31 Hours in Canada

The Trip Home

What follows is about a trip that was not planned. Some accidents in life can cost you, and others can open up whole new worlds. This one turned out to be the latter.  

This past summer was our much anticipated trip back to the USA. The kids got to see all of the family, swimming in country lakes in Indiana, catching trout in the mountains of Colorado (at which I am both proud and embarrassed to say that 7 year old Jacob performed better than dad) and basking in the pure bliss of pushing a cart down an aisle filling it with loads of unnecessary things at a Super Target…. Ahhh the USA. 

At the end of the trip, Jenn and the kids enjoyed a few extra days with the Colorado crew and I found myself making my way solo back to the Netherlands via Toronto. On this particular morning all was going fine… I said goodbye to Jenn, the kids and grandparents with smiling faces, made my way to Denver Airport and enjoyed perhaps too early a cocktail at the newly opened Capital One Lounge before boarding a flight to Toronto (to be fair it was almost 5:00 PM in Amsterdam). Smooth sailing.

This connection was by no means tight, so with a few hours to spare I made my way to another lounge in Toronto to relax for a few hours (by the way, for anyone thinking I am super fancy… I am not at all, but having a Capital One Venture X card gets you into a VIP lounge at almost every airport in the world… which with hungry kids and/or some time to spare at the airport is priceless.) So after a few hours nodding off in a comfy chair I leisurely made my way down to my flight to Amsterdam. Ready to watch movies and settle in for a nice long nap while the 787 Dreamliner crossed the Atlantic at 31,000 feet… I sleepily gazed at the flight screens to see the departure gate, but mine was no where to be seen. In fact, all of them seemed to depart an hour later than mine. Curiously, I looked at my phone and confirmed I was heading down well ahead of my departure. 

The Suck Starts

Then it hit me. Never having switched my phone out of airplane mode, I suddenly realized I was still on Denver time, and my flight had already boarded. For anyone who knows me…. It’s incredibly difficult to get me into panic mode. But when it happens, it’s not pretty and I am glad no one I love or know was there to see it. I immediately began to run to the gate, only to see it boarding a different city, then in desperation I ran like the McAllisters in that scene in Home Alone back the customer service desk in hopes to rebook a different flight. I joined a long queue and watched the flight screens as all other trans-Atlantic flights boarded and left.

Sweat poured down my face as I saw my opportunity for this to turn out well diminish by the minute. One after the next, the Europe flights (and at this point, anywhere east of the Atlantic was preferable) moved to status: “gates closed.”  Who misses a flight when they are well ahead of time and already at the airport? I guess I wasn’t the only one, and misery loved company in that long customer service line of similaraly frustrated travelers. After finally reaching the agent I was shockingly delivered what seemed like some good news… “We can board you on a flight to London tonight, sir, and you can transfer to Amsterdam in the morning!”  My heart leaped for joy and I said that would be perfect. Maybe my epic screw up would turn out fine after all. 

Then she said: “You haven’t checked any bags, have you?”

That tent. I always try to avoid checking a bag on a layover flight for this very reason. But in the USA I had decided that we needed a tent in The Netherlands. After all, the constant rain, darkness and wind just call you to sleep outside. So I’d pulled the thing out of storage and checked it on the plane to take back. And now this tent was the reason I couldn’t get on this flight. 

Begrudgingly I said… “Yes, I have”. 

The lady looked at me with pity and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Well then I can board you on the next flight to London tomorrow at 10:00 which also has a transfer to Amsterdam”. 

My heart sank and accepted that I’d have to leave the next morning. 

“No, 10:00 PM” she said. 

FML (Don’t look that up if you don’t already know what that means).

Mentally queuing the sad Charlie Brown song, I made my way to customs and realized I’d be spending the night and the next day in an airport hotel because of a phone time zone issue. 

I called Jenn to report my unfortunate situation and endured some friendly insults and unspoken hints that this never would have happened had she been there, but then decided that I was going to refuse to sulk and sit in a hotel room all day and to just make the most of it. 

Making Lemonade

So in one more hour I was in a Tesla (the only car left which I somehow got at a steep discount) on my way to Niagara Falls. Sometimes past Kurt takes care of future Kurt, and when I booking my route for this flight I recalled thinking, “if I do something stupid like missing my flight, I’d rather be in Toronto than Dallas (or wherever).” So here I was, at 10:00 PM heading to one of my bucket list destinations all because I couldn’t set my watch right. 

I’ve always had mixed thoughts on Niagara Falls (the city). It’s a grungy town, full of gamblers, tourists, and some of the questionable elements of society. The entire existence of it being the premise that seeing the amazing natural beauty of the falls isn’t enough to capture the whole discretionary dollar from the tourists that flock here. Fair enough. The Gatlinburg of Canada. 

And sure enough, pulling into the town at 11:00 PM all this was confirmed. There is a mist in the air from the falls that is illuminated by all the lights at night, and had it not been for all the sounds from the arcades and casinos I may have been able to hear the roar of the water too… but driving from motel to motel looking for an vacant room on this popular night was my main goal, and after having accomplished it I checked into a room akin to a place in that movie you have seen of “the only room left and you’ve only got $30 in your pocket.” I slept with my stuff and didn’t use the shower for fear of it actually making me dirtier.

The next morning I checked out as early as I could, and set out for what I came to do.

As you walk closer to them from the park nearby, you hear and feel them before you see them. And when I finally did, it was indescribable. There are not many things in this world that have left me just totally in awe and speechless (not that I had anyone to talk to), but Niagara Falls is one of them. The power of nature. Of God. It almost seems as if nature itself is out of equilibrium. Why would not have this massive river found an easier route and over the millennia carved this rock ledge down into something more manageable than this huge jump over a ledge? I couldn’t help but hearing the river just saying “hold my beer” and jumping off that massive cliff rather than finding something more practical to do or a different way around (Yes, I just compared Niagara falls to an alcoholic hillbilly).

And up close, it’s even more shocking. Begrudgingly, I put on the silly poncho, got on the boat, and readied my phone for some shots close to the falls. Two observations: This is not a place you have your phone out… and Maiden of the Mist is a misnomer. It’s Maiden of the Downpour. Soaked and happy, I got off the boat and thought of how had I not missed that flight, I’d likely be sitting in our apartment in Amsterdam watching Netflix. 

With a few more hours to spare, I stopped and had a few beers at Niagara Falls brewing and then made my way back to the Toronto airport, this time asking everyone in my sight the time to confirm it with my watch and phone. 

I finally did board that flight and made my way through London Heathrow which still to this day I will swear is the most poorly designed and operated airport on Earth, and as a result I barely made my connection to Amsterdam due to the long shuttle to a different concourse and the random airport security guy that insisted on putting one (yes, one) of my shoes through the scanner two (yes, two) times. 

Home Again

Upon arriving in Amsterdam, I found that the tent that caused the entire ordeal never arrived and my last hour was spent shuffling around with other passengers whose bags had been lost as well. 

Over my years I have developed a good aptitude of what they call “embracing the suck.” It’s an old US Marine Corps motto (and no, I am not a Marine and am far from it) and is just the mentality that you can endure if not enjoy life though any circumstance, good or bad. I’ve tried to hone it as best as I can: As I bike in the snow and rain bringing the kids to school every day, my glasses foggy wet and barely usable; when I navigate the frustrating and at sometimes idiotic bureaucracy that getting anything done in Europe requires; when I am walking three blocks with three trashbags and a dog leash in my hands to the nearest public trash drop off point because in all of their infinite wisdom and faux environmentalism the Dutch refuse to pick up your trash at the curb unless it’s plastic (Pardon my mini-rant). Through it all I’ve learned to embrace the suck more. In those moments and in some of these 31 hours of suck, man that suck could have really sucked. But embracing it, wow did that feel good.