Who knew our earlier flirtation with the Alberta/BC border was merely a harbinger of things to come? I am in Vancouver at the moment, still two plane flights away from San Jose, but at least it’s warmer here than Calgary.
I am still in Canada thanks to my own three minutes of tardiness and the complete sequestering of airline staff on the ground in Calgary. Apparently, the Horizon Airlines counter at YYC is actually staffed by American Airlines employees, all of whom could care less about stranded travelers. I arrived 57 minutes before my flight this morning (that’s 5:33 am MST, btw), only to find an abandoned counter and no helpful smiling faces. Anywhere. Other than one other traveler who had arrived a few minutes earlier than I had. It seems the AA staff had closed the flight and left. Permanently.
Despite assurances from otherwise nice Horizon phone operators (based in the Seattle office, which didn’t open until 5:00 am PST) that the desk crew would return shortly, they NEVER returned. After realizing I had been abandoned (wasting about 90 minutes of my time politely biding my time), I spent another 50 minutes on the phone with Horizon working out my current itinerary, which involved Air Canada and a lot of snowboard bag schlepping through two airports. I hopped on the outbond AC flight at 9:45, and I never, ever saw anyone from Horizon or American interested in helping me. Never. Did I mention they “never” came to help me ….?
By the way, I cleared customs in Vancouver in about 38 minutes, including carrying my bag from one end of the airport to the other.
As a San Jose fan in the Calgary Saddledome for tonight’s Sharks’ road game, I’ll look on the bright side. Current and former San Jose Sharks outscored the Calgary Flames‘ Never-Sharks, 8-1. Unfortunately, the actual score was Flames 5, Sharks 4 (although it wasn’t really that close).
Former Shark Owen Nolan scored a hat trick, and I would have been more than willing to throw my hat … if only I didn’t need it for the -30C temperatures outside … and if only I’d been able to reach the ice with one throw. My seats were only six rows from the roof of the Saddledome — way, way above the pressbox and possibly higher than the Continental Divide Karen and I visited a few days ago.
Although I consider myself completely free of any superstition or negative jinxability (from having been at the Sharks franchise first-ever victory, coincidentally against Calgary in 1991), I do have to admit that I came within about $120 (Canadian) of buying a #11 Owen Nolan RBK Flames Jersey earlier in the day, only to choose a more-reasonably priced blank CCM jersey instead. Perhaps I was asking for it. Sorry, Evgeni … but you had a lousy game anyway.
I had a whole day with nothing to do, so I walked around downtown Calgary. And I walked … 16.9 kilometers (you do the conversion), according to my crudely reconstructed route on Google Maps:
My path included several shopping and coffee stops along 7th (aka “Stephen”) Avenue, a stroll around the grounds of Fort Calgary, a visit to the impressively over-the-top Flames Central, lunch along the 17th Avenue “Red Mile,” and a daylight visit to the Calgary Saddledome at the Stampede Grounds.
And boy was it cold! Karen and I each experienced a “personal best” in cold temperature, tapping out around -25C on Tuesday while we were riding Lake Louise. It was undoubtedly colder when this picture was taken on Monday, although we were both toasty warm at the +37C Banff Hot Springs. My hair? … that’s another story.
It got colder for me in Calgary, where it was -28C when I left the hotel at 9:30 am, destined for downtown. Wind chill? Last night it was -49C, and that’s expected again tonight.
More news and recollections coming soon … You’re welcome to peruse Flickr for currently uploaded pictures.
It’s so cold that today was a really hard day of riding … the bus. With no worthwhile lift operations to take us uphill, we took a bus to see the sights along TC1 and the Chateau Lake Louise.
Side note: This harkens back to the day ten years ago when I drove Karen and her brother Tim from Seattle to Vancouver, with the intention of meeting our friend Richard and attending a San Jose Sharks game against the Canucks. But it snowed so much that they cancelled the game. In Canada.
It’s so cold that the LCD screen on our “all-weather” Olympus Stylus 820 works only intermittently, especially near steamy hot springs.
It’s so cold that everyone is talking about the cold weather with relaxingly-lilted Canadian accents, including the Aussies who usually work in the freezing cold weather all winter long in Banff. In Canada.
Actually, I don’t think we realized that we’d be snowboarding across the Continental Divide, but we did. And we rode an express chairlift across it, as well.
This is one of the spectacular views we had from the top of Sunshine Village while snowboarding on Sunday. 13cm of fresh powder had fallen over night, and riding the cold fluffy stuff was really a lot of fun. In addition to our own riding around, we also took a hosted tour with Ken and Joy, who showed us all of the powder accessible from the Wawa, Goat’s Eye, and Angel chairlifts.
It was her first professional hockey game — ever — but she watched it like an old pro! And she even provided her own special version of good luck.
The Sharks haven’t had a great record inside San Jose Arena this year, but a little dose of Grandee helped out last night, as the Sharks defeated the St. Louis Blues, 4-1.
Here she is standing and cheering as the team enters the rink through the famous Shark Head. She went on to recognize icing calls, offside calls, and she possibly even saw the puck go into the net a few times.
As for the lucky part? Section 121 was the game’s “lucky section” and everyone got a coupon for a free Togo’s sandwich. Toss in the free Round Table pizzas (courtesy of the Sharks offense), and they can practically feed themselves this week … which might be a good thing because Karen and I will be celebrtaing our 15th Anniversary this weekend, with tree days of snowboarding in Banff, Alberta!
Here she is … a “Star Among Stars” and she’s four years old!
We hosted her birthday party this afternoon with a few preschool friends and a host of relatives. Following from the star-themed party that Jocelyn hosted for her celebration this past November, Felicia wanted to do essentially the same thing.
We honored that request — with a few age-appropriate twists — including the part where her friends got to attach glow-in-the-dark stars to the walls of her room.
She’s been “three-and-a-half” for quite some time, and we’ve all been looking forward to the big day. For my traditional birthday gift, I have always given Felicia a collection of books that describe the year. Last year it was Richard Scarry; this year the focus was ballet, dance, and Turkey.
Who knew our earlier flirtation with the Alberta/BC border was merely a harbinger of things to come? I am in Vancouver at the moment, still two plane flights away from San Jose, but at least it’s warmer here than Calgary. 
