A Trip Delayed

Well, I thought I would be going to Quebec City today, but such was not to be. I checked my flight information online before leaving home and saw that it was supposed to an on time departure. But when I went to the kiosk to try to check in I got a message that my itinerary had been changed and instead of leaving at 11:30 AM as scheduled I was now slated to leave at 9:10 PM. Hmm, I didn't change my itinerary. Oh well, I got a receipt for the later flight with my seat assignments and a message that I would have to come back later for my boarding passes. Boarding passes couldn't be issued until 12 hours before departure and I was a bit early

I called Expedia, through whom I had made my reservations, and they had no record of an itinerary change. Well, I had a receipt and seat assignments for the 9:10 PM flight and decided to wait in line to talk to a check-in person to see what was going on. I figured something was up because the line took forever to move and everyone seemed to be involved in a prolonged discussion.

When I finally got to a check-in person I was told that my flight had been cancelled due to weather conditions. Well, what can you do. So then how about the 9:10 PM flight that I was now confirmed on. She said that was cancelled as well. In fact all of their flights flying anywhere that put you into Canada had been cancelled. The best they could do would be to put me on an Air Canada flight connecting through Montreal that leaves at 8:50 AM tomorrow.

So back home I went, having now spent over $150 in car service and cab fees to end up back where I started. It isn't cheap getting to Newark Airport from where I live in Brooklyn and just as expensive getting back home. You can do it cheaper using the train, but even that is $15 per person and another $2.25 each for the subway. I guess I could have saved about $50 if we took the train home, but at that point I just didn't want to put go through the hassle. And I kind of broke even because I get a $165 refund for tonight's hotel room in Quebec.

Ironically, if I check online it still shows the 9:10 PM flight as departing on time. And the weather here is still nice and it is overcast but not rainy in Quebec.

I did learn one valuable lesson from all of this, and that is to check the size of your aircraft before booking reservations. All the larger aircraft were taking off as scheduled, but the smaller aircraft such as the ones Continental was flying were not. Next time I will book only on a larger aircraft.

Luckily, the first firework competition for which I have tickets isn't scheduled to start until tomorrow night so I hope that I won't miss anything.

I went to Pete's Waterfront Ale House last night for what I thought would be my last meal here for awhile. I had a delicious smoked brisket sandwich with their most excellent coleslaw and the Mysterious Chinese Woman had one of their great cheeseburgers with mozzarella cheese. I don't know where they get their bread and buns, but they are excellent. We are going to go back there for a big lunch today and then skip supper. Maybe we will get ribs and have the leftovers later for supper. I didn't take any pictures last night but if I take any today I will post them before I leave tomorrow.

Oh, Sam was their so I finally got to tell him how great the pork butts turned out when I cooked them the way he recommended. Low and slow, 185 F for 14 hours. This works either in a smoker or, as I did them, in a large cast iron dutch oven in the oven.