Wednesday, October 2, 2013
We booked this Caravan Tour, our 3rd with Mom & Judy, back in January after we had all discussed it and decided on it over Christmas last year. So, that seems like a very long time ago right now. Today we finally leave for that trip!
We were up at 3am to get to the airport for our pre-dawn
direct Air Canada flight to Toronto this morning. I spent the first hour of the flight
watching the most spectacularly vibrant sunrise over a cloudless east coast. We
ran into clouds as we neared Toronto, but the show was over by then anyway. The
plane was a small with 2x2 seats and nearly empty, more than half empty I am
sure. It was a pleasant flight. We always prefer 2x2 planes and their gate checked luggage due to the smaller size. It seems that the seat space is always larger than on the larger jets as well.
In Toronto, the flight attendant told us we would go one way
for domestic connections and another way for International. It should have
meant avoiding baggage claim and not leaving the secure area and been in the same terminal
building. But we walked for almost 45 minutes and through baggage claim,
customs and immigration and back through security. We went up and up escalators,
elevators, then down then up and just kept going. It was crazy! Finally through
security, we fell on a Tim Horton’s! I had a Canadian Maple and Clay had an
apple fritter. Clay was disappointed. We bought 2 small bags of gourmet
popcorn, one white cheddar and one kettle for the next plane. They were a
disappointment. This flight was a 3x3 and much more full. How is it possible that this flight was much longer than the 1.5 hours from RDU to Toronto? And there was an hour time difference.
We arrived to a warm and sunny day in Halifax on time. We
got on a shuttle about 20 minutes later. There is one shuttle for the Hilton Garden Inn Halifax Airport and Holiday Inn Express. It comes by outside baggage
claim on the hour and half-hour approximately 24 hours a day we were told. (People who arrived after midnight tonight will later dispute that!) We
were able to check right in to our room 105 and learned that Judy and Mom would
be nearby (in 104). Clay went to use the treadmill and I took a nap. I was up
to greet the full shuttle that brought Mom and Judy about 3:30pm.
Dinner was on our own and at the hotel since there was
nothing else in walking distance. It was fine. Clay and Judy had fish and chips
they liked and Mom and I had chicken focaccia sandwiches. They were enormous.
We could have shared. Clay and I shared a chocolate brownie sundae in a martini
glass. It was good. It was hard to eat though it made for a dramatic presentation. Mom
& Judy waited for the cookies we had passed at the reception desk.
The Caravan
welcome meeting was at 8pm. Clay and I had been told it would be in the
basement so we looked there first to find all the meeting rooms otherwise
occupied. Mom & Judy had been told it would be in the back room of the
restaurant and it was there even though they had to run out some diners. Our
guide is Marty Shannon. She is older than our last 2 Caravan guides and we have
high hopes that her added experience will show.
Breakfast
tomorrow is 6:30am in the same room with a buffet just for us. We have a card
with our key cards for that. Bags out at 7am and depart at 8am. Tomorrow we go
to the Bay of Fundy and Hopewell Rocks. I understood Marty to say there is a
restaurant there but we are having lunch elsewhere. We had to order it (or not)
right then at the meeting. We all opted to skip it for $13 and 3 courses since we
also had to order our dinner for tomorrow night. Dinner choices were potato pie,
chicken & broccoli crepes, fish cakes or salt cod. It all sounded kind of
heavy. We have 2 nights at North Winds on Prince Edward
Island.
Photos
Photos
