travel woes

Traveling in Canada in February is challenging and always has the potential for surprises.

As I mentioned in my post on Saturday, our early Saturday morning flight was canceled due to the blizzard New Brunswick received overnight Friday. Liz came down with a flu and was not feeling very much like traveling, so when they cancelled our flights it gave us the opportunity to get her tickets refunded. We were able to reschedule the rest of our flights (Kevin, Venus and myself) for Saturday night, to depart Moncton at 8:40pm. The biggest setback to this being the camp truck. It seems, based on the symptoms, that the alternator needs either a good smack in the head or replacement. As we won't be able to get it looked at until a weekday, we had to scramble to find a way to the airport. Venus will not be returning with us so we had thought her car wouldn't be an option. But as time and options ran out we decided to talk to her about it and made arrangements to use her car. Kevin and I will return the car to Fredericton when we get back next Wednesday.

I had planned to sleep in on Saturday to prepare for our long travel into the night Saturday night, but woke up at 8am. So I got up and got busy with the tractor, blowing the 18 plus inches of snow out of the driveways so we could be mobile later in the day. I had no sooner finished the plowing and was closing up the shop when the garage door slipped off it's pully and wouldn't close. Roger came to the rescue and with his help we had the door fixed in five minutes flat. Crisis averted!

Kevin, Venus and I caught our flight in Moncton at 8:40, our flight was only about ten minutes late leaving. It was, however quite a bit longer than our typical flight time from Moncton to Toronto. Instead of the usual hour and forty five minutes it was much closer to two and a half. Which left us less than ten minutes to make our connection in Toronto. But our connecting flight was delayed by an hour, so we had time for a leasurely supper at the deli near our gate. We boarded our Edmonton flight at 12:30am (ATL), but it was short a few passengers from a connecting flight and their luggage was already on the plane. They never showed, so we had to wait while their luggage was removed. In the meantime, our aircraft developed a healthy snow and ice buildup as it was storming in Toronto. So we had another half hour wait as we went through central de-icing. We arrived in Edmonton at 6:30am (ATL) and were very kindly met by Tom and Donna Cnosson who ferried us to their home. We arrived there at about 7:30am (ATL) and were able to have about three hours of sleep before we rose for church.

After church we headed for KBI in Lac La Biche. Our trip from Edmonton up wasn't without it's adventure. There was quite a snowstorm in the Edmonton area and the roads were quite slick. We saw fourteen cars off the road in a short stretch. But thankfully, the weather cleared as we drove north. We arrived here at 5:30pm, just in time for dinner.

It was a long journey, and we are certainly weary, but it has been nice to reconnect with friends from across the country. I'm looking forward to a great week here in Alberta.