I was sitting at Calgary Airport, through security — crying.
We were supposed to be in London by now, but instead we were trying to catch another flight, and I'd just discovered that ALL our carefully prepared food was sitting in a hotel fridge.
I have several dietary restrictions, so finding food in airports is not easy. We'd packed enough to keep me going for several days. And here's the truly unbelievable part: we'd already forgotten this exact same food once.
How could we possibly have done it AGAIN?
Fortunately, airport security was about to perform a small miracle. But first, we need to go back to Vancouver.
The first superhero
Departure day was carefully orchestrated. Or so we thought.
Cotty had arranged to meet a friend for Indonesian rice on Main Street. I had my own mission: collecting wraps from East is East. Taking these wraps on flights has become a tradition. We always feel like absolute geniuses when we unwrap them thousands of feet in the air.
I'd brought a yellow container to package them in, so I opened Cotty's bag to retrieve it.
Nothing. No container. No pizza. No burgers. Nada.
All the food we'd prepared appeared to be at Cath's, and there was no time to go back. We still had to drop the Albino Rhino at our mechanic for some spa time before heading to the airport.
I was not delighted.
Cotty had his rice date, I needed to collect our wraps, and somehow we had to solve the missing-food mystery. I decided to sit down at East is East, eat a wrap and some soup, and try to regain my composure.
When we returned to the car, I discovered the yellow container and pizza were there after all. Which left the burgers.
Cath had initially agreed to bring all three missing items, but when the emergency dwindled to just one, her enthusiasm understandably diminished. Eventually, she appreciated the gravity of the burger situation, and we arranged an airport rendezvous.
After dropping off the Rhino, hastily packing our wraps and gathering our belongings, we hustled onto a bus and then the Canada Line to YVR.
Just as we reached departures, Cath appeared. A quick hug, a handover of the precious burgers, and she was back in her car, speeding off to her regularly scheduled programming.
Our first superhero! I told her to put on her cape.
We've been sending her photographs of us eating the burgers ever since. Little did we know they'd need rescuing AGAIN.
A little longer in Calgary
Our flight from Vancouver was delayed, and our London connection left without us.
By the time we reached Calgary, we were too tired to be particularly upset. WestJet didn't seem to have any options, and a night in a nice hotel wasn't the worst outcome. We were given a voucher for Hotel Clique near the airport.
A comfortable bed, a little breathing room, and we'd be on our way the following day.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, Cotty also managed to lose a deposit on a Facebook Marketplace container scam. Apparently, the travel gods were just warming up.
In spite of the nice room, I was awake for hours before finally falling asleep, at which point Cotty was awake for hours.
The next morning, our replacement flight to London was cancelled. Now things were becoming considerably less amusing.
Cotty called WestJet on speakerphone. We were determined not to hang up until they found us a way to England. While we waited, I took advantage of the unexpected downtime to start reworking our travel blog. There is something rather ridiculous about redesigning a travel website while being unable to travel.
After more than two hours, WestJet finally found us seats to Toronto, connecting with Virgin Atlantic to Heathrow.
Wonderful! Except it was 1:25 p.m., the hotel shuttle was leaving at 1:30, and we weren't dressed, packed or checked out.
Getting out of Calgary
Our leisurely morning suddenly became a full-scale evacuation.
Vivianne at reception was delightful. She had a backup taxi ready in case our Uber didn't arrive quickly enough. Fortunately, Hardeep and his Kia appeared promptly, and we piled into the back, still pumping with adrenaline.
The journey was short, but long enough for Cotty's WestJet Mastercard to escape into the back seat. Hardeep later found it, called us and destroyed it at our request. We locked the card too.
At WestJet check-in, we met Lore. What a lovely human! He got our bags checked through to Heathrow, found us two seats together and made us feel that things might finally work out.
We headed through security feeling considerably better about life. And that's where things unravelled.
The food. Again.
Cotty's bag was selected for further inspection. As we waited, I noticed something peculiar.
There was no food in it. None.
The burgers Cath had heroically delivered to Vancouver Airport, along with all our other carefully prepared food, were sitting in the mini fridge at Hotel Clique. Cotty had even noticed his bag seemed unusually empty but hadn't connected the dots.
I simply couldn't believe it. After all the fuss in Vancouver, after Cath's rescue, after everything we'd been through — we'd forgotten the SAME food TWICE.
Cotty can eat pretty much anything. I can't. The prospect of spending the next many hours travelling through airports without food I could safely eat was overwhelming. So I sat down and cried.
All the adrenaline, cancelled flights, frantic rushing and brief relief of believing we were finally on our way had caught up with me.
Then something wonderful happened.
A kind fellow in a white shirt, wearing a headband and sporting a Charizard card on his ID tags, came over. So did Adam, a security supervisor. I started explaining my dietary restrictions and that all my food was back at the hotel.
They understood immediately. Rather than telling us there was nothing they could do, they suggested a solution.
Cotty called Vivianne, who contacted housekeeping. Housekeeping retrieved the food, and the hotel shuttle driver brought it to the airport. Meanwhile, Adam's shift was ending, so he brought another supervisor, Sam, up to speed.
Sam went out to collect our food, carefully put it through the security scanner, and handed it back to me.
An airport security miracle!
After all those experiences where security takes things away from us, here were people going out of their way to bring something back.
The moment they'd offered hope, I'd started feeling better, but time was running out. Our flight was already boarding. I told Sam he needed to put on his superhero cape. Apparently, collecting superheroes was becoming the theme of our journey.
We raced towards our gate, where I discovered I'd lost my boarding pass. Of course I had.
Fortunately, the gate agent simply printed another one, and somehow we made it onto the plane.
We hadn't even made it out of Canada yet.
Two Alyssas and plenty of snacks
Our Calgary–Toronto flight turned out to be surprisingly fun. We were sitting together in the back row, which felt rather cozy.
A few rows ahead, some passengers were being spectacularly loud and rude throughout the safety demonstration. I watched the whole thing, and one of the flight attendants, Alyssa, appreciated that someone was paying attention.
She was absolutely lovely for the rest of the flight, bringing us a giant bottle of water and supplying Cotty with an impressive quantity of free deluxe snacks. Snacks are one of Cotty's great joys.
By the time we landed in Toronto, things were beginning to look up.
Cotty was on a mission to use our remaining WestJet food vouchers and joined a queue for shawarma. I went ahead to find our gate.
And met another delightful Alyssa. Seriously. Another one!
Before I'd even explained anything, she looked at me and asked, "WestJet?" She found us excellent seats and confirmed our bags were on the Virgin Atlantic flight.
Another superhero.
I found Cotty, who was pleased with his shawarma purchase, and we still had vouchers to use. At Starbucks, another lovely human helped us with the vouchers and was genuinely touched when we offered her the remaining balance on the voucher.
We found somewhere comfortable to enjoy our food and drinks. Our flight was supposed to be slightly delayed, but by the time we returned to the gate, boarding had begun.
And our seats? Just one row back from the aircraft door, with the entire row to ourselves!
Finally, across the Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic welcomed us aboard with atmospheric cabin lighting and a rather entertaining animated safety demonstration. Things were looking up.
I sadly lost one of our $7 ginger shots while settling into my seat. A small sacrifice to the travel gods.
After the safety demonstration, I fell asleep. The next thing I remember was waking up to find Cotty eating breakfast. My travel comfort gadgets proved worthwhile yet again! Especially the foot hammock and the squishy eye mask that holds your head up.
We landed at Heathrow ahead of schedule, breezed through passport control, and both our checked bags appeared! Not together, as they had in Calgary, but they were there, and that was what mattered.
We loaded everything onto a trolley and made our way to the Piccadilly line, travelling to King's Cross. We came tantalizingly close to catching an earlier train. So close! But our booked train departed on time and arrived without delay.
When we emerged from the station, my brother-in-law Peter was just pulling in to collect us. Perfect timing.
Back with the Gnu
After two quick grocery stops, where we were relieved to find so many of the things we'd hoped for, we arrived at my sister's place in Weston.
And there was the Blue Gnu, looking ridiculously cute in the rain.
We organized a few things to make loading the car easier the following morning and caught up with my sister and Peter before they headed out. Then it was time for showers and some much-needed rest.
Cotty fell asleep almost immediately. I sat down to work on our travel blog. Again. Only this time, we'd actually travelled somewhere.
We've encountered delayed flights, missed connections, cancellations, a credit card escape, a scam, a disappearing boarding pass, a lost ginger shot and TWO rescues of the same food.
But we've also met a remarkable collection of lovely humans who made a rather chaotic journey so much better.
And tomorrow, we finally get to start the road trip.
Looking at the Gnu sitting there in the rain, I have a feeling this might be one of our most adventurous journeys yet.
Especially if the weather has anything to say about it.
