Adventures in Travel

Here’s a quick update on the ordeal with travel yesterday.

Initially, I was scheduled to leave on the early United flight to Edmonton via Chicago, but when I called the airline a few hours before I found out it had been cancelled due to a lack of crew. I quickly rebooked on a later Delta flight leaving in the early afternoon and expected to arrive a little before 10 PM MST.

Check in was fun at the airport, a Delta agent acted like a jerk and I got a full pat down at security. Also, thanks to a false-positive, I had to have all of my carry-on run through the chemical detector.

The flight to Salt Lake was delayed a bit, but since I had a 3.5 hr layover, I wasn’t bothered too much. The only really interesting thing was hitting some turbulence as we manuvered towards approach, but then I like to hear a plane full of people collectively go, “Oh!”

Once we got ready to depart for Edmonton the pilot made an announcement that foul weather ahead might cause us to divert to Calgary. So on we flew into the night almost to Edmonton, but we had to divert to Calgary after all. The Calgary landing was a real nail-biter and we took a pretty good bump landing. And then we sat. And sat and sat some more. Over an hour by my reckoning.

Finally we got the all clear window and took back off to Edmonton where about 20-30 minutes later we landed and proceeded to sit on the tarmac NEAR the gate for another hour.

Once inside we cleared customs where I was selected for an additional screening interview and politely reminded I could be deported without proper documentation. Whee!

As I left customs the bags were just starting to come off the belt when, the bags suddenly stopped. We then sat for another 45 mins while the ground crew waited out lightning.

By the time I got my bag and left it was about 2:15 am. the car rental place had closed so I took a cab ride downtown to my hotel.

This morning I have been a bit of a zombie in the office, but nothing a little rest can’t cure.

Customs in Edmonton

Is there a moral to the story? Just that being an effective traveller often means swallowing your pride or achieving a zen-like state of acceptance. Sure I was tired and frustrated, but you have to let it wash over you or you’ll never make it out alive. Besides, it’s better to let other people lose their cool in the airport for you. And hey, it all balances out in the end. I am sure travel karma will come back around and do me some good soon!