Tag: airport

A Fun Weekend

It was the girls final day in Wisconsin. They had an afternoon flight from Madison to Toronto/Ottawa via Chicago. We went into Mount Horeb and visited the Driftless Historium, it is a museum of the Mount Horeb area.


We walked around town.


Only in Mount Horeb would you see a horse tied up outside a coffeeshop.


The girls with one of the trolls. Mount Horeb is the Troll Capital of the World.


Angela still had one more item on her Wisconsin farm bucket list. She got to try the zero-turn lawn mower.

I dropped them off at the Madison airport. They had an adventure getting home with delays due to thunderstorms in Chicago, Gillian had a tight connection, but in the end everyone made it back safely. It was nice to have them all here for Thanksgiving.


Weekend in Wisconsin

I was able to fly the girls down to Wisconsin for Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Susan, Angela, and Claudia came from Toronto and Gillian flew in from Ottawa. The plan was for them to meet up in Chicago and then fly up to Madison. Gillian texted me early in the morning to say the flight from Chicago to Madison had been delayed already, when I got on-line and checked I had a feeling that flight would be cancelled. So I called Susan and told her I was driving down to Chicago to pick them up. I picked them up and we made it back to Madison around the same time their flight was supposed to land.


Claudia’s selfie from the plane.


We walked around the Capitol and then down State Street. Some random couple offered to take a picture of us down by the Memorial Union. Afterwards we walked down frat row, it was a football game day and the frat houses were crazy.


One of the frat houses on Langdon Street.


Claudia ready to go for a ride in the ’65 Valiant.


Japan 2018 Day 21: Travel

Today we were leaving Japan. We had an amazing trip, enjoyed the sights, trains, but especially the food.


Having breakfast at Haneda Airport.


One of the offerings at a kiosk, Shrimp & Broccoli sandwich.


I opted for breakfast ramen.


Gillian atop of Mt Fuji.


Gillian with her stuffed Totoro in her knapsack.


Our trip home was through Beijing.


Boarding our plane in Beijing.


We said our goodbyes to Shanna who was heading to Kelowna and then home. Gillian and Susan still in good travel spirits.


Waiting for Angela and Claudia to pick us up at Pearson.


Japan 2018 Day 1 and 2: Travel

We started our Japan 2018 Adventure bright and early, Angela and Claudia drove us to the airport for our milk run to Tokyo. Here are Susan and Gillian waiting for our first flight from Toronto to Vancouver where we were meeting up with Shanna.


From Vancouver it was on to Tokyo via stop in Beijing, China.It was a long journey, we went from Toronto to Vancouver (5 hours), then Vancouver to Beijing (11 hours), and then Beijing to Tokyo-Haneda (3 hours). Here we are on the Vancouver to Beijing leg.


We arrived at Tokyo Haneda airport around 9:30pm on Friday and cleared customs. We took a shuttle bus to our hotel that was only about 5 minutes from the airport.


They’re Back!

Angela and Claudia have arrived back from Switzerland. We’re glad to have them home. Susan sent this picture when they cleared customs.


Off they Go!

After more than 2 years in the planning stage, Angela and Claudia and their Ranger group are off to Germany and Switzerland. We took them to Terminal 3 this afternoon, their flight was departing at 17:30 on KLM. Here they are with Gillian.

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The girls and Susan.

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Angela receiving her Ranger Silver Chief Commissioners Award from Twinkle.

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And her Gold Chief Commissioners Award.

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Claudia also received her Bronze Chief Commissioners Award.

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There are 10 Rangers from their group going on the trip.

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Here they are with their 3 leaders.

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Their flight was on time and they are now on their way to Amsterdam for their connection to Berlin.

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It will be a great two weeks of adventure for them.

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Eventually I Made it Home

I was in Stephenville, NL last week for work, it was my first trip this calendar year. Getting there was no problem, getting back was another story. I was scheduled to fly back from Deer Lake on Thursday afternoon, through St John’s. The storm that went through Toronto on Wednesday, came through Thursday morning with the same snow, ice pellets, freezing rain and then rain. My flight out of St John’s had already been delayed before I got to the Deer Lake Airport, when I checked in, they re-routed me through Halifax instead.

I was able to get to Halifax with no problem, which was good since my flight from Deer Lake to St John’s had been cancelled shortly after I landed. Halifax was pretty busy, I have never seen so many colours on the arrival/departure screens.

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I headed to the lounge to wait for my 17:20 flight, only three hours. Eventually my flight was slowly being delayed and eventually cancelled. It turned out that the weather (winds) in Toronto were wreaking havoc in the other airports. There was a hold on all incoming flights until 16:30, anything that hadn’t left their airport of origin were being held. I was able to get booked on another flight for 20:30, originally they tried to re-book me for Friday morning. The incoming flight arrived so I headed down to the gate. The screens were still about the same.

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The plane left the gate about 30 minutes late and I arrived at YYZ by 22:15 and eventually in the front door by 23:00. In the end only 5.5 hours behind schedule.

Here is a photo of one of the intersections in Stephenville, note the single traffic light for all four directions. This year is the 50th anniversary since the US closed the Air Force base.

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I was meeting with a colleague from St John’s, we made a visit to one of his weather stations down in Burgeo, which was about a 2 hour drive from Stephenville.

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Day 15: Heading Home

red We fly home today, our check-out time at the cottage was 10:00 am. We were up, packed and ready to go, it is a lot easier when you have to fit everything in five suitcases, rather than packing a car up. Another possibility for our blog photo.

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The Wild Rose cottage.

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Because our flight was not until late this afternoon, we had some time to kill. Gillian wanted to go back to the stores at the Confederation Bridge. It also meant we could visit one last lighthouse.

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The Port Borden Back Range Light. It was built in 1917 and decommissioned in 1997 and moved to the Marine Rail Park when the Bridge opened.

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Gillian taking a photo of Claudia holding the bridge supports.

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The lighthouse is located in the Borden-Carelton Marine Rail Park.

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The Confederation Bridge.

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The girls on the ferry.

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yyg We drove into Charlottetown to walk around. While driving into town we saw this stop sign down near Victoria Park.

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A rest at our first Starbucks stop.

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Most of the tourist traffic has left, this is looking up Queen Street at noon on a Saturday afternoon.

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Across the street you can see the Water Street Pub, our lunch stop the past two Saturday’s. We picked a new place this week.

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Lunch was at the Merchant Man restaurant.

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The Charlottetown harbour.

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It was the PEI Busker Festival this weekend in Charlottetown. This was Katay Santos from Venezuela. He’s a professional.

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This statue commemorates the fact that two of the 1864 Charlottetown Conference delegates had the same name. There were two John Hamilton Grays.

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St Dunstan’s Basilica.

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The girls with Sir John A Macdonald.

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The last photo of Charlottetown.

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Our flight is delayed by 40 minutes, we are just hanging out in the Charlottetown airport, unfortunately there is no Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge.

An update: Our flight was delayed by 65 minutes and it was smooth all the way back to Toronto. We were at the back of the bus.

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Everyone was happy to be going home, but not happy to leave PEI.

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It was a great trip, the weather was good for the most part, we experienced everything, and if we  waited 15 minutes the weather would change.

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Day 8: Gillian Arrives

yygWe headed out to the Charlottetown (YYG) Airport at noon to meet Gillian’s plane. Gillian came in on the same flight number we did a week ago, she had better weather when she landed. It was a beautiful day, low 20’s and no humidity like last week. This is what you get when you leave your camera with Thing 2 while you go to the washroom, a goofy picture of Thing 3.

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Visiting the sights inside the Charlottetown Airport while waiting for Gillian.

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We had a sign for Gillian.

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Here are the greeting party waiting for Gilian to come through the doors.

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Gillian finished her summer job on Friday. She had a good experience working for Enersource.

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Thanks to the Pinder’s, all of them drove Gillian to the airport bright and early. Mark even went in with Gillian to print her baggage tag, drop her bag off and get her to security.

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We drove into downtown Charlottetown to walk around and have lunch.

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This is like the big 1812 they had in Halifax. 1864 is the year of the Charlottetown Conference.

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There are nine mice hidden around Charlottetown, we came across 3 of 9 today.

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There was a lot happening downtown, it was the Art in the Open PEI event Saturday night and the TD Blues and Jazz Festival.

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Mouse number two. He was missing an ear.

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Outside one of the stores down by the wharf.

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Angela and Claudia with William Henry Pope (1825–1879), he was one of the Fathers of Confederation. During the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, there was a circus going on in town, so Pope had to row out to the steamer to greet the other representatives.

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Claudia relaxing.

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Streets were a little busier when we were leaving, this is the same street with the picnic tables above.

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The last mouse we found on the way to our car.

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We hit the beach for low tide when we got back.

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So far of all the beaches we have visited in PEI, our beach is the best for sea glass.

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We had a fire to end the night. It was a Sturgeon Moon tonight, it is a Supermoon, it occurs when the full moon is at its closest point to earth. If you missed this one you can catch the next one on September 28th, it is suppose to be even closer.

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It was a cloudy night and eventually the cloud came over and blocked it out.

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Our fire.

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Angela came up with the idea to get Gillian to take a picture of her writing her name with her fire stick. I tried to take some photos as well.

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Claudia writing PEI.

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Angela mastered writing her name backwards for the camera.

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This was Claudia’s second attempt at her name.

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Angela writing Tanabe.

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Angela and Claudia making a heart, Claudia’s stick needed a recharge.

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The two of them going crazy.

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Day 1: We’re Off!

Our vacation has finally arrived! We are off to Prince Edward Island, I cashed in some Aeroplan points and we are flying out to Charlottetown. Here are Angela and Claudia relaxing in the lounge before our flight.

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The flight path from Toronto to Charlottetown. It was a good flight, with some rain when we landed, usually not a problem, but it is when you deplane on the tarmac and have to walk to the terminal. It was also very humid here, with much of the same in the forecast for the next week. After some lunch in town and picking up some groceries we arrived at The Good Cottages near Rice Point, PE, about 20 minutes from Charlottetown on the Northumberland Straight side of the island.

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