Hurry up and wait

Saturday, August 2, 2008

VANCOUVER — We’ve been here at Vancouver International Airport since 10 this morning, and we won’t be leaving until just before eight tonight. So if anyone has any questions about YVR, you know who to ask.
Our alarm went off at six this morning so we would have time to do all the last things in the camper before turning it in at Canadream. As mentioned yesterday, we had to do one more waste water dump, so when we got to the dumpsite, we were second in line. Unfortunately, when our turn came, we discovered that there was no more tank capacity for our small contribution! I went in to speak to the manager and he more or less shrugged and gave us directions to a place where we could obtain this service — without offering a refund for the service he was clearly unable to provide us.
Off we went, found the service station, paid our four dollar fee and divested ourselves of the last litre or two of waste water since our session last night. Not much further along the road was the Canadream headquarters.
What an impressive operation. We were directed into the ‘returning vehicles’ area where there was a hive of activity. Workers were stripping out linens and towels for laundering in one area while mechanics were crawling under other rigs in the garage section. Cleaners were scrubbing, dusting and cleaning every orifice and cupboard and plank inside the rigs, and in another spot campers and motor homes of all sizes were getting a thorough spray-down with pressure washers.
Meanwhile, reception crews were going over the newly arrived vehicles and finding out if there had been any problems during the rental period. I went off to the storage area to retrieve our luggage, which they had kept for us during our holiday, and we packed all our belongings. Then we went in to settle the account and no less than five minutes later we were boarding the shuttle bus to be driven to the airport. It was gratifying to see such a well-run business!
The airport was a bustling place, and, since we had all day till our flight was leaving, I asked the Air Canada attendant if there was a less busy time when we could obtain our boarding passes and surrender our luggage. He said it was pretty well this busy the whole time, so we decided to join the throng and get rid of the big stuff right off the bat.
We had a rendez-vous with my brother Johan at one, so we found a place to sit and read the newspaper for a while. He had suggested we meet at "the sculpture", so I went off in search of this landmark and discovered it not too far from our seats. It’s a replica of the work by Pacific native artist Bill Reid that sits at the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC — and is also depicted on our $20 bill. It’s a beautiful bronze statue that plenty of people were photographing.
We finally connected with Johan and set off to find a restaurant for lunch. Since our flight would be at supper time, we decided to have a decent dinner at the restaurant where there was some hope of elbow room and have something snacky on the plane. We enjoyed wild Pacific salmon one more time, and found it very tasty!
After some pleasant conversation, we bid Johan farewell and checked in past the security gate. After finding our gate and waiting about half an hour, Val noticed a change on the departure board: our plane would be delayed about 20 minutes. After absorbing that information for a while, an announcement came over the public address system that due to unforeseen circumstances, the flight to Ottawa would be delayed from 4:35 pm to 7:50 pm!! Yikes!
To kill time, I decided to go back to a boutique we had passed and treat myself to a manicure while Val immersed himself in his book. Then we went off to find a snack bar for a bite, using the meal vouchers Air Canada passed out to all the passengers. In a few minutes (we hope) we will finally board the plane which should get us in to Ottawa somewhere in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Ain’t traveling grand?