Off to a Poor Start. What's your 13th Choice?

[canyonwalker]

Colorado Travelog #2
Glenwood Springs, CO - Saturday, 2 Jul 2022, 10pm

Today is the first full day of our week-long trip in Colorado. Things have not been going well today. The list of miscues is lengthy:

• The rental car we picked up last night, a 4x4 pickup truck, has junk tires. They're not suitable for 4x4 driving offroad- which is the entire reason I reserved this particular vehicle. The tires looked awful last night, but I was too tired to try taking it back to ask for an exchange. This morning I was prepared to do exactly that, but the tires looked less shitty in full daylight.
• Speaking of full daylight, I was up at 6 this morning. Given that I didn't get to bed until about 1am, a combination of jetlag and the usual can't-get-to-sleep-right-after-travel problem, I'm pissed that my body decided it was done with sleep after 5 hours. I wasn't even well rested. By 9am I was ready for a nap.
• Ah, but back to the pickup truck. Despite settling for the not-ready-for-4x4 tires it's still not really the right vehicle. There isn't convenient room for the luggage we're traveling with. Yes, it all fits in the back seat (it's a crew cab model) but it requires being stacked up. This is one of those trips where we're basically living out of the car for a week. We need space to spread out.
• For our hotel for last night, I canceled one reservation literally a month ago and rebooked at another hotel. I just got a text from my credit card that the hotel I canceled 1 months ago charged me for last night's stay. Fucking idiots. Now I'll have to call them up and argue later in the week.
• The drive out to Glenwood Springs today was easy- hey, something went right!- but once we got here and checked in and double-checked details for the hike we wanted to do, Hanging Lake, we found that it now requires permits. And the permits for today and tomorrow are all sold out. We hiked other trails instead, but it was annoying being locked out of our main plan and having to call an audible for second and third choice.
• Speaking of second and third choices, for dinner this evening I ended up literally eating my thirteenth choice. The first thing I wanted closed minutes before I arrived. The second was closed when I got there- even though it should have been open hours longer. The third and fourth were sold out of everything I wanted. The 5th was too far away. The 6th had a ridiculously long wait. The 7th and 8th looked disgusting. The 9th didn't have what I wanted. The 10th, which was basically the 7th but with me coming back with lower standards, still looked disgusting. So did the 11th and 12th. I finally went with choice #13. And by the time I got back to the hotel with it, it was 9:30. Eating that late definitely wasn't my 1st choice... or even my 12th.

The frustrating thing about all these problems today is I didn't have high expectations. I wasn't looking for magical bullets. I just expected normal things to... well, work normally.

Well, I'm in for the night now. And I'm having food. And I'm not looking to do anything other than take a shower and go to bed. ...Those are normal things, too. Let's hope they don't somehow come in well below expectations.