It was sunny when Liz dropped us off at the airport with plenty of time to get through security. Once we were there, a bit of rain came through, leaving a rainbow for us to see as we sat and waited for our plane to arrive.
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When we arrived at our gate, we found out that our flight from Bradley to Toronto was delayed over an hour. This got me to worrying. We were meeting up in Toronto with my cousin Julie-Ann, her husband, and 8 other people who were flying in from Prince George, British Columbia. We had planned it so that we would all be on the final flight into Newfoundland together. If we missed our flight, we would not be able to connect with them and we would be sleeping in the Toronto airport until we could catch a flight the next morning.
The attendant at our Air Canada gate said that once we landed that we would have 10 minutes to get to our gate. He was sure we would be able to make it. I have been to the Toronto airport many times and knew that there was no way to get from where we would be landing in our small puddle jumper of a plane, to and through customs, and through the entire Toronto airport in 10 minutes. The attendant did admit that he had never been to the Toronto airport... no kidding. I texted Julie-Ann to let her know what was going on and that baring a miracle, we would not be making the flight.
We landed on Toronto at 9:22. Newfoundland flight was supposed to depart at 9:20. When we landed, we found out the flight to Newfoundland had been delayed many times and hadn't left. I guess we got our miracle!
When we arrived at the gate and we saw Grant first. Then we found the rest of the traveling companions that we knew and were introduced the four new additions to our crew. We had plenty of time to catch up and were told that the gate for this flight had been changed 3 times!
We finally began boarding the plane at 11:40 and didn't leave after midnight (12:35). It's a 3 hour flight from Toronto to Newfoundland. During check in at home, it asked if I wanted to upgrade our seats to business class for $100, I took them up on the offer. I am so glad I did after all the delays and stress. We were in the first row in Business Class, which starts out with free water bottles and headsets. Next came the hot facecloths, free food, and free drinks. For dinner we had a choice of pesto ravioli or General Tso's chicken. We chose pesto ravioli, which came with salad, a hot roll, and a brownie for dessert. I had a diet coke; John took advantage of the free Clamato and gins.
We didn't arrive in Newfoundland until 4:45 their time as they are 1 1/2 hours ahead of us. It was very foggy when we arrived. I could not believe that our pilot was able to land the plane in that dense a fog. It looked like the "you couldn't see the hand in front of your face" kind of fog, but he landed and we lived to tell about it.
When we arrived in Newfoundland, we discovered that Carolyn's suitcase had not made it. The airline assured her it would be on one of the flights coming in that day and it would be brought to the hotel where we were staying. We spent the night in the Best Western by the airport, we arrived around 5:30 am. We checked in around 6 am and were able to get a 1 pm checkout because of our late arrival. We all agreed to meet in the lobby at noon to figure out our next step. By then we were all exhausted and it felt good to get some sleep.
At 12:30, we checked out of the rooms and grabbed a bite to eat in the hotel's restaurant. At 2 pm, the RV rental people picked up the men who were driving to bring them to the RVs and sign the papers. The rest of us remained at the hotel lobby waiting for Carolyn's luggage to arrive. While waiting for them, they texted us a photo of an iceberg they saw in Consumption Bay. To say we were a bit jealous is an understatement, as seeing icebergs is on all of our bucket list. Carolyn and Terry Lee walked over to the airport to retrieve Carolyn's luggage once she saw that it had arrived. It gave them something to do while waiting for the guys to return with the RVs. The rest of us sat on the patio taking in the sunshine, chatting with other hotel guests who had their own travel horror stories to share.
The men finally got back to pick us up at 3:50. Once they returned, we all piled into our respective RVs, took stock of what was provided and what was we needed to purchase, and off we went to Walmart for supplies and the all important liquor store for Mudshakes, seaweed gin, and other libations. By 6:15 pm, we were all loaded up and ready to begin our adventure.
We decided to drive to Bay Roberts and camped at Roaches RV Park for our first night.
Just in case that is the only puffin I get to see!
Our flight attendant on the Bradley to Toronto leg told us about this Seaweed Gin. It is distilled in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland. In spite of its unique ingredients, it has a wonderful flavor, not salty at all. The first bottle went down quite quickly. We even brought a bottle home for our friends to try.
We had a campfire at our first campsite. Little did we realize campfires would be few and far between due to the cold weather we would be facing in the days to come.
