Chapter 7 – Colorado – July 2025
"Abba!" Riv guided her wheeled suitcase with her left hand as she followed her father from baggage claim to the vehicle rental counter at the Denver airport. "You're walkin' too fast. Me and Beth can't keep up."
Ziva shook her head as she gently nudged the five-year-old forward, "Your sister is up behind your father, yaldati. Even LJ is keeping pace." Her middle child, the drama queen of the family, would complain just to complain some days.
"Well, I wouldn't be so tired if you didn't make us get up in the dark this morning," the girl huffed as she tried to catch up to her twin.
LJ turned around to glance at his sister, "You can do it, Riv. It's not that far… See?" He pointed to the rental area where his Abba was already at the counter speaking with the agent. Tali, Anthony, and Beth were waiting nearby with their wheeled luggage and backpacks.
"Pfft," the sister replied.
Ziva herded the straggler towards the others and joined Tony at the popular vehicle rental kiosk. She pulled her driver's license from her wallet to present to the agent. "We will both be driving," she noted.
"Thank you, ma'am," the woman employee placed both drivers' licenses on a scanner and saved the image to the DiNozzo's rental agreement file. "I'll need you both to sign on the electronic signature pad over here," she pointed to the device. "Reggie should be outside with your van in about five minutes. Thanks for choosing our company for your rental vehicle needs. Enjoy your stay in Denver."
The family passed through the automatic doors to the vehicle pick-up area. A large twelve-passenger van pulled up to the curb and a young man handed two sets of keys to Tony.
"Do you need any assistance with loading?" he asked.
Ziva had already opened the rear cargo doors and had the kids bring their wheeled luggage back before climbing into the sliding door on the passenger side.
"No, thank you," she smiled at him. "Thank you for offering, though." Tony walked over to help her load the luggage into the cargo area. Tali opened the sliding door and looked over the three rows of seats inside.
She counted the seats, "There are ten seats in the back; that means we each get two."
Anthony grinned as he climbed in and put his backpack on one of the two center seats in the third row. He sat in the seat next to the window. "That means no one has to be next to anyone else unless they want to be." He liked the idea of having some room for his backpack making it easy to reach.
Tali followed her brother to the rear-most row; she put her backpack on the second middle seat and sat down in the seat near the window on the opposite side. She grinned to Anthony, "Big kids in the way back; little kids in the center."
"Yup," he grinned back.
LJ was next in; he chose to sit in the single seat in front of Tali and put his backpack on the floor under his seat. He didn't care if there wasn't a second seat. Riv and Beth could choose from the pair of seats in his row on the other side or the three seats in the first row in the passenger area.
Beth chose the double seats opposite her little brother as Rivka rolled her luggage to the rear of the van. She let out a rather dramatic sigh that forced her parents to bite the insides of their lips to keep from laughing. Tony and Ziva shared a look; each could see the amusement in the other's eyes at their middle child's antics.
"Why do I hafta be the last one?" Riv sighed again. "I'm always the last one…" she climbed in the sliding door to the passenger area. "I don't get to choose where I sit."
Ziva and Tony shut the rear doors and headed to the front of the van; Tony would drive first and Ziva would navigate from the front passenger seat.
"You got the most seats," Tali noted to her sister. "You should be happy that we chose before you."
Riv made a face at her older sister, "What if I don't want three seats?"
"Rivka Abigail," Ziva warned as she buckled her seat belt. "Please choose one of the three seats in the first row and buckle up so we can get on the road."
Tony glanced back at his family and grinned, "First stop; Berthoud Pass and the Continental Divide!" He started the engine and eased away from the curb, following the signs to exit the airport. Interstate 70 was the first road of many to the destinations for this trip.
An hour and multiple twisting turns on the roadway later, he parked at the pull-off area by the sign for Berthoud Pass. As the family lined up on either side of the marker for the Continental Divide, Anthony found an elderly couple to take a picture with one of the family's digital cameras so that all of them could be in one picture.
"Smile!" the man took three pictures and handed the camera back to the boy.
"Thank you, sir. I'll take a picture for you if you want," Anthony offered. The man gave the boy his phone to get a picture of the older couple.
Tony looked at the images on the DiNozzo's camera and quipped, "In this picture, the girls would roll into the Atlantic Ocean, eventually, and the boys into the Pacific Ocean."
He was interrupted by LJ tugging at his hand. "What does that big number mean Abba? The one on the sign. It says the number and then 'feet.' I know that word."
"The elevation means how high we are from sea level. That number is eleven thousand, three hundred and seven. That's how many feet we are above the sea. Let me think, it's about the same distance up in the air as it is from our house to the McGee's house," Tony explained.
"About two and one-sixth miles," Tali added.
Ziva also commented, "Or about three and one-half kilometers."
The kids ran over to the small area behind the parking lot; it had some snow on the slight slope. They touched the snow and made a few snowballs to stack into a small snow person. Tony and Ziva both took pictures with their phones and with the digital cameras.
"Where else could we find snow in July?" Tony joked with Ziva.
She smirked at him, "South of the Equator; for example, at the house in Chile." She turned back to the children, "Time to get back in the van and head west again. We have two more passes over the Continental Divide on US Highway 40 before we get to our destination for the night."
Tony studied the map on Tali's tablet, "And lots of twists and turns in the roadway. Several hairpin turns and switchbacks as we go up and down the mountains. Look at this aerial view I found of US 40 through Berthoud Pass!"
Ziva met gazes with her husband, "I will drive this second leg if you would like. Or we can switch out after the next Pass."
"I don't mind driving," he shrugged. "Muddy Pass is about another ninety minutes; it's one of the lowest elevations on the Continental Divide. Rabbit Ear Pass is very close to Muddy Pass. Then about ninety minutes from there to our destination."
LJ heard his Abba talking about the passes, "Why is it called Rabbit Ear Pass?"
"Because the mountain on the north side has two peaks that look like rabbit ears," Beth showed her little brother the image that Ima had put on each of their tablets so that the kids could see pictures of where they were headed during trip.
"It is your choice. I am still planning to drive tomorrow," Ziva buckled her seatbelt as the kids settled into their seats and Tony started the engine.
~Colorado~
After an overnight stay near the attraction, the family visited Dinosaur National Monument the following day. The park is located on the Colorado-Utah border and has many unique things to see and do. Ziva drove across the state line on US 40 to the turn for UT 149 to go to the Visitors' Center and the shuttle to the Quarry Exhibit Hall where the dinosaur fossils are on view in a covered building.
After the twelve-minute video about the park and the wall of dinosaur fossils, the DiNozzos boarded the shuttle for the quarter-mile ride to the Quarry Exhibit Hall. The dinosaur models and bones had the kids spell-bound, including the big kid. Ziva had to laugh when the children's awe matched Tony's. There were life-sized models, reconstructed skeletons, partially uncovered remains, and areas where the visitors could touch the actual fossils in the rock wall.
The wall of approximately 1,500 dinosaur bones is inside a climate-controlled space. The remains of numerous different species of dinosaurs including Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus along with several others are on display. Exhibits, including an 80-foot-long mural, reveal the story of these animals and many others that lived in the Morrison environment during the late Jurassic Period.
At the store in the Visitors' Center, the kids picked out several books about dinosaurs and LJ, Beth, and Rivka each found a plush dinosaur to take home. Ziva reminded all of the kids that anything bought as souvenirs from the trip needed to fit into luggage or backpacks when it came time to fly back to DC from Denver.
