An Epic Tale of Transit gone wrong.

Monday last week I talked to a customer with a problem on a printer my employer sold to a customer in North Vancouver. I wound up playing the role of the guy who had to go fix it; My boss booked the flight and I flew out after work on Tuesday at 5PM.

I finished swapping out the offending parts on wednesday afternoon and the machine was working fine by 4:00 PM. I was planning on flying home immediately but was then told that a customer in Abbotsford had also been promised my help; they too had a machine down. So I got quickly busy with the customer's internet connection. First I booked a rental car from the Vancouver airport, then I booked a hotel room at the Best Western in Abbotsford, and I finished off with an email announcing my arrival to a Vanagon/Type2 list member I know of out there. Once the paperwork was done I was just in time to head out into rush hour. Oh joy.

The trip to Abbotsford involved taking a Vancouver Transit bus to the Seabus terminal, riding the Seabus 2 miles across the Burrard Inlet and then catching the airport shuttle back to the the airport to pick up the rental car. I figured that getting a rental from the airport would simplify things on the return trip, and it was definitely a good call. When I got to the airport I wound up in a 10-passenger Sprinter shuttlebus to get to Discount Car Rentals; They shave their prices a good bit by not being located on the airport proper. One more ride on public transit certainly wasn't gonna hurt me.

As we were pulling into the rental car lot I noticed a Mini Cooper with a "Rent Me" sign on the dash, and once inside I asked at the counter how much the upgrade fee would be to get that one instead. I was told it was only $7 to upgrade to that from the Economy model I had booked earlier. "Done Deal", says I.

And when the counter guy brings it around it's fire engine red with a white roof; Somehow that colour combination just seems right to me.....




By then it was about 8PM. I loaded my luggage aboard, got behind the wheel and found my way inland to Abbotsford. I booked into the Best Western, and then called local up resident Nathaniel Poole who I knew through the type 2 list. He picked me up at the hotel in his aircooled vanagon riviera camper and as soon as I saw the zebra stripes I knew we were going to get along. He drove downtown to a british pub and we had a couple pints of guiness while I put away a roast beef dinner with yorkshire pudding that was very, very good. We talked about all sorts of bus- and vanagon-related stuff, with some emphasis on the 68 single-cab that Nathan was going to be picking up out on Vancouver Island the following day.  Unfortunately the bar closed up earlier than usual thanks to a heavy snowfall in Abbotsford that was keeping most of the customers away, but the bus-chat was as good as ever.

Next morning I checked my email and found out that the customer in North Vancouver was broken once again. Nothing I could do about that quite yet, but I did put in a call to the manufacturer to give them a heads-up and let them know that we hadn't quite cured the problem yet. I also discovered that my Blackberry was deader than a doornail, and I couldn't do anything about it because I had brought the wrong charger.

At 9:30 AM the Abbotsford customer finally opened the store; it turned out that their machine had blown a heater element after being run at temperatures WAY lower than it was rated for. I knew the problem the instant I walked in the door: that place was COLD. I got the problem analyzed, the parts ordered, told the customer they were gonna have to do something about the weather inside their building.... then I had to go pick up a 12V charger for my blackberry.

Once I had that taken care of I got back on the road and had a pleasant time driving the Mini along the scenic route that the Trans-Canada takes heading back into North Vancouver .Once in North Van I stopped in for lunch at Boston Pizza and while I waited for my pie I called WestJet to look into having my flight out re-booked. Unfortunatelyit turned out that there was a mining conference in Toronto on this same weekend and there wasn't a seat to be had on any later flight to Toronto on Thursday or Friday. Suddenly it was imperative that I get back to the airport for my flight out at 4:15 PM.  Doing some careful calculations of the time it would take to get across town at rush hour and drop off the rental car I figured I could stay onsite until about 2:30; and by the time I finished my lunch I  only had about an hour to spend with the customer. Not the way I had wanted it to go, but I guess sometimes $#it happens.

Back at the customer site they oohed and Ahhed at the mini while I took my tools in and set to work on the printer. Luckily enough I was finally able to witness the problem firsthand. I documented the problem further using the video function on my digital camera and talked things through with the manufacturer's reps on the phone but just couldn't get a resolution before I had to leave to catch my flight. Vancouver traffic is never a picnic and somehow I made the flight with a mere 5 minutes to spare before takeoff. Nobody was happy about it, but there was no way to delay my departure as there's a mining conference in Toronto this weekend and every seat from YVR to YYZ was already booked. And oh yes... Toronto staff are going home early thanks to a major ice storm. When I finally arrived at the airport the counter person had to call the gate to get their permission to check me in, and I was told that they could not guarantee that my luggage would make it onto my plane, they might need to send it along later.

So I depart YVR at 4:15PM PST, expecting to arrive at YYZ at 11:40 PM EST. But when the plane finally got to YYZ, it was closed. The pilot circled us around Georgian Bay for about 25 minutes before we finally diverted to Montreal, landing there at 12:50 AM. We were told that "someone" would let us know what would happen, then they unloaded the plane. And luckily enough, my luggage made the same plane I did.

I found out later that Westjet and the other airlines had dumped about 500 passengers off at Trudeau Intl. The Westjet counter staff were completely overwhelmed, and their phone lines were jammed up so bad they couldn't even stack more calls up. There were no hotels available near the airport, and none of the aiport facilities were open. The airport's wireless internet wasn't working, and neither was the wireless service on my blackberry.

At about 2AM there were a few of us standing around trying to get the big picture on what's going on. Increasingly it's looking worse and worse. There are no flights going into Toronto at all. There are no vacancies at any of the hotels that westjet is recommending. There are no rental cars available at the airport. We are stranded, and there's no telling how long it's gonna be.

After about an eternity of standing around and BS'ing about travel nightmares with some of the others from my flight someone comes out with A VERY GOOD IDEA. It might even have been me, but I was so tired by then I can't be certain who said it. All I can say for sure is it sounded like a very good idea at the time:

"This would be a good time to share a limo, crash out in a downtown hotel until the rental car places re-open and then drive to Toronto. With four people sharing the bill it'd probably wind up cheaper than staying here and waiting for westjet to figure this out".

Suddenly there were four of us heading out to the limo line-up and trying to cram a large amount of luggage into a car that wasn't quite as big on the inside as you might have thought. The limo driver thought we were kinda crazy, but was happy to help and took us for a half-hour drive to a hotel strip in downtown Montreal with a decent bar nearby. Along the way I learned a bit more about my consirators: Mitch was an entertainer from Downsview who was coming home from a gig at a Vancouver theatre. Allen had been sitting beside me on the flight, he's a programmer from Vancouver who works for Bell Canada. Jenny was moving to London, ON to be with her boyfriend.

Soon we arrived downtown and once all our gear was unloaded from the limo we trooped into the Sheraton's lobby to open negotiations with the desk clerk. Mitch stepped forward and laid it on thick with the matronly night manager , his fluent french and good looks quickly won her over and we got a deep discount on the room while she studiously ignored the fact that there were 4 of us. We got our keys, and found our way to room 902, which came equipped with two double beds and a folding cot. Mitch set up his laptop to access the hotel's wireless internet, and after a couple of phone calls we were ready to get settled. But since the bars close at 3AM in La Belle Province, I noted that we still had time to sneak out for a quick beer. Mitch was in. Allen was in. Jenny said she'd pass. Allen did a double take and asked her how old she was.

"Seventeen.", she says.  You could have heard a pin drop.

The three men in the room put our jaws back in place and decided that we now needed that beer more than ever. We headed back out into the cold to find what turned out to be a very fine brew-pub. It wasn't really surprising that the kitchen was closed, but the bartender told us he could get together a platter of olives, almonds, cheddar and crackers for $8.95. It accompanied the beer very nicely. We stayed until closing and headed back to the room, and were happy to find that our youngest compatriot had not skipped out with a quartet of laptops (Allen carried two of them).

As the only one with a body clock set to Eastern Time, I was getting a bit tired by then, so I staked out a spot on one side of a double bed and stretched myself out while Allen and Mitch did some internet and telephone work. Eventually they found that we could get an Impala on a 1-way rental for about $160 from Alamo rental car. Most other places either didn't do one-ways, or else they didn't have anything available. I thought the Impala would be a bit small, and suggested that we upgrade to a minivan once we get there. We agreed that 7Am would be a good time to get up and get moving, and Mitch called the front desk to arrange a wake-up call. And some time ever so slightly before 4AM my lights went out.

When the wake-up call came in, Mitch was the first to open his eyes. "You're not going to believe this", he says. "Take a look outside". And we through the window we're looking outside at a major winter storm. I turned on the weather channel and the radar picture was not very pretty. Mitch and I took a cab to the Alamo rental car place and the weather was atrocious. Montreal drivers are known for being maniacal but with snow on the ground it gets even crazier. At Alamo we negotiated an upgrade to a Chrysler 300 with All Wheel Drive, this smooth-cruising land yacht would be just the thing to compensate for the stress we've been through so far. Chatting with the clerk got us a recommendation for a great diner to go to for breakfast, so Captain Mitch skippered the 300 back to the hotel to load our cargo and embark the remainder of the crew. Once aboard, we bid adieue to the night manager and set sail for breakfast.

If you ever find yourself in Montreal and in need of a hearty breakfast, I strongly recommend "La Belle Province". The service was prompt and courteous, the price reasonable and the servings were generous. The toasted western with home fries and a coffee did a fine job of recharging my ambitions and soon we were all topped up and ready to hit the road.

But we didn't get anywhere quickly. Rush hour traffic in Montreal does not improve with foul weather. We passed a half-dozen accidents on the way out of town but traffic thinned out considerably once we got off the island of Montreal. There was plenty of snow on the highway but luckily it wasn't deep and the heavy low-slung car wasn't affected much by the wind. Mitch kept it shiny-side-up all the way to Kingston while I took about a dozen tech-support phone calls. As we pulled into Kingston the weather cleared up and we cancelled our lunch stop in favour of the Napanee Flying J. No-one was really hungry, all we really needed was to get some munchies and find an internet connection so i could upload my service call reports and quicktime video clips.

On the next leg of the trip I took the wheel, and took full advantage of the dry pavement to make the miles go by quickly. The Chrysler 300 made no complaint, and its fine leather upholstery and quality sound system made it a comfortable ride.

The only problem with the increased speed was that it made the gas go by even quicker, and by the time I pulled into Whitby we were running on fumes. I put $5 in the tank to carry us into Toronto, figuring we could top off the tank and settle our financial issues in Scarborough when they dropped me off. The needle just barely moved off the bottom of the gauge, and we continued onwards.

When I pulled off the highway in Scarborough, I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that there weren't any gas stations opened. A combination of a railway strike and a refinery fire had reduced supply, and the result was scattered outages and higher prices. After passing seven closed stations we finally found one with gas, and topped off the tank. A few minutes after that we were stopped in front of my house, unloading my luggage, trading email addresses and posing for a group picture in front of the 300.



 

I looked at my watch as they drove off, it was 4:15 PM. The same time as I had boarded the plane in Vancouver. 

Home at last.