Return to Winnipeg

Photos

Friday, November 16, 2012 - High  14°F Low  -2°F  - I was up with Clay early this morning as he tried to get the 66 photos our fellow passenger was sharing with the group uploaded before we lost Internet. He did not get it done before we went to Gypsy's, but he was able to finish it during breakfast in Gypsy’s with their Internet. Clay took a lot of photos in Churchill this morning, mainly because it was a beautiful morning. It was very cold again, but no wind and with gently falling snow that had gone on all last night. Pat told us that amount of snow on the ground looked like mid-December in Churchill.

We had to be in the lobby at 7:50am this morning. Pat had originally said he wanted bags out in the hall by then. But, he came around our doors a little before that time and told everyone to leave the bags just inside the rooms for pick up after breakfast as we depart the Aurora Inn for the last time. At Gypsy’s for our last meal, I had oatmeal again with raisins this time and some bacon and a peach yogurt and coffee. Clay had his usual 2 egg breakfast with meat and toast. Around 9am, Pat took us back to the hotel. He told everyone except me to get off and bring everything to the lobby and he would take me to get a requested photograph of the Port of Churchill sign and be back in 5 minutes. That was a surprise and a nice thing to do. I had asked about it days ago when he had driven us around town and told us if we saw anything we wanted photos of to let him know and we’d go back on Friday morning. I guess I was the only one. Interestingly, the sign has a no hunting warning. You don't see that on many port signs in my experience! There were a couple of other people though who had requested to return to Mike Macri’s studio to purchase photo prints and that is what we did after we got back and loaded everyone and the bags.

We got to the airport about 10am for an 11am departure on Calm Air. In Winnipeg, we flew them too but had a regular-TSA style experience. Here we didn’t have to even show ID or go through security. We just lined up at the ticket counter and told the woman our names. She printed our open seating boarding passes and weighed and tagged and took our large suitcases. (50 pound limit) and then weighed our small carry-on bags (20 pound limit). My suitcase had now been expanded and was 25 pounds and my backpack was 14. I gained 5 pounds in the suitcase by carrying all of Clay’s dirty laundry and most of our souvenirs. I am not sure how his bag was still always full, when he only added 2 t-shirts.



We drew the prop plane and not the jet back, so it took an hour longer than the flight up. Also, it meant no hot food. We had a cold box lunch with a sandwich, a slice of cheese and a blue Jell-O cup and a beverage. I don’t think I mentioned before that Calm Air serves Pepsi products. That’s too bad for me since they use citric acid. Still I am not complaining because it was much more inflight service than we saw on Delta in coach class. I think these flights are really expensive though, like $700 to $1000 roundtrip and that is equal to the cost of the flights from Raleigh to Winnipeg!

Speaking of costs. We paid Churchill Nature Tours a total of $9990 and Delta a total of $1584.66. Our only extra costs were lunch in Winnipeg the day we arrived and tips. But, that works out to have cost us $2314.93 per polar bear seen on the ground, which in all honesty just seems ridiculously excessive. I told Clay the next time I say Polar Bear, he can just drive me to Asheboro to the NC Zoo! He wondered why I didn’t think of that before. Well, of course, because it isn’t the same thing. We both know that and we are still glad that we went to Churchill. (Oops! While searching for the NC Zoo link, I found that NC's polar bears have been gone for almost 2 years now. Good news is that they should return to a new enclosure in 2013. But, at least now I have a legitimate excuse!)

We got back to Winnipeg in the early afternoon and soon all had our luggage claimed and were off in 2 vans to the Airport Hilton Suites. Our first night here we were in 402 and it had a view of a parking lot and the swimming pool roof, but it was nicely laid out and large and clean. Tonight we are in 210, which is a much differently laid out and smaller and the carpet is filthy. We had a view of the roof of the front carport. This afternoon would have been free time to spend in Winnipeg, but once again we didn’t leave the hotel. The streets and sidewalks around us were all cleared of snow this time, but Clay had more shared photos to get uploaded. Plus, he was desperate to get in some time on a treadmill again. I worked at repacking for the different luggage allowances on Delta and I took a long nap.

Our farewell dinner was at 7pm, if I recall correctly. We were just about the only table occupied in the restaurant downstairs at the hotel tonight. The meal was quite good again. I had beef barley soup and Clay had salad. I had chicken and Clay had steak. I had bread pudding and Clay had cheesecake. It was a nice farewell and Pat got everyone’s email addresses and passed them out. He also gave us all a 2013 Polar Bear calendar. Clay passed out slips of paper to everyone with the links to our fellow passenger’s generously shared photos. Cynthia thanked her for sharing her photos with a map-print covered journal that she had everyone sign. Cynthia also gave Clay a bag of local candy called OMG’s and OMG, they were good. He opened them when we got on our first flight of the morning and we ate the whole bag before the plane lifted off from Winnipeg. So, thank you Cynthia!

We went to bed right after dinner. We got up the next morning at 5am and I had a cup of their excellent coffee made in the room. We finalized packing and were downstairs with our breakfast vouchers at 6am for opening. They did not actually open the doors until 10 past. We needed to be getting on a shuttle to the airport at 6:50am. That was only 2 hours before our flight time. Since you clear US customs and immigration at YWG, Pat and the front desk clerk we asked both advised getting to the airport 3 hours early. This didn’t seem like such a big and busy airport, it was only a few minutes’ drive away and we were assured there was no wait for an airport shuttle that was on demand. But, still we worried we might be cutting it close and we rushed through breakfast by going to the buffet. They did not have the scrambled eggs out yet and so offered us eggs cooked to order and we both got them fried. They were quick and we had no problems. We walked right out onto a shuttle and cleared airport security and US ICE in a timely fashion.

All flights were full and on time and we had no problems, even with checking a single bag. Both flights were small regional jets with 2 by 2 seats and fully booked. We still prefer that to 3 by 3 seating any day. I think they even have more leg room than the bigger jets. At MSP, we could have arrived and departed without leaving Terminal C, but we made a special trip to Surdyk’s Flights for Clay. We ate sandwiches and yogurts from there outbound on our last trip to Canada and Clay wanted to go back there. Mom & Judy’s connection on that return was too tight and on our outbound last Sunday Surdyk’s was closed. We had a little over an hour, so we went to Surdyk’s this time. Clay got a sandwich and a cookie and I had a honey Greek yogurt and a Manchego cheese pretzel for $20.55.

We got home on time, got my checked bag with no problems, and caught a taxi back to Clay’s office to pick up the car. Clay wanted to eat again, so we stopped at Smithfield’s Chicken & BBQ. It was good. We got 2 pints to freeze and take to Mom at Christmas time. That’s all. We got home to find everything at the house in good order. We unpacked and fell gladly into our own bed.

It was a really good trip even though we only saw 5 bears and thought we would get frostbite.

So, that's it for 2012. We have had a busy travel this year! Antarctica, Hawaii and Canada twice. We traveled the furthest we have ever been North and South in 2012. That seems like a pretty big accomplishment for a year in which we had not actually planned in advance to take any big trips. We will go to Florida for Christmas with my family again, but that is it for 2012 travel.

All we have booked for 2013 is Alaska on Alaskan Dream Cruises. Clay has just realized that is late summer/early fall and he is making noise about planning a trip in the spring. We'll see and I'll keep you posted. We are still hoping for another fall trip with Mom & Judy with Caravan Tours to Nova Scotia. We'll see what happens with that too. That's all for now.

Photos