We made it to Vancouver, BC, Canada in one piece. The trip from Birmingham to Vancouver was an interesting one for us. It appears that check in via a kiosk has become common place wherever you go, even for an international flight. United Airlines (as well as other airlines) has the ability to check bags, scan passports and print boarding passes without having to bother an agent. The only reason they’re there is to answer questions and tell you that our suitcase is over the weight limit and you have to pay a fee for having 2 weeks worth of clothing in one bag. That seemed to be the easy part. Getting through TSA was the interesting part. Typically, we’ve done TSA Pre which means we just drop our carry on in the scanner, walk into the scanner and go. No show removal, not unlading three quarters of your carry on in a tray that rolls through a scanner. This time we had to do the shoes, unload our laptops and get scanned. We both had to be patted down due to the buttons on my shirt being metal, along with a metal bracelet and necklace. The metal on Mr. Gossett’s overalls got him. The Birmingham airport now has one of those machines where you have to stand on a set of foot prints and lift your arms so a scanner can do a half turn to check for whatever they’re looking for. They didn’t find anything that would cause concern on an flight from Birmingham to O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
I’m not very fond of O’Hare. There was a lot of walking from one Concourse to another and we didn’t see any signs that lead to a tram that would take us from one to another. So, for the hour that we had between flights, we walked, stopped for a breather then walked some more. I don’t think I’ve walked so much in one place in all of my life. I realize that walking is good for me but not with a heavy backpack in the middle of a love of other travelers that are most likely working on being as tired as we were when we finally got to our designated gate. I do believe it’s time for me and Mr. Gossett to work on getting into better shape if we’re going to do any more walking in airports while traveling to other interesting destinations.
One thing we are grateful for is first class seating. We were far more comfortable in those wider seats than those in economy class. We also got fed a meal. We got to choose between shrimp and grits and beef stew. For airline food, it was okay. The best part of that meal was the caramel gelato. That was good! The flight from Chicago to Vancouver was just over four hours and we lost two hours in the process. When we get into Alaska we will probably loose one or two more hours.
When we got to the hotel and got checked in, we decided to get something to eat since there wasn’t a whole lot of food when we ate on the airplane and it we honestly hadn’t eaten a whole lot during the day. Mr. Gossett got fish and chips and I got linguini seafood . It had curry in it. Bad move on my part. I promise that the pasta in my dish did not what I thought linguini should look like. I thought it was more like spaghetti noodles than linguini. For desert, Mr. Gossett scored again. He got a three chocolate desert that was basically a chocolate sundae. I got the creme brûlée. Mine had cinnamon in it and just didn’t taste anything like any other cream brûlée I’ve ever eaten before. Typically, I like to try new things and 9 times out of 10, they’re really good. Not so much this time. Let’s hope it’s a lesson learned.
It’s Wednesday morning here in Vancouver and in a few hours we’ll be on a Holland America cruise ship headed off to our Alaskan adventure. This is our third trip to Alaska and our first via train. We will board a train on day 3 of our trip in Ketchikan. We’ll work our way up to Denali National Park where we’ll spend 3 days exploring there. I’m finally checking off a bucket list item by going into Denali. I’ll make sure to write about that adventure along with the many others we have on our journey in Alaska.
God bless you all and Happy Travels!
