Planes, Boats, Buses and Automobiles

Travel can be fraught under any circumstance. No matter the mode of transportation there can be curveballs. Traffic, due to construction or an accident, can stymie progress. Weather can create havoc. Air travel has its own set of challenges. This past weekend our family faced all of that. The good news: we survived! The bad news: nerves were frayed and I’m pretty sure I can speak for all of us when I say we are exhausted. But, if that is the worst of it, we can count ourselves fortunate.

We were invited by our daughter and son-in-law to join them on a family vacation to a cabin on Georgian Bay (on Lake Huron in Canada). The plan was for them to fly from Boston to Toronto with their 13-month-old baby. We would pick them up at the airport in Toronto and drive the rest of the way – about 2.5 hours to a remote marina north of Toronto where we would be met by our son-in-law’s father in a boat. He would ferry us the rest of the way – to a place called the Iron City Fishing Club (more about that later). Unbelievably, that travel went smoothly for all of us.

The kids’ flight was on time. We found the little city airport (Billy Bishop Airport  – named after a World War I Canadian flying ace) which sits on a small island in Lake Ontario just off the shoreline of Toronto).

We loaded up the car and didn’t get lost finding the marina just outside of MacTier, Ontario. The last 15 minutes of the ride involved a curvy, narrow road that Gary had to take very slowly and naturally that was the one time our granddaughter got fussy. But, it was brief, and we arrived at the marina in good spirits to find Ben’s mom and dad waiting for us with the Iron City boat. We loaded our stuff – we were all remarkably efficient in packing, so we didn’t have that much baggage, but it did involve supplies for four adults and one baby so it wasn’t light either. We had a delightful boat ride in the late afternoon sun over calm waters of Lake Huron. The smoke from the Canadian wildfires, the fires themselves were not near our location, had cleared earlier in the day.

We thanked our lucky stars that everything had gone so well. We enjoyed our five full days at Iron City. I will write another blog post about that experience another day.

We began the return trip on Friday at noon. It was the kind of day that made us reluctant to leave. The air was crystalline, very low humidity (finally!), with a strong breeze. The clarity of the air showed off the blue of the lake and sky, and the rocky shore.

Despite our reluctance, we got on Ben’s father’s boat and once again enjoyed a delightful, refreshing ride back to the marina.

It took Gary a bit to find the car, but he did and again we loaded up. We settled in for the 2.5 hour journey. Leah asked Ben how he felt about the vacation – how did he feel about the experience since it was the first time he was making it with his own child. Ben has been coming to Iron City for his whole life, the place has been part of their family for generations. He had been there with Leah in the year before Covid (summer of 2019), but not since. Ben replied, “The trip isn’t over yet. We still have to get home.” I don’t know if Ben had a premonition, but truer words were never spoken.

All went well on the first leg. Our granddaughter slept for almost two hours and woke up in a fine mood. We dropped them at the airport after hugs and good-byes. It is always painful to leave a grandchild, but we had had a wonderful week with her.

Gary and I got back in the car and continued our drive back to Albany. We weren’t sure if we would stop overnight and decided to play it by ear. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when we left the kids.

The first hint of trouble came with word that their flight was delayed. It didn’t sound too bad…at first. We continued our drive uneventfully, crossing back into the United States at Lewiston without too much of a line. I have a history of having some difficulties when crossing back into the United States – once when the border agent questioned if the two children traveling in our car were ours and I got annoyed and another time when I didn’t understand the instructions we were given about where to stand at customs at JFK. Gary requested that I not say a word and let him handle this interaction with the border agents. I handed him the passports, he was driving, and I kept my mouth shut. We had no problem.

The real problems started when the kids’ flight was cancelled, which they learned some time after 6:00 pm. We felt terrible for them – and at this point it made no sense for us to go back. It is their story to tell about the different permutations they tried, but they were distressed because their dog, oddly named Douglas (a formal name for a very small dog), was at home in the care of a friend, who had a flight herself and was due to leave Friday afternoon. Leah and Ben expected to be back Friday night. They were scrambling for coverage for their dog and an alternative way to get home. The airline offered them their next flight – on Tuesday! Obviously, that was not going to work.

We were texting with them and had decided we were tired; it was now almost 7:00 pm and we had been up early and began the trip with the boat ride at noon. We decided to take a hotel room outside of Rochester.

After many frantic calls and texts, another friend was able to go over to their apartment to take care of Douglas over night. They explored many options: other flights, renting a car and taking a train, all of which presented insurmountable problems, they decided to take a bus to Rochester. It was due to arrive at 1:10 a.m. Their 13-month-old was holding up remarkably well, but they had not taken supplies for this long of a delay. We went to the market and bought milk and formula. We booked another hotel room.

Gary and I went out to dinner and then relaxed in the hotel room. Gary was suffering with heavy congestion so we decided that I would be the one to go to the bus station. He went to bed. At least one of us would be rested for the drive tomorrow. Leah texted around ten o’clock that they were crawling in traffic and that she would text when they got to the station before Rochester, Batavia, so I could go to sleep. I tried to and did close my eyes for a bit. At 2:30 a.m. I got the text that they were in Batavia, about 35 minutes away from Rochester.

Thank goodness for GPS. I plugged it in and drove the desolate streets to the bus station. I was thinking about the spate of violence that hit Rochester years ago when it was down on its luck. The last time I was there for work, which was probably a decade ago, it looked depressed and unsafe. I was anxious but focused. From the little I could see in the dark, with my eyes glued to the route, it did look better, though totally deserted. But that is probably a good thing at 3:00 in the morning. I pulled into the parking lot, kept the car doors locked, and was comforted to see other people waiting, too. There were no further delays and the Trailways bus pulled into the station as expected (a mere two hours late). Later Leah explained that there was construction on a bridge in Canada that created a crazy traffic jam. They traveled two miles in two hours!

After a few minutes of the bus pulling in, Leah climbed down the steps with the baby in her arms. She wasn’t asleep, but she was calm (both of them were). Ben came down a few minutes later carrying the car seat and backpacks. What a day for them! Once again, we loaded their baggage in the car.

Due to their dog, they decided that Ben would take an early flight (5:15 a.m.) to Boston and that we would drop him at the airport. It would make no sense for him to go to the hotel for an hour. Leah thought that taking that early morning flight would be a disaster for her and the baby so she would come to the hotel, get some rest and ride with us back to Albany. We would figure out how to get them to Boston, but they wouldn’t have to worry about Douglas, so they wouldn’t be as stressed.

We got to the hotel and made up a few bottles. They settled into their room, and I went to bed in mine. Ben was left to try to make himself comfortable in the airport. It was now close to 4 a.m.

We woke later in the morning to learn that Ben’s flight was delayed. They debated whether he should just come with us and bag the flight. They decided he would stay with it because, assuming it wasn’t cancelled, and the airline was assuring him that it was going to go by noon, he would still get back before we could possibly drive there, especially taking account of the baby’s needs.

We left Rochester (Henrietta actually) at about 10:00 am after a successful breakfast. We arrived in Albany just before Ben’s flight took off! He had been in the airport for 10 hours, instead of the 90 minutes we expected. What a misery! Our drive was uneventful. Once again, the baby was awesome. She chatted adorably for the first half hour and then fell asleep for the next two. She needed to be entertained for the last half hour. We stopped at our house in Albany, let the baby play, wander around and had lunch. Then we got back in the car.

Ben had successfully arrived home. He got to shower and walk Douglas. Then he and Douglas drove to meet us outside Worcester to save us about two hours of driving if we took them all the way home. We met at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Grafton, MA. Iced coffee is helpful in these situations. The baby lit up when she saw her daddy. They were happy and relieved to be reunited. Douglas was especially happy, his tail wagging, nuzzling Leah’s legs.

It had been an ordeal. A trip, difficult to make under normal circumstances – involving boat, plane and car –  that should have taken 9 hours door-to-door took about 31! Only Ben can answer the question Leah posed Friday afternoon, but I might wait a while before asking again. For my part, though it was a lot of time in the car, we had an awesome vacation. I’m glad Gary had Sunday to recover before heading back to work.

Though I love seeing other places, I have more understanding for those who find the process of traveling overwhelming and choose to stay local. So much can go wrong! Add a baby and pets to the mix and it can be nerve-wracking. You need a very Zen attitude – which can be hard to maintain in the face of unexplained delays and seemingly unhelpful staff. It’s still worth it to me, but as I get older that calculus could change.