the trip home

For those wondering, or, well, reading this, I did make it home safe and sound — I’ll try not to bore anyone with the details.

Still with me? Good.

Most of the day (my flight not leaving until 16:55) was spent doing laundry, packing and eating with Judy checking the flights every hour or so. The bulk of the storm hit Halifax and St. John’s in the morning, so we both felt pretty safe, but good to check regardless. A lot of the earlier flights were delayed or cancelled outright and you never know. Because of this I was a more than a little worried when I got an email from Air Canada for an “Electronic Refund Receipt.” Had they actually gone as far as canceling my ticket, a wipe of their hands and a “you’re on your own now son, good luck”? Not that an extra night or two in Halifax would have been a bad thing, but I did want to get home eventually. Besides, the 24 hour Sobey’s don’t open until 10 in Halifax. Very strange.

It was a false alarm however, as that was the refund for my “Advance Seat Selection” as they had bumped me from 25F to 20F. 25F was now a toilet and I guess that costs extra.

So, just after three (15:00h), Dad arrived home from work, we packed up the car with studded tires and headed off to the airport. The lineup was negligible but the clerk warned us that the weather in St. John’s was “iffy” and that we might be diverted back to Halifax. Iffy is such a great, well-rounded describer of things. So precise and informative.

We went up to the observation deck to wait until 16:20 when boarding was scheduled to begin and were greeted by this sight as the elevator doors opened:

And this isn’t photoshopped, nor any real camera trickery. The fog was so heavy we could barely see past the planes at the gates. Not far. We did, at one point, hear a plane land. Or take off. Still not sure which as we couldn’t see anything in the fog. The boarding time came and went. We looked up at the gate and saw a lack of a plane. The board proudly listed my flight as “on-time” in amongst a multitude of cancelled and delayed flights. The board lies. It did eventually switch to delayed, but only after my uneventful trip through security.

Boarding started at 17:20, a fair bit later than they previously advertised. Followed by deicing and an eventual takeoff. I’m not sure of the exact times as I don’t have a watch and couldn’t turn my cell phone on. They frown upon cell phones on planes. Much like snakes.

The trip itself was uneventful. I did manage to see the end of the Simpsons movie (having watched the bulk on my way to Halifax). They ended with the credits. Just so you know.

On the approach to St. John’s, the Captain updated us that he’d been talking to the Air Traffic Controller who described it as being “landable.” Now, overall, this is a good term. Better than “frowned upon” or “fraught with demons” when describing the landing of a mid-sized passenger aircraft. But it’s not a great term. It didn’t instill me with confidence. Nor did the puddles of snow on the runway I could spy out my small little window (but bigger than the window in the toilet I’m told).

The landing was okay, the trip to Gate 3 was fine. Backing up and being hauled over to Gate 2 when Gate 3 broke in the high winds was magical. No, wait, it was depressing. And the half hour wait for a cab that I’m positive still had summer tires on was well worth the wait.

But I’m home. And we’ve gotten more snow already. Yay!