My apologies for not alerting you that I was going to be in a new timezone and therefore the blog was going to be late. Yep -- a new day - a new city! I'll warn you up front that my spell checker isn't working this morning, so there might be a few issues!
This time, I'm on the west coast of Canada on Salt Spring Island. Let's just say that Septemeber was a crazy month and it's not over yet! BUT - because I didn't have any Zoom classes or clubs booked, I have the luxury of doing the travel and not worrying about the class scheduling etc. I need to look at 2024 and see how I want to arrange my time or decrease the number of classes/clubs, because I'm loving this flexibility.
There are two clubs next Sunday, so I'll be prepping for those when I get back! And the Virtual Retreat is this coming weekend as well.
Claire and I needed to get to the airport early as we both had early (before 9 AM) flights. That meant a short night as the Uber came to pick uus up at 6:30.
I am traveling EXTREMELY light with only my office backpack, so I could walk right through to security. The line-up for security was LONG, however, I have my NEXUS card, but Claire did not. I THOUGHT I was allowed one person to come with me, so she got in the big line and I went to check. I swear the guy said YES, so I ran back to get her. We arrived only to have him tell me that the person had to be OLDER than 75 or YOUNGER than 17. Oh crap. She was turning to go back, when he said, just slip through the barrier and butt in line, which she did.
It's so easy now to get through the security check as you do not need to remove anything from your luggage, at least in the priority line.
However, when I walked through the X-ray, it beeped. Oh -- did I forget something in my pockets? Nope -- I was flagged for a random swab test. I love how they want to swab the waistband of your pants. Yep -- because if I'm carrying a weapon, that's where I'm going to put it! Of course, one does NOT joke about that during the swab test!
All was good and I waited a few minutes for Claire. We felt a wee bit bad for her to butt in the line, but it saved her at least half an hour!
Off to Tim's for breakfast and another line, but surprisingly they were pretty fast, which is so unlike them at that location!
As I was waiting for Claire to clear security, I got a notification on my phone that my flight was delayed. Sigh. But when I saw that it was delayed until 1 PM -- I thought "oh crap!" What's Plan B going to be? Not enough time to go home, no lounge access, so I'll wait and read my book.
However as we were walking to Claire's gate, she spotted a flight to Vancouver that was going to board shortly. OH -- I should say that I was going to be flying to Victoria. Well, Vancouver and Victoria are not far apart and it's easy to get to Victoria from Vancouver, so on her advice, I thought I'd check if they had room for me.
I went up to the desk and asked. This is the beauty of flying light -- that plane was about to board and if I had any luggage, they (and rightfully so), would have said NO. But since I had everything with me, they put me on standby. They started to board the plane and she had called a couple of standby passengers, but not me. So I went and asked what the scoop was. OH yes -- she had forgotten me, so I got a seat. And ZONE 2 boarding, so I butted in the line of passengers who were boarding and got on.
Where did I end up? As I had visions of being crammed in the middle seat. Nope -- I got 31C which is an aisle seat at an emergency exit.
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| Loads of leg room |
Those are the seats that one must pay for if you preselect, so it was empty. Let's just say that I had a very pleasnt flight as there was NO one in the middle seat. The seat was probably better than the one on the flight that I had actually booked.
Then I arrived in Vancouver and I didn't really need to get to Victoria, I needed to get to Salt Spring Island. Two options -- the ferry or a seaplane. The ferry would take longer, so after checking the schedules, I booked the seaplane (I had checked the schedules of both on my phone, while waiting for the remainder of the plane to board in Toronto).
Off to catch the shuttle bus to the seaplane terminal. Again -- so easy when you don't have luggage and there is a tier pricing structure for the seaplanes. The less you have, the cheaper the flight! I arrived in plenty of time and had lunch at the Flying Beaver which is at the Harbour Air terminal. There are two different sea plane companies.
I don't know where all the people came from to eat lunch, but that place was PACKED and it remained packed as I was boarding my flight at 1:30. It must be a destination restaurant, but the food was great.
And then we were off in the seaplane. It's not my first time, but it's still new to me. It was the first time for one other passenger, so she got to sit up front, while I sat in the back seat with another lady and the three people in the middle were squished in! It's only an 18 minute flight, so no worries.
Let's just say that it's a bit "up and down" on the take off and getting to cruising height. I'm not the best with that, but I just suck it up and know that I'll be fine. Hey -- I have my floatation device attached!
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| The seaplane |
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| The view from the air |
After I had paid for my ticket online, I realized that the pricing structure is based on weight, with the maximum allowed for my fare was 8 lbs. Yikes -- I have my computer in the back and a few clothes, I might be over. She said at 10 lbs, that I was good! Phew!!!
When I arrived, my aunt was there to greet me and we spent the entire evening catching up! It's amazing how you may not see someone on a regular basis, but you just ease back into the conversation like no time has passed. I wish I could get out more often as we used to get here at least once a year when all the cousins were small. Now all the cousins live in different cities and have their own lives, so that will never happen again.
BUT we have memories and I have one to share with you, but I need a picture first so that is for tomorrow.
My advice to anyone who wants to travel is this -- keep everything simple. Bring ONLY what you absolutely need. I will use everything in my backpack while I'm here - oh -- I may not use the Sudoko book that is in there, so I really need to remove that. If you want to bring a book to read, the e-books on your phone are a godsend. No need to lose a book, no extra weight, no fear of finishing and then not having something to read. I'm totally sold on that!
Clothes can be hand washed or worn multiple times. Anyway -- there are lots of ways to make travel easy and quick. I realize that one of them is experience, and I've had plenty of that this past year.
Did I mention that I'm now at 25K status on Air Canada, so that gives me Zone 2 boarding on all flights. That makes me happy!
I had to laugh as I was getting ready to leave in the morning as I spotted this on the kitchen counter. It's a bag that was filled with oranges and DH left it on the counter. Why? Becuase he thought I might like it? Well, we threw MANY of these bags away at Moms, because she had big plans to do something with them. We decided that NO ONE needs them, so out they went!
Elaine, you arrived on the west coast just in time for the first storm of the fall. I hope your aunt's rural power stays connected.
ReplyDeleteDebbie in Victoria