In Transit

I hate the Vancouver Airport. I always try not to fly through there whenever possible. My trip was to begin with a flight from Victoria to Seattle, then from Seattle to Dallas, overnight, and then Dallas direct to Buenos Aires. I was very much looking forward to that. So I was a bit disconcerted to discover at the Victoria Airport that my flight had been cancelled and I had been rerouted through Vancouver.

The new flight was delayed. Most flights in BC were delayed because of all the raging forest fires in the province. At any rate, we arrived in Vancouver just 45 minutes before my flight to Vancouver was suposed to leave. There was a hefty ten minute run from the plane to the US International Building.

A diversion: A year ago, I travelled by wheelchair. I looked at all the wheelchairs coming up the tarmac as I deplaned and smiled as I got ready for my sprint to the US Building. You can´t know how great it is to be able to run again. When I have to.

In the US Building, we had a hurry up and wait scenario. There were two waiting rooms where upset people had to sit anxiously awaiting the computer to download images of luggage. It is the stupidest system I have encountered in an airport. After at least fifteen minutes of watching angry travellers, myself included, an agent called me up to a computer screen, pointed to a red suitcase on the screen and asked: ¨Is this yours?¨
¨Yes,¨I answered.
¨Okay, you can go now.¨

I ran to the gate. Thankfully, my plane to Dallas had been delayed by an hour, otherwise I never would have made it on time. But the good news is that particular flight arrived in Dallas at 8:30 pm, while the original one was due to arrive at midnight. So it´s all good. Hope these are the only travel glitches and we´re done with those for the rest of the trip. I´m getting ready now to board the plane for Buenos Aires. Stay tuned....