The Joy of Travel
It’s 1am at the Toronto Airport and it’s been a helluva trip so far. After spending a week watching the news about the threatened Air Canada pilot’s strike, we got a reprieve in the wee hours of Sunday morning and were assured by the airline that all would be well. I joked to my traveling friends that now all we had to deal with were normal airline delays. Ha, ha, ha. Well, I woke up this morning to a message from Air Canada that due to incoming equipment issues, our flight time was going to encounter a slight delay of 50 minutes. I thought to myself that it was a good thing that I had not tried to change to the earlier connecting flight from Toronto to Halifax that my friends from Phoenix would be on. I resisted that mostly because a 35 minute connection at an unfamiliar big city airport was not my idea of a good place to run sprints to catch the connection. I used to know theToronto airport like the back of my hand, but that was literally thirty years ago when I was assigned to run the Canadian operation out of Toronto for two years.
No big deal, we had three hours + in between landing in Toronto and our later flight to Halifax. That was already going to be a pretty inconvenient flight for us since, due to the extra hour time change, we would not arrive there until about 1:30am. Since that was 9:30 San Diego time, I figured we could get through it. As we waited at the Air Canada gate in San Diego, we kept getting bad signals. The inbound flight arrived as expected about 50 minutes late, but I noticed the pilots having a long chat with the ground crew about something that seemed like an aircraft problem being reported. Sure enough. The original 11:10am departure that had been changed to 12:00 soon slid to 12:20 and then 1:20. At that point I started to worry about how the delays were cutting into our time cushion in Toronto. When it slid to 2:30 i knew I was in trouble and asked the gate clerk if Air Canada would automatically handle my onward rebooking. I was assured they would but it was clear to me that since airports do not generally operate 24×7, I figured that if I missed the connection to Halifax, I would be looking at a flight to Halifax the next morning. Of course, that opened up all sorts of issues ranging from where we would sleep that night (without toothbrushes) and then how my gang of motorcycle pals were going to handle all the arrangements we had to deal with to pick up our bikes tomorrow (now technically, today).
I was told that the air hostess onboard might be able to help me. We finally took off at 3:30pm so I knew we would definitely miss the Halifax flight and be sleeping somewhere in Toronto. I put in place contingency plans for my friends in Halifax as best I could, still not knowing when we would be ultimately booked to arrive there. During the flight, the attendant came by to tell me a little Air Canada secret. It seems that the very aircraft we were on was the same aircraft scheduled to go to Halifax, so we would not miss our flight. Great. SHe told me to check my Air Canada app and that I would be able to see the change. When I checked, what I saw was that they had rebooked us on the early morning flight, so I started resigning myself to a quick sleep in Toronto. But somewhere during the flight, Air Canada saw fit to make another change and text me about it. They put me back on my original flight except they showed the original times versus the revised times, so it looked as though I had already missed it. I had no idea what to expect when we deplaned in Toronto.
I almost wish we had stayed booked on the morning flight since we were told that we were, indeed, going to be going out on the very plane we were leaving. However, we would have to clear immigration since we were entering from the United States. I could see that that meant a long, exhausting hike to immigration and then a long, complicated and confusing hike back through security and to the same gate we had just left. Toronto airport has certainly grown in thirty years and its safe to say I didn’t recognize a thing about it as I started sweating and looking for places to rest. When we finally got back to the gate it was, of course, all hurry and then wait to board. We got back on and settled in with more than a few expletives from me and a thank-God that I had an absorbent handkerchief to dry off my soaking head and neck. After about twenty minutes of waiting for the plane to close up and start taxiing, they announced that this plane, the same plane that had had all those mechanical problems in San Diego, was not going anywhere tonight. I figured we were headed for the airport hotel, but no. They had found and alternate plane and all we had to do was hoof it again to Gate D51 from Gate D32. It wouldn’t have been so awful except i felt like I had just started to catch my breath when we were off again on the treadmill.
Blessedly, the wait at Gate D51 was only about 45 minutes and we were told to board. We were in seats 2A and 2C, so we were at the head of the line with wives and husbands abandoning one another to keep their positions. At one point with Kim in the lead (she walks much faster than I can) she ran into a closed gangway door and when she opened it she was yelled at from the plane door to stop and wait until they were ready for us. We used the time to allow the husbands and wives to reunite. At this point no one was in a mood to argue with other passengers, just with the airline. Finally, they let us on and we sat down in the exact same seats we had been in on the other plane and that we had spent five hours in from San Diego. I feel calm now that I’m on a plane that should be good to finally go to Halifax. It is now 1:40am and we are due to arrive, with the added one hour time change at about 5am in Halifax. I expect the sun will just be peeking up. that should give us just enough time to gather our bags, get to the hotel, shower and change and sort out the things I need to take to the bike rental place, and get down to the lobby for the 10am pickup and the one hour ride north to where the bike rental place is located. I cannot imagine that trying to lay down and catch a few winks will be a good strategy. Better to get the chores done on no sleep and then crash for the afternoon while the others are poking around the presumably quaint town of Halifax. With any luck, we will get back to the hotel at about 2pm. That will make for a very long, extended travel day for me. Kim too has to go back to the airport at 10am to get the rental car, so she won’t have it any easier.
I used to travel all the time and I actually found it mostly relaxing. Somewhere along the way, the the joy of travel has escaped me and I am now wishing that the Star Trek dematerializer had become a reality.