Ausable Chasm

Yesterday (as I began this post, on Tuesday, August 19th), my wife and I returned from our trip to upstate New York to see my Dad and stepmom. The trip itself was great, we got to be with family, air out, see some more of upstate NY—you know, all the things vacations are supposed to be about—but the trip to and back was more of something out of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles“!

We took red-eye flights. Haven’t done that in many, many, years. Our flights on the way out were not bad, but the return trip had us having to stay the night at a hotel in the D.C. area. We flew into and out of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Aéroport de Montréal (pronounced “Muh-ree-all”), Canada, something we’ve done in the past, but “done in the past” was, wow, 15-20 years ago, now that I try to put a number on it! Besides the obvious changes, the Canadian roadway changed dramatically…no longer was there that gnarly interchange out of the airport that I missed the last time out. Now, once you get out of the airport, it wasn’t nearly that bad, and when you factor in that we had been picked up and dropped off, that part was stellar! We didn’t rent a car, because to have done so would have cost us over $600! Good Lord, as much as plane fare! The rates themselves weren’t too bad, but, once you added in all the “fees” and “taxes”…then throw in Canadian “fees and taxes”…we about gagged! Do check all those add-ins when making rental car reservations, especially in another country. I mean, I like Canada, but, wow, holy crap on the car rentals, my northern friends!

We left late on a Friday night, to land in O’Hare, at oh-later-thirty, where we spent almost five hours waiting for our connecting flight

to Montréal in the early morning, eh? I finally saw a side to O’Hare that I actually liked: the after hours. Yeah, it truly does empty out! When we exited our plane and prepared to “bed down” for the night, one of the airline personnel did a really cool thing after talking with us: she returned with blankets that she handed out to all of us who had to stay the night in the terminal! Thank you, Really Swell Gate Attendant!

So, we took our blankets and sought out a place to lay down (hint: you can ask airline personnel for the least bothered, more quiet gates to bed down in), and hunkered down for the next four or so hours. I read Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep while my wife “slept.” For our last hour, I lay down and closed my eyes, but not sure I really “slept,” either. In any event, I haven’t stayed overnight in an airport since, wow, the College Years? But I really liked how the place empties out and goes “Twilight Zone” in the after hours (by the way also the name of a Twilight Zone episode).

Once we made it to New York, we had a great time, and did some hiking through Ausable Chasm, took a St. Lawrence boat tour of the rich and famous through “The Thousand Islands,” checked out Boldt Castle, and stopped by a couple upstate university book stores where I dropped off some of my novels for their book buyers to hopefully like enough to stock. We also checked out a salmon fish hatchery I used to bike down to as a kid (just outside of Lake Clear). Did our usual drive-bys of Barnum Pond, Lake Clear, Saranac Lake, and Lake Placid.  Drove through the Keene Valley area. Visited the St. John’s in the Wilderness cemetery, where I know some of those interred. We even saw some fireworks! And of course: Donnelly’s Corner’s ice cream (where I saw the heinous act of a lady taking a lick of her cone, then tossing it into a trash can! Where’s NY State’s Finest when you need em?). Donnelly’s is the best soft ice cream anywhere!

And…there was even one possibly paranormal—definitely weird—event involving two dogs, one of them living. Wow. It still blows my mind, but more on that (and all the other mentioned activities) later….

As for the return trip, we arrived back at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International aéroport Monday, around 2:20 ET. The long and the short of it was…we didn’t leave the airport until after midnight.

Instead of O’Hare, on our return trip we were connecting through Dulles. But as we checked the airport monitors, we noticed our flight to Dulles wasn’t even displayed. It turned out that our plane was late getting into Dulles because of mechanical and weather issues. Nothing one can do about that. And to the “Angry Business Man Who Used the F-Word” who’d been in front of me at a gate attendant counter, you can’t blame the gate attendants! Seriously? This was your first rodeo, Mr. salt-and-peppered-hair, Angry-Business-Man-Who-Used-the-F-Word? Note to you: if you really were that important, I think you would have been on a charter flight. You wouldn’t be in that airport with all the rest of us “little people” taking standard commercial flights. But…to the Calm and Professional Gate Attendant (who told Mr. Angry-Business-Man-Who-Used-the-F-Word to “please watch your language”): you handled it most excellently, sir! International kudos to you!

Note to Pierre Elliott Trudeau International passengers: if your flights are delayed into that airport, they are removed from the flight schedules and the departure monitors, so they might not show up quickly enough on the monitors when delayed. I was also told that there are curfews in Canadian airports, but if flights continued to come and go, you’re allowed to stay, like we were, but otherwise, come curfew time, you will be exited from the airport to a hotel—at the airlines’ expense. The airlines will also give you meal vouchers. We received both. As we hung out at the aéroport , we ate on the airlines dime and met some interesting folk and had some good conversation! Thanks, “John” and “Unnamed Denver IT Dude”!

Another note: though you are given meal and hotel vouchers, if you refuse the hotel voucher and stay the night at the airport, you are

supposed to be given a $150 voucher. No one will tell you this, you have to ask (don’t let them try to tell you “they want you to get some rest” before your next flight, if you feel you can stay up; they just don’t want to pay out the dough, is what is really happening, here). And, I believe, it has to be used within 24 hours. That’s all I know, since we didn’t do this, but saw another who did do this. Also, you can be real “slick” and write your requests on a piece of paper instead of talking out loud and alerting other passengers to this little known fact—or anything else you might try to “bargain” for at the gate attendant counters. Doesn’t mean you’ll get any of it, but it might make the attendants feel better that you understand their plight in dealing with all the angry and inconvenienced passengers (if that kinda thing matters to you) and keep your bargaining secret (our hotel voucher was $73. Yeah, try to get a room for that price, without missing a flight, and you see it’s all cheaper than paying out $150 per person)!

We had to make a decision: stay the night in Montréal or in D.C. Thing was, even if we caught our flight out to Dulles, there were no connections until the next morning. Since we’d have to go back through Customs, if we stayed in Montréal, and were told in no uncertain terms that many actually do miss their early morning flights because of Customs (the lines can be quite long, as we witnessed during our near ten hours at P. E. Trudeau), we opted to get outta Dodge and make Dulles. So we did, and in Dulles were given a hotel room, where we caught less than three hours of sleep before we had to make it back to Dulles for the whole TSA ritual, once again. Here, I had to walk through the metal detector 3 or 4 times, because, it turned out, I had a foil wrapped stick of gum in my pocket. Yay. I was surprised I wasn’t strip searched after the second time, to be quite honest. Then my pack had been detained, because, I’d forgotten to dump the water from my water bottle, but other than that, we used our meal vouchers to grab some chow before out flight.

So, we boarded out plane, and quickly realized…we’re in the very last row. You know, the seats that do not recline. And are right in front of the galley.

And the restrooms.

Yes, we’re on first-name basis with every butt on that flight. Just sayin.

I detail all the above, and it might sound rough and sucky, but we really had a fun time, met some interesting people, and took it as much in stride as anyone can on little sleep, and chalked it up to yet another “life experience”; it really wasn’t that bad, and the Aéroport de Montréal is really nice. I like airports and aircraft, like being around them.

One other thing: before we left for the trip, I had watched a little of the Twilight Zone episode, “Mirror Image.” When I returned from our trip and watched the rest of the episode, it struck me how predictive that little episode was! In it, Millicent Barnes misses her bus because of a “key event”…and on our return trip we ended up missing our connection. It can also be applied to my next post, on my Reality Check blog, titled, One Painting…Two Dogs. Okay, maybe to you it’s “a reach,” but to me not so. I don’t believe in coincidences [that are ignored as not important]…I believe in synchronicity and that everything’s tied to everything else. Don’t ignore all those little events in life!

We had a great time in NY, and, to be honest, if was kinda fun not knowing what would happen and when and living in the moment, with all these flight gyrations. Sure, no one likes to be inconvenienced, but I took the “time” to consciously live in the moment and enjoy whatever came our way. Go with the flow. As my wife napped (no one every really sleeps in airports, or so the saying goes…) I reveled in the Twilight Zone-like atmosphere of the fast emptying airports, soaked up the “deserted ambiance,” and read my King novel. Walked the emptied halls and gates. Observed all the in-the-background maintenance folks who come out at night…or who are summarily ignored and “unobserved” during the day, going about their jobs keeping things cleaned and stocked with toilet paper.

It was all good.

On Monday, check out my other blog, Reality Check, for a paranormal experience, titled, One Painting…Two Dogs. In the coming weeks I’ll post about Ausable Chasm, the St. Lawrence boat tour, Boldt Castle, and all the rest of the fun stuff we did!