Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. Our MeemawHeadsWest2018 Road Trip has them all. And Union Station in downtown Denver was the perfect place to add that train portion to the equation.
Peepaw was the planner for this itinerary, and it’s a pretty complicated one. I was happy to give that job to him since I spent years as a travel agent where I was in charge of planning complicated itineraries that ranged from days to weeks. So sometimes these days I am happy to simply go along for the ride and leave the planning to him.
This time we drove from Iowa to his sister Patricia’s home in Lakewood where we left our car. Then we planned to take the A Line light rail train from Union Station to the Denver airport where we could catch a night flight to Las Vegas. After spending three nights in Vegas we planned to rent a car and drive through California to our final destination in Oregon. Whew! Lots of pieces to THAT puzzle.
Sis Patricia had a great idea. Her son Andrew works in Lakewood but he lives in downtown Denver, and since his schedule and our flight schedule turned out to be compatible, Andrew offered to give us a ride from Lakewood to downtown Denver to catch the light rail to the airport.
Union Station in downtown Denver is beautiful…both inside and out.
The history of the building is impressive.
We only spent a minute inside, but it was long enough to admire the beautiful renovation that has brought that old building back to those glory days.
Sis Patricia had given us a crash course on using the ticketing system that would get us on the train and out to the massive Denver airport. She even gave us our tickets! (She’s really sweet like that.)
A Day Pass costs $9 for the general public, but it’s $4.50 for students, veterans, and senior citizens age 65 and over. That Day Pass is valid for all types of transportation in Denver including all buses and light rail trains.
We simply looked for the validation kiosk and inserted each of our tickets to validate them with the date stamp.
And that’s all there was to it!
The train to the airport runs every half hour, and we were lucky enough to arrive within minutes of departure.
Our only mistake was choosing seats that faced backwards on that trip.
The train makes about eight stops on the way to the airport, but the doors only remain open for a minute at each one. We passed Coors Field. home to the major league Rockies baseball team.
It takes about 30 minutes to make the trip to the airport on that train which is MUCH faster than fighting freeway traffic snarls. And in case you don’t already know…that Denver airport was built out in the middle of nowhere, although there are more and more new developments now springing up around it every year.
Yes, our visit to Denver’s Union Station was short and sweet, but it was a perfect way to kick off the NEXT leg of our journey West.
Now…on to Las Vegas!
Leave a Reply