Canadian Rockies: Travel Interrupted

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Saturday — September 5

While Mui checks out the Duty Free shop in the US Departures Lounge at Edmonton International Airport, I’ve made myself comfortable at one of the workstations to start today’s blog.

After a good night’s rest, we were up at 6:30a. Our original intent had been to do some sightseeing in Edmonton this morning. Those plans went out the window a month ago when United canceled our scheduled late afternoon departure and moved us to the 12:54p flight. I suppose, we could have gone to Fort Edmonton for a quick look-see anyway, but it would have made for a rushed morning. Instead, we took our time getting ready, had breakfast in the atrium restaurant, took a walk in Whitemud Park to stretch our legs, and finally headed to the airport around 10:00a.

Atrium – Radisson Hotel Edmonton South

First item of business after turning in the rental car was to stop by Lost & Found to see if my black pashmina had been turned in. I had no real hope of seeing my cozy little wrap again, so I was pleasantly surprised when the attendant said, “A black scarf with tassels, right?” With the pashmina I bought in Jasper, I am now the proud owner of not two, but three wraps.

Check-in at the United counter was a piece of cake. We showed our pre-printed boarding passes, had our IDs verified, and continued on with all of our luggage in tow to go through US Immigration and Customs. Passport control was a breeze and within minutes we were checking our two bags and going through security.

And now, all we have to do is wait a bit longer for boarding to be called. Time to move over to our gate … more later.

… later — 2:30p MDT

I had hoped that later would be either aboard our flight to Chicago or as we winged our way to Washington DC on the second leg of our trip. That’s not the case. The information board at the gate may well show UA 5854 as “departed/parti,” but I beg to differ. We’re still at the airport in Edmonton. The aircraft that was to have taken us to Chicago apparently developed engine vibrations beyond acceptable tolerances, so we’re waiting for another aircraft to arrive. New departure time is estimated to be around 4:00p.

The board may show our flight as “departed,” but we’re still at the Edmonton Airport.

The United agents are working flight connections, calling passengers up one at a time. That’s a good thing as the usual rebooking chaos is non-existent. We decided not to wait on them, however. Mui worked the phones and UA transferred us to an American Airlines (AA) flight out of Chicago. We’ll end up at Reagan National instead of Dulles, but that’s not a problem for us. We’ll also be arriving later than originally planned. That’s not a big deal either … we have two days of a long weekend to recuperate. More later…

… later — 10:00p CDT

We’re still not where we should be, but our travel day has come to an end. At least we made it to Chicago and have just a short flight to complete our journey home tomorrow.

The replacement aircraft — a CRJ700 — whisked us away from Edmonton at 4:00p MDT as anticipated. I couldn’t help but note that had our original flight not been canceled a month ago, we’d be leaving Edmonton pretty close to this time. Under those circumstances, we would have at least done some sightseeing in the city rather than killing time at the airport. Oh well!

The flight to Chicago was uneventful and we landed at O’Hare at 8:00p CDT, giving us some hope of making our 8:55p connection on AA. That was before we taxied forever and had a last minute gate change that took away 15 minutes of our layover. To make matters worse, we found ourselves deplaning at Terminal 1. We double-timed it through the airport to Terminal 3, arriving at the gate with 4 minutes to spare. Those who know O’Hare will appreciate what a haul that was. Too bad none of the seven electric carts (yes, I counted them) we saw along the way had a driver anywhere nearby. Things might have turned out differently had we been able to arrive at the gate earlier.

We double-timed it from the far end of concourse C to a gate at the far end of concourse G.

Huffing and puffing, we gave our documents to the AA agent only to be told that she had no record of us. She called a supervisor and eventually found our record, but denied boarding anyway. Hearing her utter the words “You will have to call United, they did not transfer your ticket,” was not what we wanted to hear — especially when she then proceeded to close the gate.

On that note, we started the long walk back to Terminal 1 to find a UA customer service counter that was manned. When we finally found a UA agent, he was very helpful. He rebooked us on the first flight out tomorrow, gave us hotel and meal vouchers, told us that complimentary toiletry kits were available in baggage claim, and gave us directions to the hotel shuttle bus stop.

And that’s how I came to be seated on the couch at the Sheraton Gateway Suites, eating peanut butter and crackers as I wrap up this post. Suite 320 is spacious, clean, and comfortable. It has all the amenities we need for a one-night stay.

Suite 320 — Sheraton Gateway Suites — Chicago

Suite 320 — Sheraton Gateway Suites — Chicago

All in all, we can’t complain. Yes, we’ve been inconvenienced by the deviation to our travel plans, but things could have been far more frustrating if UA had not been so easy to work with on the alternate arrangements. Besides, in over 25 years of travel, we’ve not had any such issues. The law of averages was bound to catch up with us.

Here’s to a good night's rest and the continuation of our travels tomorrow.

Next Up: Travel Day #2

Canadian Rockies: Back to Edmonton

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Friday — September 4

The dreary day — overcast skies, on-and-off drizzle interspersed with sudden downpours, and stiff breezes that chilled the air — made it easier to leave Jasper behind today. Although our flight back home isn’t until mid-day tomorrow, for all intents and purposes our vacation has come to an end. And it did so with a bang — but more about that later.

Since we didn’t have to check out until 11:00a, we took our time this morning. We had hoped to enjoy breakfast on the porch, but the morning chill made that impossible. Instead, we ate in the dining nook, packed our bags, had a snack on the porch, and left Alpine Village behind around 10:30a — but not before capturing a photo of a black bear cub climbing a tree!

I never said it was a real bear cub!

Our morning plans didn’t go quite as expected. The Pocahontas Mine Trail was a bust with little remaining to be seen of the former coal mine; the Punch Bowl Falls were a mere trickle (glad we didn’t do the hike to get there); and the Miette Hot Springs reminded us of a giant communal hot tub.

Mui tries his hand at being a coal miner.

You’d think all of the above would have made for a disappointing end to our last day in JNP. But no. Had we not done those things, we would have missed the perfect end to our vacation: a black bear in the bushes just before the JNP exit. The encounter got better when the bear came out of the bushes to walk in the clearing, standing up occasionally to pick berries from the high branches. Couldn’t have asked for better.

Just when we thought we wouldn’t be seeing a bear on this trip …

… out comes a black bear from the bushes for a perfect roadside encounter.

It would have been hard to pull ourselves away from our bear sighting, but he made it easy by turning around after a while and disappearing into the bushes.

After bidding JNP farewell, we didn’t stop until we reached Hinton. At the Natural Resources Interpretive Center we had a picnic lunch and Mui drooled over what he would fondly call a “Tonka truck” — in reality, a coal mining truck.

Mui doesn’t know what the sign says; I’ll tell him later!

That’s a big Tonka truck!

This mining truck would have moved 12,000,000 tons of rock during its 20-year career.

When we got back on the road, I pulled out my laptop to edit blog entries and weed through the black bear photos I had taken. Before I knew it, we were at the Edmonton city limits and I was putting aside my writing to provide navigational assistance.

The drizzle that had dogged us from Jasper turned into a steady rain as we found our way through the Edmonton neighborhoods. Bagging our plans for exploring downtown Edmonton, we detoured to the West Edmonton Mall, which claims to be the biggest in North America and the fifth largest in the world.

Noting that it was past 6:00p, we decided to get a bite to eat first. We couldn’t resist going to the Old Spaghetti Factory — we have fond memories of the one at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, where we lived for 8 years. I ordered my favorite — spaghetti with mushroom sauce; Mui decided to be adventurous and ordered the linguine with red Thai curry and prawns. Not gourmet food by any stretch of the imagination, but good comfort food.

Old Spaghetti Factory — West Edmonton Mall

Afterwards, we wandered around the mall for a bit to see some of the attractions I remembered from my visit in 1990 when I attended a regional convention for Desk and Derrick, an educational organization I used to belong to. We checked out the replica of Columbus’s Santa Maria, the Waterpark, and the regulation-size hockey rink. All of the attractions were closed for the day, but since we were using this more as an opportunity to stretch our legs than to entertain ourselves, we didn’t really mind.

Replica of Columbus's Santa Maria, complete with pirates and a sunken treasure.

During the daytime, the waterpark is a happening kind of place. Not so after hours.

By the time we left the mall at 8:00p, the rain was over. In fact, the sun was out. Having been on the go all day, however, we decided to head to the hotel — the Radisson where we spent our arrival night in Edmonton.

Tomorrow, we head back to the US. We had a terrific vacation and we’re sorry to be leaving, but the Canadian Rockies have not seen the last of us … I’m sure we’ll be back someday!

Next Up: Travel Interrupted

Canadian Rockies: A Bit of Shopping and Onto Jasper

Friday — August 28 / Part I

Our day, which started in Edmonton, is coming to an end in Jasper — 216 miles (~348 km) away. The three elk that were keeping us company have disappeared into the tree line behind our cabin and nightfall has pulled a curtain across the scenery that we were enjoying until about an hour ago. It’s now 9:30p. Considering I only got 4½ hours of sleep last night, I’m amazed I’m still up and about. Mui — the smart one — has already gone to bed. I want to put a dent in today’s blog before I call it quits too.

We didn’t intend on an early start, but our body clocks had other plans. At 6:00a, we were both awake. Rather than toss and turn, we decided to get a head start on our day. With a filling and tasty breakfast buffet fueling our bodies, we left the hotel at 8:30a. Destination: the Scotiabank branch at nearby Edmonton Southgate Mall.

As luck would have it, the ATM was out of cash. Pulling out the list we'd brought with us, we headed to a nearby Shell station to try another machine. That one was a bust too, but the third one worked like a charm. With Canadian dollars in our wallets, we returned to the mall to buy groceries for our week-long stay in Jasper. By the time a few more errands were taken care of, it was nearing noon, so we decided to grab a quick bite before getting on the road. The food court was convenient; the beef and chicken combo at Koryo (a Korean barbecue place) was good — tastier than one might expect from a fast food place.

As the clock chimed noon, we were on the road to Jasper National Park (JNP), our Parks Canada pass swinging merrily from the rearview mirror.

For the length of our stay, an annual pass makes sense.

The drive between Edmonton and Jasper was just as boring as I had been told it would be — flatlands with not much of interest and quite a bit of haze, which became worse as we approached the entrance to JNP. Having read about the wildfires in the neighboring province of British Columbia, I’d been expecting the less-than-clear conditions. It was a bit of a disappointment, but what can you do. It’s not like we could huff and puff and blow the fire out and clear the smoke. We pressed on, enjoying as much of the scenery as the conditions allowed.

The smoke-haze at the entrance to JNP is quite thick.

We made only one stop for photographs — not to capture images of the two herds of bighorn sheep that welcomed us to the park, but to document the smoke plume from the Mt Cumnock fire. There was so much smoke billowing that had I not known better, I would have thought that a volcano was preparing to erupt. (We later learned that the fire, which was the result of a lightning strike, had been burning for quite a while.)

The billowing smoke from the Mt Cumnock fire rises high into the sky.

We arrived in the Jasper townsite and made our way to our lodgings at Alpine Village without delay. Well, that’s not quite true — we did have to wait about 10 minutes at a railroad crossing for one of Canada’s infamously long cargo trains to pass. It turns out that it was worth the wait …

Next Up: Alpine Village — Home Away from Home