Here is a recap of our epic travel adventure to Vancouver Island, British Columbia!
The first leg of our adventure was a car service to the Palm Beach International airport. Our driver was delayed by a train! It seems our marina is on the wrong side of the tracks. No worries, we allowed plenty of extra time and it was a ridiculously early hour of the morning so there was not a lot of road traffic. We got to the airport in plenty of time. We checked our bags curbside. I was selected for a TSA pre-check..a new program allowing randomly selected people to walk right through security without removing shoes and coats. Ed got the normal scrutiny...as it should be.
Our first flight to Atlanta was uneventful, I'm sure the multiple Bailey's and coffee helped. We arrived safely in Atlanta, but trains keep trying to derail us. The underground train between terminals in Atlanta had a jammed door. Back and forth we went. Lots of nice tunnels in Atlanta. Some guy with a walkie talkie at each stop pretending to be doing something. Good thing we had a 2 hour layover. At one stop we could see Santa and his elves. Could it have been a special Santa Security Zone? We may never know. The doors finally were opened manually and we walked to the correct gate.
No more delays, we boarded our flight to Seattle around noon Eastern time and prepared for take off, 5 hours to Seattle.
No more train problems, for now. Our flight was fine. Indeed, it was a great ride over a snowy landscape. We arrived in Seattle grabbed our bags and shuttled to our rental car. Things are moving smoothly but they have this thing in Seattle called Rush Hour where everybody gets on the road at the same time and drives real slow. Whats up with that?
We decide to pull off the road, get a bite to eat and grab some wine to take to Canada with us. Back on the road and head to the border. Oh joy! 85 minute wait at the border. Hope we can make the last ferry of the night!
Sometime during the 85 minute wait at the border we both hit the wall. Wow, we are tired and we still have a half hour trip to the ferry dock, a 2 hour ferry trip, and a half hour to our lodging...yikes. The authorities did indeed let us enter the country and we arrived at the terminal in time for the 10:45 final ferry crossing (that would be 1:45 Eastern time).
The BC Ferries are great, well run and on time. We made it! 22 hours from leaving our marina. 24 hours from wake-up till sleepy time!
