It’s been a long time since I was excited to fly. I don’t think I’ll ever recapture the novelty of flying when I was a kid – and goodness knows the airlines will never be like that again – but I’ll take what I can get.
Today’s trip was Calgary to Toronto, to visit family. Families. Originally, this was just a trip to visit (mostly) with mine. I haven’t seen Cathy in over a year, and she’s had one hell of a year to deal with. I felt bad for not having seen her, so coming out was truly important to me. (Well, there’s also Choo Choo getting to see her favourite singer, Louis Tomlinson, in concert on the 17th.)
But when Janice died, this trip rapidly became more important as a chance to gather her family in St. Thomas. Alex has been busily planning all of that with Kinella and Duguald. That’s a bit later in the trip, first we have to get there.
You know me, I like to get to airports early. It’s a safety thing – give me time to deal with the unpredictability of airports. And it’s been a long time since I’ve flown early on a weekday. Earlier in my career, this was a known quantity to me: travel means knowing how to deal with it. Not having travelled for work in a very long time, it’s a more distant memory.
Monkey was convinced, having recently been to Japan, that she knew Calgary airport’s schedule. I laughed softly to myself: oh, the innocence of youth.
Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But we had to put one bag in “oversize”, which a check-in attendant politely flagged as “Fragile”: Janice’s ashes are coming with us to be buried in her hometown.
Security – which I keep forgetting has been moved – was longer than usual, but fairly quick. Only a metal detector, this time, which I prefer. We were close to our gate – A23 – but we needed breakfast. The girls tromped off to Timmy’s while Alex and I went for A&W. Lines for both, to no surprise.
Boarding was called on the departure boards early, though we didn’t know that, and the four of us headed back only to wait another twenty minutes before boarding truly got underway. The usual boarding process, slow and agonizing, managed to end a few minutes before the gate departure.
The flight was quite early arriving. Tailwind, most likely, but the pilot didn’t really say. A shorter distance than usual, we still had to wait nearly 45 minutes for bags. My fragile, oversize bag came out at the regular drop, but thankfully the container within was undamaged.
Through the airport to the inter-terminal train, and over to the Viscount station to get a shuttle bus to our rental car. The heat was oppressive. Even arriving in Liberia, Costa Rica in January was less jarring than the blow-dryer-to-the-face we experienced.
The trouble started at Sixt, where we rented the car. Originally, I’d booked this online with Expedia, as I was hunting for a reasonably-priced vehicle for 9 days. Almost immediately, the painfully placid man behind the counter indicated that – despite having the requisite two pieces of photo identification – my temporary Alberta license was effectively null and void. I’m not allowed to drive.
Oh yeah, the license. This was an experience on last Friday, when Alex and I were at the TD Bank dealing with Estate matters, and I opened my wallet to discover my driver’s license was missing.
Why was my driver’s license missing?? Where the hell did it go? I almost NEVER remove my license from my wallet. And if I do, it’s returned almost immediately. So where the hell was it? I ended up going to the AMA later on – having searched the house top-to-bottom – to start the process of reissue (which, joy of joys, means I get the new format that includes the UCP’s idiotic “citizenship” tag). But it meant a temporary paper copy in the meantime.
It didn’t matter that two pieces of photo ID, including the International Driver’s License that includes the correct Alberta Driver’s License number, were provided. “Company policy”. Change the driver to Alex? Can’t do that, because I booked through a third party. Have Alex rent at the desk? Nope, have to book a reservation online.
Note to self: Never rent with Sixt again.
After an hour of mucking about with the rental (whilst I tried to deal with Expedia through an agonizingly slow chat process), we got our Nissan Rogue. And then we tried to pair our phones with the CarPlay so we could navigate our asses out of the confusing airport road network. Into GTA rush hour traffic.
We stopped only briefly at a No Frills because we didn’t get lunch, Alex needed something urgently. Bananas and yogurt later, we were back on the trudgery of the QEW.
The remainder of the trip was a bit of a rewind of memory, trying to remember what was visible behind the soundwalls that now line the highway most of the way to Oakville. We passed by the ever-evolving Oakville Place, finally arriving at Cathy’s about three hours after landing.
The greenery here is almost as oppressive as the heat. I suspect it’s too many years of being in Calgary where the trees don’t have the same growing season, so don’t fill out as much as trees here. Cicadas buzz constantly, which is a sound I miss, audible over the QEW barely fifty metres away, a sound I don’t miss.
Though Alex did point out that between the cicadas and the extensive canopy above us, the white noise of the highway became more like a rushing river. At least when the illusion wasn’t broken with loud motorcycles or a freight truck downshifting.
Oakville, though, is my hometown only in fact. I am not drawn here except for Cathy and my nieces, both of whom are at university next year. Cathy will otherwise be alone here. And not too long from now, I imagine, Cathy will be gone, too, formally cutting off any reason to return. Oakville will only remain in my memory, preserved as it was when I was in my teens, a much smaller and more placid way of life.
