Well, we’re back in Deltaville and aboard Nelleke after a marathon travelling of 48 hours. Phew! I believe that it’s safe to say that neither I nor Barb are willing to do anything like that ever again if it can be avoided.

Why?

Well, let’s review, shall we?

First, long before the actual trip, we were faced with the possibility that everything we had planned for would fall apart in the face of an impending pilot’s strike from one of the airlines. We tried everything: trying to reschedule the trip to the day befor the impending walkout (but as we had booked the travel through one of those third party booking agencies, which we found out was actually headquartered in the Netherlands and made full and ample use of call centres in places like Mumbai) they refused to make any changes to our bookings without exorbitant increased costs since they had noot received formal notice from the airline of the strike. So, we booked another flight directly with a different airline and paid for cancellation insurance. Our plan was to cancel after the strike had atually happened. Then at the 11th hour the strike was settled so we were back to plan A, after a lot of turmoil, frustration and agrivalion to our stomach walls.

Then, on the actual day, it all started at 0600 in Shelburne when we awoke, breakfasted, and did some gardening chores to prep our lawn, outdoor garden and greenhouse for our absence and to make thngs a little easier on a couple of friends who were kind enough to offer to care for things while we are away. One of those same friends also came by at 0930 to drive us in to our daughter’s place in Halifax to await for our flight to Toronto which would depaart at 2100. That flight was on time and was on a discout airline so we had jammed all of our luggage into a small bag each which would fit into the size limitations for personal carry-ons (let’s hear it to the geko waterproof carry bags). Anything else would be yet another charge!

We arrived in Toronto at 2200 where we were going to twiddle our thumbs until 0615 the next day when the next flight leg would take us to Newark NJ. We went from Terminal 3 to Trminal 1 on a robot monorail train which we thought was rather neat and seemed like one of the futuristic si-fi films that I enjoy. We were hoping to get through to the international side that evening and wait for the flight next day but were surprised and more than a little disapointed to discover that United and security and customs were all shut down for the night. Since it was an international flight we had to get into the line up for security and customs at 0400 for a 0615 departure. We camped out in Lounge 15 along with a couple of dozen other travellers who found themselves in the same pickle. This was NOT particularly comfortable. I guess the airport wanted you to go to one of the adjoining hotels and pay some etravagant rate for a 4 hour nap in a real bed. Wasn’t going to happen but a sleepless night was our penalty.

The United flight from Toronto to Newark was aboard a much smaller aircraft, and by smaller I mean that Barb and I were barely able to get into our seats with the small carry-on bags that we had brought although we managed, somehow. The flight departed a bit late but the pilot made up some of the time and we arrived in Newark only slightly late, but then there was a total mash of arrival gates. Originally we were supposed to arrive at a gate where our departure would be from an immediately adjoining one, but the oiginal gate was occupied and after no less than 30-40 minutes of stooging about on the tarmac we were finally assigned a gate in a completely different part of the terminal – a good 15 minute stroll. We only had an hour and 15 minutes connection interval so we were a little concerned. Then we were introduced to the wonderfullness of the Newark airport. Aside from the total balls up of the arrival gate, I have never seen so many loud, pushy, rude and ignorant people in all my travel days! Add to that the fact that the majority of the United ticket and ground staff seemed to be more interested in chatting to each other and boogying to the musak tunes than doing their jobs.....! Our boarding passes were on our cell phones and due to the lack of USB connections or even 115VAC wall plugs where we camped out in Toronto, we were very concerned that we would loose our cells and be unable to produce our boarding passes when we needed to. Finally, after 10 minute mad scramble, I found what appeared to be the only United employee in Newark who was prepared to do what we was paid to to and printed off a copy of our boarding passes. We got back to our departure gate, just in time to get on a bus out to the tarmac to and even smaller, if that were possible, aircraft for the trip to Richmond. Initially, the airline interior was so cramped that some folk were sitting in our seats because the overhead numberings were so close together that we had to get the single flight attendant back to sort it all out. Then the exercise of getting into our seats was even more problematic and in the end I had to resort to posing like a cowboy on his horse to feed the bag between my legs and into the space in the seat in front of me. Then there was the wonderfullness of us both trying to get our seatbelts donee up at the same time. Again, we were late getting away but the pilot whipped the gerbils and we arrived at Richmond Airport on time where cleanliness, lack of crowds, southern hospitality and laid back natures brough back from the brink.

I guess the only good thing about the previous agravation was that when I related our story to the Enterprise car rental staff they got enough of a laugh out of it that they upgraded our rental vehicle for free to a RAV4, and vrooom, we were off to Deltaville and Nelleke where we arrived around 1500. We plugged her in, got about 30 minutes of rest and then we took off to Gloucester to the brighter lights and bigger stores for the first provisioning run. We ot half the things on our list and a couple of things that weren’t, most notably a hand crab trap. I can’t wait to use it, if we’re allowed. I have to find someone who will tell me the regulations.