Saturday Aug 15 – Leaving on our 2015 Trip

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The published itinerary for our first day sounds pretty tame, but some things are more easily said than done:



<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arrive in Calgary by air and spend the rest of the day at leisure. Meet your traveling companions at a welcome reception hosted by your tour director. Spend the first night at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel.



“Arrive by air” certainly sounds simple but there are no direct flights from St Louis to Calgary Canada. The only flight option which met or requirements left St Louis at 6:00 AM with a connection through Denver going to Calgary. So we were up bright and EARLY, and we left for the airport about 4:00 AM. Elizabeth stayed at the house last night and drove us – THANK YOU !!! We were able to check in for our flight and check one bag apiece by 5:00. We both were selected as TSA Precheck, so we did not have to mess with the “shoe security” issues. The plane was a small regional jet (CRF700) and we had to “gate check” our carry-on bag because the overhead bins are not large enough for a roller-board bag. So we quickly yanked out the laptop and medicine to still carry them aboard and the rest of the bag went into the hold.



Upon arrival in Denver (about 7:00 Mountain Time) we found our connection gate was only one gate from our arrival. This was helpful but the only thing we saw of the sprawling Denver airport was a short portion of concourse B. There is a Deli across from our gate and restrooms just down the hall, so it was actually pretty convenient. We had about 3 hours layover so there was plenty of time to eat an “airport breakfast” and prepare for the second flight, which was the same size CRF700 plane. This time we were more prepared and got our stuff rearranged to hand-carry onto the plane with the bag itself riding almost empty in the hold. We also bought a large BLT sandwich from the Deli for an on-board lunch. But before the flight left the gate they announced there were too many suitcases in the hold, so they brought many of them (including ours) into the cabin and miraculously they fit in the overhead bin. Hmmmm. They tried to tell an even crazier story about the plane being overloaded, but that bags in the Cabin did not count toward the total weight as if they were in the Hold, so moving them inside made the plane able to take off. What flight school did this guy attend? Anyway, it made retrieval of our bag easier once we got to Calgary. We sat across the aisle from a pregnant lady bringing 2 small children back home to Canada and she really had her hands full (literally). But the kids were good most of the time (slept much of it) and our flight was fine.



We found out after the fact that an air traffic control snafu occurred on the east coast, but fortunately it did not affect us at all. Both of our flights were pretty much on schedule.



Calgary is in the province of Alberta and is also in the Mountain Time Zone (one hour earlier than St Louis). Their weather today was cloudy and windy with occasional showers. Upon landing they said the temperature was 10 degrees (or for folks from the US that is 50 degrees). Either is much cooler than we expected – we brought mostly short sleeve items. Hopefully it will be warmer and sunnier tomorrow.



After going through Customs and Immigration without any problem except for long lines, we found our Tour Guide (Peter Archer) waiting for our arrival. He gave us an initial greeting and some instructions where to meet for the evening reception. Then he got us into a taxi (with a voucher) and on our way to the hotel. The Fairmont Palliser Hotel is pretty fancy – quite a bit more bling and decorations than our usual handouts. We have a nice room with a very comfortable bed (did I mention we had gotten an early start this morning?) and plenty of amenities.



David went to the ATM and got some Canadian dollars so we have some “local cash” to spend. The going rate is somewhere around $1.30 Canadian for one US dollar (let’s hear it for that strong US dollar)! We also found out how to join the Fairmont President’s Club for free (since we are staying tonight), which entitles us to free internet access. At least that’s the story but we probably won’t know for sure until we checkout tomorrow morning. Since we will be staying in several more Fairmont hotels on this portion of our vacation, we SHOULD have internet access each night.



We decided not to try exploring around town but instead allowed Janet’s foot to rest – it had gotten stiff and sore during the hours in the airport and on the planes. Since we have 2 weeks of adventure ahead there was no reason to hobble her on the first day. We ate dinner in one of the hotel restaurants – the Oak Room. Being a wood worker, it certainly sounded like a good place to David. It was a little pricey but the dinner was very tasty and more food than we could eat.



At 7:00 we met the group at the Opening Reception in the Marquis Room. There are 36 of us in the land tour before we get to the ship, so we will probably get to know many of them in the coming days. The reception included a few free drinks of wine or beer, and we learned a lot of the plans for the next week in Canada. Maybe it was the alcohol that made a couple of the folks more memorable this evening. J The weather forecast for the next couple of days may encourage us to buy some souvenir sweatshirts, but we will deal with that if/when it becomes necessary.



We are very excited now that the trip has actually gotten started and we will start really discovering new places beginning tomorrow. We will have to live out of the suitcase this coming week (instead of unpacking entirely into our cabin), but on the other hand the tour people will be picking up our suitcases tomorrow from our room and delivering them to our next hotel by the time we get to our next room – we do nothing except have everything packed in the bags. As for this evening, we are going to wrap up this BLOG entry early and try to get caught up on some sleep. Sorry there are no pictures today, but tomorrow David should be snapping away with his camera.

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