dad and i were booked on westjet flight 899, which originated in toronto (or possibly orlando, i'm not entirely sure of that, though), with stops in winnipeg, saskatoon, calgary and, finally, terminating in vancouver. because of weather delays, the plane left the big smoke 90 minutes late, delaying our departure from winterpeg. by the time we got in the air and approached saskatoon, there was a giant storm cell buffeting the city, and airport, with thunder, lightning and 120kph winds. when the pilot tried to land, we were treated to the second-best turbulance i've ever experienced while flying. the man sitting in front of me kept yelping and bracing himself awkwardly between his armrest and the window.
our pilot aborted our landing attempt and circled just outside the storm for about twenty mintues before telling us that if the cell didn't pass soon we'd have to divert to regina or, get this, back to winnipeg. at that announcement, i started to laugh so hard i had tears running down my face. my father wasn't at all pleased. he was grumpy enough with the delay in winnipeg, let alone the possibility of making absolutely no progress by the end of the day.
twenty minutes later, we landed in regina, where we sat on the tarmac, in the plane, for another thirty minutes before anyone told us anything about what was going on. people wanted to get off, but there wasn't even a staircase wheeled up to the door of the plane at this point. looking out the window, i saw a guy with a flashlight inspecting the wing, and i wondered if the plane had suffered any damage in the storm. about this time, we finally get an announcement that we're going back to saskatoon as soon as we get refueled. another forty-five minutes pass before we're in the air.
by this time it's after midnight local time and dad and i have been on this plane for almost four hours -- yeah, one hour and eight minute flight to saskatoon my ass! we arrive in saskatoon with absolutely no one telling us anything about connections or continuations. all they said was "the friendly agent at the gate will have all that information for you." well, the friendly agent at the gate dropped the bomb that the dozen of us who were meant to go on to calgary and vancouver were stuck in saskatoon overnight.
dad was not pleased, to say the least. i was mostly concerned about what my boss would say when he found out i wouldn't be in to work the next day, but i was beyond getting upset about something so completely out of my control. unusually, westjet actually paid for our hotel rooms, which was kind of cool. so, we were off to pick up our bags and hop on the shuttle to the saskatoon inn for the night. it was one a.m. by the time i got into my room and realized i wasn't in the least bit sleepy, which wasn't good considering i had a wake-up call scheduled for 4:30 a.m. luckily, there was free internet and i had brought lucy for the trip, so i got online and chatted with christopher for an hour until i finally got tired enough for my two-and-a-half hour nap.
at 5:30, we all piled into the shuttle for our trip back to the john g. diefenbaker airport. after waiting for dad to buy cigarettes and have his first smoke in ten hours, we got herded through security and onto our waiting flight to calgary which, thankfully, both departed and arrived on time. a quick pit-stop in calgary and we were back on a plane to vancouver, arriving at eight-thirty. only nine hours late.
as soon as we landed in vancouver and de-planed (i really hate that term), i practically ran to starbucks for a triple tall latte, seeing as i'd been completely without caffeine all day. we loaded up in my uncle's van and headed back to north vancouver, stopping briefly at the eighties restaurant for breakfast -- yummy eggs and bacon. by 10:30, i was home in my awesome apartment, unpacked and catching up on email, with only my sunburn, whacks of dirty laundry and itchy mosquito bites to remind me of where i'd started out from the day before.
