Despite torrential rain in Seattle , we are home safe and sound with no pilot deaths. I think we were on the only flight to leave on time out of SeaTac yesterday. Perhaps it was because the plane was a big one, as compared to the little Dash-8s that had been used for every other leg of the journey.*
Also, as you may recall, I was worried about only having an hour and ten minutes to make it through US Customs in Vancouver. This worry was compounded by the plane from S’toon being twenty minutes late in taking off, and then delayed even further in arriving due to strong headwinds. US Customs in Vancouver is fairly small and quick, but located approximately a bajillion miles from the rest of the airport. How fortunate we were, then, to find that our scheduled flight to Seattle had been cancelled completely. What a relief!** We were put on the next flight, though, which still got us to Seattle in time for our flight to San Jose. Luckily you can just get your boarding pass at the gate if you’ve no checked baggage, so we stayed behind Security which helped save even more time.***
But what a wonderful trip it was! The Seattle wedding was charming and had great outfits, we got to see Seattle in the sun and the rain, stay at Chelsea Station (a very nice B&B which we recommend heartily), buy lots of used books and drink a lot of coffee. In Saskatoon, the wedding was charming and included the 2-year old flower girl deciding that clothes were for suckers. And the weather was much warmer than we’d expected given how spoiled we’ve become by California.**** And of course we got to see many of our friends again which is good and bad because we’re getting to see you but we also realize how much we miss you.*****
A few other people have already covered the highlights of the weekend, and most of the quotes or stories probably wouldn’t seem near as funny without the context of reunited friends and $1.50 scotch. But it was an awesometastic weekend, and thanks to all who made it so (especially Alan, who became our host and chauffeur despite being simultaneously colonized by three different sets of bacteria and virii).******
Pictures to follow!
* Does it make any sense that I think that big planes fly better? I mean, planes are fundamentally unnatural. Why should something much heavier make me feel safer in the air? Isn’t that like saying I’d be a better swimmer with weights tied to my feet?
** You have to picture the “sarcasm” hand sign here
*** The San Jose-Seattle round trip was completely unconnected to the Seattle-Saskatoon trip in airline terms; they were two independent events. We were therefore expecting to arrive in Seattle and have to start again right from the beginning of the process to get to our flight to San Jose.
**** What I don’t notice until I get back here is how nice it smells in Northern California. Typical urban odours aside, of course, most of the time the air smells like the Mendel Conservatory (as a reference for all you S’toon and ex-S’toon folks).
***** So if you want to take a US West Coast vacation with us, either in our neck of the woods or in Seattle or Portland (two places I’d love to visit again) do contact us. If we know you. I keep forgetting how public the Intarweb is.
****** Maybe I’ll start using numbers for the footnotes. This is getting silly.
I didn't know anyone still used Dash-8s... hm, maybe I had one on a Vancouver-Victoria hop recently. Anyway, bigger planes definitely fly better, at least from a passenget standpoint, since they're much less affected by turbulence. Flying to China on a 747, you'd hardly know you were on a plane at all!