if only travel were like this...
20.9.04
So here I am back in ol Vic city... unemployed and looking for a rich benefactor to finance my post secondary education and other artistic and intellectual endeavours... but away from the chaos of the september snowfall in Fort St. John.
My trip down was absolutely ridiculous. The snowfall from the night before had not only done major pruning to the trees, hedges, and bushes in town... but the snow had also knocked out the power to much of the community.
I was scheduled to fly out on the inaugural flight of HawkAir to Victoria at 2pm. I arrived at the airport with bags in tow nice and early... and much to my surprise the airport had no power. I needed to think positive at this point... so I checked in with my slightly overweight suitcases (thankfully the electronic scale wasn't working and they had no batteries, so no one knew that my bags were almost 70 lbs instead of 50...) I received my boarding pass (my seat number written on a piece of paper)... and I waited patiently for the news if the plane was going to land or if they were going to BUS all the passengers to Dawson Creek. And of course, because this post is a lament of inefficient travel... the plane didn't land... the six severe-looking security personnel didn't get to frisk each passenger and go through all of our belongings... and we all piled into the bus (to clarify... not a school bus, but a chartered bus) to take us to DC. Long story short, we arrived in DC around 3:30... the plane did not take off until 4:00pm...
I didn't get to Vancouver until 6:00pm... I missed my connecting flight to Victoria and I had to take the ferry over... but I had to take the 9 o'clock ferry... and while on the bus to and from the ferry I was forced to hear the obnoxious conversation of two really stupid men. If you are going to talk loud enough for everyone to hear you... at least make your conversation interesting and amusing...
To top the whole trip off, when I arrived in Victoria I was locked out of my brother's place... I searched for a good twenty minutes for the "hidden" key by the glow of my cellphone... finally I gave up and called my friend B to help me. By the time she had arrived I had fished my flashlight out of my suitcase (a frivolous purchase that I made for a camping trip this summer and my parents mocked me because I was so pleased with it...) that I had luckily not packed in the boxes with my kitchen junk. But the two of us could not find the key... I was too tired to try to climb through the open window (I am sure that if I had tried I would have fallen and broken my neck), so we gave up and B so graciously helped me haul my heavy suitcases to her vehicle.
I usually enjoy travel. But in this case I wanted the trip to be quick and painless... with the scenery passing in a blur of colour. Damn mother nature and freak weather patterns...
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