Le Voyage -- Homeward bound

The adventure concludes

Did I say we were going home? Silly me.

We arrive at the airport in plenty of time, we think, to make it through security and board the plane. We wind up in line behind some guy who asks if we're leaving any time soon. When I indicate we are, he begins telling us what a horrible reputation the Vancouver airport has and that his flight doesn't go out until the middle of the afternoon, but he's in line because of the horrible stories he'd heard.

Vancouver ship terminal, built to look like a ship. You can't
see it in this pic, but many of those high rises have sections
with trees growing on them. Not shrubs like these
on the terminal. Trees, big enough to be recognized
as such from a distance.

Then he launches into telling some airport horror stories. A priest standing in front of him hears -- you really can't fail to hear this guy -- and joins in talking about his bad experiences, though none of the priest's problems have occurred in  Vancouver. Before long the two of them are engaged in their own conversation, which bothers me not except for having to hear it, which veers from travel.

The priest, it seems, is retired -- forced from his parish, by his account -- and now happily serves as a chaplain for one of the cruise lines. The reference to being forced out brings on a discussion of what he thinks of Pope Francis -- not much, though he says Francis is true to his Jesuit roots -- and then the conversation veers into theology, where our loud acquaintance is out of his depth.

You can see that the priest is tiring of the conversation, and we are all spared when one of the gate attendants comes over to talk to those in line. Don't know if she'd been checking through a lot of people who don't have flights until much later, or if someone said something to her as they checked their bags, but she announces that they will not be checking in folks who aren't on the next scheduled flight, which is ours. This sets the man off, and he starts smarting off to her. She holds her ground, and he leaves, along with several other folks, considerably shortening the line.

She recognizes the priest and greets him, which prompts him to let us go ahead of him when we arrive at the beginning of the line because the woman is not the next available agent. We take him up on it and fly through the process. We won't see him for a bit, which either means he was stuck behind someone who took a long time to go through, or he spent time chatting with the woman. I suspect the latter.

Random shot of our ship in Skagway.

Going through security isn't what I'd call an ordeal, but it winds up being strange for me. The line for flights to Seattle is empty. Sharon hands her passport to the security guy; he looks at it and sends her on. He looks at mine, then looks again, thinks a moment, and tells me to see the other security officer off to the side.

She asks for my passport and tells me to put my backpack and camera bag on the counter. She takes a tool, attaches a pad to it and begins swabbing all the zippers on my backpack. Then she opens the compartments and swabs inside those. My camera bag, however, is ignored. The pad is removed and slid into a machine, where it apparently passes inspection, and I'm allowed to proceed.

At the screening area, I set off the alarm going through the metal detector. I'm told I probably have metal in my shoes, which I have to take off, leave with the security agent and go through the screening again, passing this time. I'm wearing a different pair of shoes, dress style instead of sneakers, so it's possible they have metal in them, though my guess is that if there is, there's just enough that combined with the hardware in my ankle will set a machine off.

Meantime, we wait for the woman who's screening carry on items to release our stuff. She's either very careful or new at the task, because she's constantly stopping the conveyor, backing it up and scrutinizing the screen. Still, we make it to the gate with time to spare. (Remind me sometime to tell you about going through Canadian customs when we arrived. I'm apparently much dicier looking than Sharon.)

Another cruise line's ship, I think it's a Holland America,
passes us on it way to a mooring in Juneau.

The schedule for our flight from Vancouver to Seattle should leave about an hour to change planes. While we're waiting, another passenger with a view of the departure board notices the plane into Vancouver's been delayed. By 10 minutes. She checks with the airline personnel, and they tell her that making a connection shouldn't be a problem. They announce the delay about 10 minutes later.

When she returns she tells those of us sitting around her a few of her own missed-flight horror stories, then notices the flight board's been updated again and jumps up to talk to the gate attendants. She does this a couple of times, then comes back, gathers her husband and their things, announcing they were booked on the next Air Canada flight to DFW, and we should check to see if we can be rerouted. Sharon and I go to the gate desk just about the time one of the attendants announces that the plane we're supposed to fly on had to return to Seattle. They will attempt to reroute passengers as soon as possible.

That turns the boarding area into a mess, as people crowd up to be rerouted. An employees asks everyone to return to their seats, and they will call names as they work through the passenger list. When it comes our turn, the poor woman helping us tries and tries to find a way to get us to Dallas but can't. Just before I'm about to volunteer, she asks if we'd be OK with flying to Seattle and spending the night. They'd provide a hotel and meal vouchers. Sharon is off Monday, and my return to work was scheduled to be late that day anyway, so we readily agree.

Little to tell after that. We go to Seattle, grab a shuttle to the Double Tree, where we're booked, and check in. The chain gives you warm, chocolate-chip cookies when you check in. I try mine and find it's not too sweet to set off my whacked taste buds (long story, if you don't know me). Later we go down to the lobby to use their dedicated computers to check in for our flight the next morning and see a box about half full of cookies left behind by some conference being held there, so we snag a couple more. A few will still be there the next morning before we leave, and we'll snag another couple, which are still surprisingly fresh tasting when eaten later on the plane. (I know, that probably constitutes theft, but it would be a petty crime, and I so enjoyed the cookies.)

We weren't able to sit together on the flight home. Sharon sat behind me. The guy next to me tells me he'd had knee surgery recently and would need to get up an stretch a couple of times on the flight. I tell him it shouldn't be a problem. I'll need to be up a couple of times myself.

Random shot of our ship at dock in Juneau.

We arrive at DFW, grab a shuttle to our car, and head for the house. Apparently while we've been gone, most of the drivers along the route we're taking home got together and decided to drive slowly, bring up a situation in which I feel like a speed demon for driving the speed limit, weaving my way around the surrounding traffic. At one point while traveling on IH 820, traffic comes to a virtual standstill because on driver had stopped in the middle of his/her lane. S/he starts up again after I pass.

The trip has been grand. We've both picked up a cold or flu or something that we'll battle for a week and half or so, but we've also made memories galore. I probably wouldn't want to live there, but Alaska was an outstanding place to visit.


A short note: We'd never had a balcony room before, and I had some qualms about getting one for an Alaskan cruise. Afraid we'd never use it. But we did. It afforded protection from the elements and tremendous views as we sat in the deck chairs and watched the coastline slipping by. I'd recommend it.