John L ‘Jack’ Swigert Jr, 1931-1982

Today I flew off to Denver for a few days - not for work, but to take care of some personal business in the city and state where I lived many moons ago.

I flew to Denver via Houston, since our seasonal flight to Denver does not start up again until the end of March. By the time I got to Denver it was very late and I hadn’t really taken any photos all day. But this statue provided me with an adequate blip for today - at the airport while I was waiting for the train to baggage claim.

Jack Swigert was a test pilot and fighter pilot from Denver. He served as an astronaut in the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. He retired from NASA in 1977 and was elected to Congress in 1982. Sadly, during his campaign, a malignant tumour was found in his nasal passages and he died before he took office. he was just 51 years old. I wonder what kind of politician he would have become?

I picked up my rental car and ended up at my booked hotel at 1130pm (630am UK time!), only to find out that they had no record of my reservation that I’d made through Booking.com. It took a couple of phone calls between me, Booking.com and the hotel front desk, and between the front desk and his manager at home, and eventually it got sorted. The fault was the hotel’s, not Booking.com. There was never a question of not having a room, but I was NOT going to pay more than the rate I had had confirmed! I was very glad to get it resolved so that I didn’t have to go somewhere else. I was in bed within minutes of getting into my room.