My trip home was mostly uneventful, other than managing to spill almost an entire bottle of water inside my carry-on backpack. Fortunately, no electronics were harmed. My winter jacket absorbed most of the water, and had to be wrung out. And the air in planes is so dry that my jacket was fine within a few hours. I slept for at least 6 hours of the 10 hour flight to Vancouver. The fellow in the seat next to me was returning to Vancouver from mainland China, where he visited family. He hadn’t been back since before COVID. So tough. 

The only glitch in my travel was that I had to collect my bike bag to clear Customs in Vancouver. And then Air Canada wouldn’t let me drop my bike bag with everyone else having connecting flights because it was oversized. ARGH.  So I was sent out into the main check-in area, where a CATSA agent had to inspect the bag by hands just like they’d done in Calgary on my outbound flight. in past years they had a large x-ray machine, but don’t have it anymore for domestic oversized. As a result of this faffing around, my connection was a bit tight and I knew from my AirTag that the bike didn’t make my flight. But that’s not a cause for stress on the way home - there will be no more biking for me for a few months.  

By the time I turned on my phone in Calgary when I arrived at 10:30 pm (still Monday evening, thanks to gaining back 16 lost hours), I had multiple messages from Air Canada letting me know the bike would be on the next flight, arriving in two hours. After a surprisingly good sleep overnight, I returned to the airport on Tuesday morning to get it, resulting in my drive home being a bit longer than normal. But the weather was fine and driving conditions were great.    

I’ll provide some wrap-up thoughts on this wonderful trip once I’ve had a chance to reflect.