The Word - Vol 112

Up, Up, and Away! ✈️

Ain’t travel grand? Well, when you reach your destination, it can be wonderful but the getting there and getting home, maybe not so much.

This past January it was time to visit a dear friend in a care home in Vernon. Throughout the past year we’ve driven there from White Rock, and it’s been a very pleasant and scenic ride. But it was winter and a drive into the interior over the Coquihalla wasn’t on the top of my fun things to do on a winter’s day. Who knows what nasty weather could be waiting around the next corner any time of the year, but especially in the winter.

So, I thought we’d explore the idea of flying over the Coquihalla! We looked into the airfares and they weren’t bad, considering the cost of gas these days, not to mention the wear and tear on the car and the stress of driving mountain passes as part of the 4-hour drive.

The plan was to fly to Kelowna, rent a car, which through Costco was a bargain, drive the 1/2 hour from the Kelowna airport to Vernon, have lunch, visit with our friend, have dinner, then do the trip in reverse.

Let’s give it a try! We boarded the plane at YVR, no luggage needed, it was a day trip! The plane wasn’t completely full, but just about. After all, it was a Wednesday, so I’m sure there isn’t a great demand for mid-week flights. All was good, it looked like we were going to pull back from the gate on time and be on our way. But wait, oh no! I looked down the aisle and saw the guy you never want to see on a plane. The guy in the orange reflector vest! And what you really don’t want to see is the guy in the reflector vest holding a toolbox!

I’ve seen that movie before. An orange vest guy with a toolbox goes into the cockpit, then there’s an announcement that there will be a 15-minute delay. This is followed by another announcement that it will be a 30-minute delay, which is inevitably followed by the cancellation of the flight! It’s happened before and I hoped that it wasn’t going to be a repeat performance. On closer inspection, I saw that the orange vest guy wasn’t holding a toolbox—whew, maybe we had dodged a bullet.

Turned out he was just a messenger, as the pilot explained there was some extra paperwork to be dealt with before we could take off. Hmm, I’m skeptical. Orange vest guys, do they deliver papers? But the wait wasn’t too bad, a half-hour delay, and the next thing you know we’re taxiing down the runway and on the way to the Okanagan.

I do believe it was about a 45-minute flight, you’re up, you're down, and you’re in the Okanagan faster than it took you to drive from White Rock to YVR! You don’t even have time to be served the complimentary bag of pretzels! Everything went as we had hoped. The flight was smooth, we landed close to on time, picked up the rental car, and half an hour later we were in Vernon.

As the day finished up, we made our way back to the Kelowna airport for our flight back home. Kelowna has a very nice airport with construction going on signaling an expansion that I’m sure is needed as that area continues to grow.

We had a snack and a glass of the Okanagan wine country’s finest while waiting for boarding. In the boarding area, they made an announcement that there were very few passengers on our flight and all zones could board at once! What? That never happens.

Turns out, there were only 25 passengers on our flight. Wait, what? 25 passengers? And only one of those passengers was sitting in the pointy end of the plane with the fat seats! The other two dozen of us were scattered throughout the rest of the plane. Now, we’re not talking about a small little puddle-jumper airplane. This was a Boeing 737 that has the capacity of seating 135 passengers! I wouldn’t think the fares from 25 passengers would pay for the airplane fuel needed to get from Kelowna to Vancouver!

But they got us home safely, and I’m glad they did. It sure beat a 4-hour drive each way over the mountains in the winter, with or without that little bag of complimentary pretzels.

Till Next Week..
Wayne