuckle actually was being squashed on every swing! As far as I can tell, that glove was the only bad one—I buy them in package of two, and its packaging "partner" was the properly assembled worn glove I still had on my bag. I can't believe it took me so long to figure the problem out, and that I therefore played a number of expensive and otherwise very pleasant rounds in unnecessary pain. You'd better believe I'll be looking at new gloves pretty carefully before I buy them from now on!