Our recent trip to Boston, planned as a second honeymoon, almost didn’t happen. The days leading up to our departure had both of us watching the track of Hurricane Arthur. Our timing was impeccable – a hurricane headed for Halifax…. in July. I wrote about rolling with the inevitable punches traveling will throw at you from my recent experiences in Nashville. This trip to Boston was about to throw a haymaker.
It became pretty obvious that Arthur was setting its sights on a direct hit to Nova Scotia the Saturday morning we were scheduled to fly to Boston. Hope was gone for it tracking out to sea and once Air Canada granted fee-free changes, we took a calculated risk to move up our flight to the Friday afternoon before. The trouble with a hurricane hitting Halifax is that it will tend to hit Boston the day before it reaches us. I wasn’t convinced that we’d get out to Boston, but was hopeful if we started our journey early, we’d have more options out and around the storm. Sitting at the gate awaiting the flight to Boston, the sound of the passenger manifest being printed off about 40 minutes before the flight raised my spirits.
Then it happened. I glanced up to catch the dreaded word on the screen. CANCELED.
The Amazing Race challenge was on. We hurried into line at the gate, got on our cells and managed to get re-booked out to Ottawa around the storm with a flight on to Boston the next morning. We were very lucky. People just behind us in the line and a bit later on their phones weren’t able to get re-booked until two days later. When we got to the front of the line to get our new boarding passes we got our first pleasant surprise: Air Canada would be putting us up in Ottawa on their dime. Sweet! We made our way over to the domestic terminal gates and realized our seats weren’t together to Ottawa. I inquired if there was a way we could be seated together. Pleasant surprise number two: exit row seats to Ottawa and Boston! With a couple of hours until our flight, I was ready for the time-honoured tradition of killing time with an airport bar beer:
Bluenose Traveler 