May 28, Day 18, Leaving Canada, Heading Home

We started this day, the earliest we have started any day of the trip. Since our flight was a 9:30am departure, and since we expected to go through Immigration and Customs at the Vancouver Airport: we had estimated that we needed to leave the hotel by 6pm, meaning we had to awaken by 5:15-5:20, to finish final packing, double check the room, get downstairs and check out.

We both awake before the alarm went off – too concerned about having enough time to finish packing, I suppose. While we were putting away our final items, I checked my Uber app, to see if they had assigned our ride to a driver yet. When doing so, I discovered a new text message. It was from a woman named Yvonne, who was a driver assigned to take us to the airport. However, she was not an Uber driver; she had been retained by Fresh Tracks – the Canadian travel agency that set up our entire Canada tour – to drive us on our last day to the airport. I was surprised, but very pleased.

I had been concerned that the normal Uber car would not be enough for all of our luggage. Yvonne’s car was a Cadillac Escalade: plenty big enough to carry all of our luggage and allay my concerns. We had an engaging conversation with Yvonne, an Afro Canadian woman. She had moved from Toronto to the Vancouver area over 30 years ago. Her son was born and had grown up in Vancouver. Now as a mid-20 year-old, he was considering relocating to Toronto, where they still have family. So Yvonne says, she in considering moving back “home” as well. We talked about how expensive Vancouver is. We were under the impression that Toronto might be more so, but Yvonne corrected our misunderstanding. Homes and apartments are ridiculously expensive, with the average price for a small, 1-bedroom home being $1.2 million Canadian (not quite $900,000 US). She estimated that our 1800 square ft, 3-bedroom, 2 bathroom, house on 1-1/3 acres would fetch $4-5million (Canadian) in Vancouver. (Not that we ever plan to sell our house; we love that house and our neighborhood. Still, it is amazing how real estate prices can vary so wildly, depending on where you live. Location, location, location: it appears the old adage rings true no matter where one lives.)

Yvonne delivered us to the airport in plenty of time. Although our flight was purchased as a Delta flight, it was operated by West Jet, a very new airline experience for us. We were concerned that that Customs process might be long lines and long inquiries. However, it was neither. We probably took more time at the ticket counter checking luggage than we spent going through Customs. And we were very surprised that when we cleared the Security and Customs checkpoints, the sign above the door read “Welcome to the United States.” There was lounge for us to wait in – actually there were two, but for the one associated for American Express cardholders, they did not accept the Delta Reserve American Express cardholders as members, and for the one associated with Master Card, it had to be a special airline affiliated Master Card – and so we waited almost three hours in the general gate area, before our flight boarded.

The West Jet flight was fine, but the plane had no entertainment units: no movies, no television, no games, no news – nada, zilch, zero, cero, zip, bupkis, 0. A lot of time for reading, looking out of the window and taking pictures, which are the photos shown in this final day’s entry.

When we landed, the plane pulled into a D Concourse gate, which was confusing because we thought international flights had to land at Concourse E or F in order for luggage to clear Customs and passengers to clear Immigration. However, once again, our ideas based on previous experience, were no longer pertinent. We landed on D Concourse, but we had to go to F Concourse to retrieve our luggage. When we did get our luggage, we did not have to go through Immigration or Customs once more. And so, we got the luggage, went outside and caught a taxicab to take us home.

The journey was a wonderful experience. However, nothing can ever take the place of coming home again. We are grateful for a safe journey; for visiting our 50th and last state, North Dakota; for seeing so much of central and western Canada; for revisiting one of our favorite cities in the world, Vancouver; for seeing so many new sights, and meeting new people. We are grateful that Canadians are very hospitable and decent people: that despite the nonsense being said by our president, none of the Canadian people ever treated us with anything other than warm, cordiality, and sincere friendliness.

The next entry on this trip's blog will just be some stream-of-conscious reflections on various aspects of the trip.