Our First Day Starts With A BANG

We left Moose Jaw for Regina airport at 9:00 a.m. for our 11:30 a.m. WestJet flight to Toronto. This would give us more than enough time as it’s only a 45 minute drive to the airport. It was a wonderful day and I was admiring the beautiful sundogs, only on the prairie. Although the Trans Canada Highway was clear, Ralph got the sense that it may be a tad slippery in places so he reduced his speed to below speed limit and took it off cruise. A short while later, a one-ton pick-up truck was passing in the passing lane and this man, we later learned, sensed that it may be a tad slippery so he decided to take his truck out of cruise control. It was at that point, when he was passing us, that he lost control and hit the front left fender of our car, spinning us out of control and himself, both vehicles flying into the ditch at 100 kph. completely out of control. The truck went in first and cleared the deep snow and we came in after . Both vehicles were buried in the snow, unable to move. At this point, we figured the whole trip was done as we had no idea how much damage was done to the car. Ralph called 911 and they transferred the call to the RCMP. After it was established that no one in either vehicle was injured, the RCMP said to just exchange information and they would send a tow truck to get both vehicles out. I said I’d go to the other vehicle and get his information as I was wearing my winter boots. However, I could not get out of my door due to the snow jammed up against it, so Ralph had to go and consequently, had very wet shoes and socks. We waited for 45 minutes but still no tow truck so then we called WestJet to advise that we were probably not going to make our flight. Of course you get the automated system and start pushing numbers and in the end, you get a calling centre in Timbucktwo. So it was all very frustrating. We learned that if we did not make our flight, we could get on a later one which doesn’t arrive in Toronto till 10:30 p.m. Little good that would do us, since our flight to Dubai leaves at 20 to 10:00. And incidentally, Emirates Airlines flies in/out of Toronto only three times a week so if we missed that flight, we couldn’t go till Friday. Finally, after one hour and five minutes, the tow truck showed up and we were on the road by 20 to 11:00. The going was slow as the car was vibrating quite badly at speeds in excess 80 kph. We pulled up to the passenger drop-off at 11:10, unloaded the bags and I proceeded to the ticket counter while Ralph went to park the car. And wouldn’t you know he couldn’t find a parking place and had to go to the extreme end of the parking lot. He ran and ran and ran but suddenly figured he’d better slow down for fear that he might have as heart attack. In the meantime, I got checked in for both of us and I was told to go upstairs through security without Ralph. Ralph said that when he entered the airport, a ticket agent was standing in the concourse with his boarding pass in her hand. As Ralph flew past her, she handed him his boarding pass and off he went.

We had an uneventful flight to Toronto and we discussed how awful it would be if our bags had not made the flight. However, it appeared that was not going to be a problem. Seated near us was a family from Moose Jaw going to Disney World (Christine, John and Gracie). Upon arrival in Toronto, Ralph’s suitcase came down the conveyor but mine was nowhere in sight. So then we had to go through the lost baggage formality and to make a long story short, my bag would not arrive in Toronto until 10:30 p.m. – AFTER we had left for Dubai. Since Emirate Airlines only flies to Toronto three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), the missing bag will be put on the Friday night flight to Dubai but will not arrive till Saturday evening, Dubai time. So this little missy is without anything (clothes, makeup, everything actually) for three days in Dubai.

We then walked two miles through the airport and took the train to Terminal 1. At one point I had set my camera on top of my carry-on bag and when we proceeded to get on the elevator, the camera came crashing to the floor when I moved my bag (I had forgotten about it). So I start my holiday with no camera as it is not functioning at all. After reaching Terminal 1 and taking the long/fast walking threadmill thingy, I got off at the end and heard a bang/crash and looked behind to find that someone was picking Ralph’s Netbook up off the steel-toothed walking thingy. His backpack had become unzipped and it fell out. Well you talk about an unhappy camper! When Ralph gets mad, he walks fast and he was motoring down the concourse with me trying to keep up. He found a chair and by this time, I had to go to the bathroom (if you know what I mean). Fortunately, when I returned I learned that the Netbook had survived it’s violent fall – thanks to Mavis for the awesome padded sleeve that she made for Ralph’s Notebook.

On that note, I’m going to close off as we should get to our gate. That’s it for our first day. It feels like we’ve been away for three weeks, so much has happened.