After a decent enough sleep at the Hilton near LAX, I got up and spent over an hour sorting through that mystery suitcase I had made a stopover for last night in Pasadena.  Whatever was in it better have been worth the effort.  At the time I brought the suitcase just to make it look like I had luggage while passing through the final stages of immigration.  If it was just me with a small bag while everyone else had luggage coming off an international flight, they might pull me in for further questioning.  So that was the idea at least.

That suitcase was just cobbled together with some random things and then it served its purpose to get me through immigration.  So I left it in Pasadena and continued with my epic trip.  That involved a foray into Mexico and some other misadventures.  Because of that I got back so late and my next Airbnb was a lot closer to LAX.  Then at the time I decided it wasn't worth the effort, time, and expense to get an Uber all the way to Pasadena and back to retrieve the suitcase before my next flight to Vegas.  So I basically said fuck it and left the luggage there, expecting to get it back on my next trip in summer.  And then covid happened.

After the pandemic, I totally forgot what was in the suitcase.  It was seemingly random items used as a decoy for immigration to make it look like I wasn't just traveling with a backpack.  But as time went on I thought maybe I had packed some valuable things in there.  I got more and more curious about what was actually in there and the hosts had actually KEPT the suitcase throughout the pandemic that I just had to go back and get it now there was the opportunity.

Well the effort was totally worth it.  There were stacks of valuable papers along with an entire bag full of Thai coins and Hong Kong dollars.  Estimated value well over $100 US.  Friends joked that the excess baggage fees to get the bag on the flight would offset the value of the coins, but that wasn't the point.  Now that covid was over, I could plan trips to Thailand again and spend all those coins.

On that note, ever since the pandemic I've developed a new habit where I never leave a country with coins in my pocket.  I will spend them all so that the very last pennies are not leaving the country with me.  Often that means carefully buying snacks at the airport to calculate them down to the penny or whatever the smallest coin denomination is.  Then if there is still anything left I find a Starbucks and donate them into the tip jar.

With the prelimary sorting done, it was time to call an Uber and get all this crap on the flight.  I had calculated my Uber gift card cash exactly as well and used the remaining balance to call an Uber.  The driver spoke Chinese again and it got me wondering if maybe there are quite a few of them running some sort of business in LA.

Once at the airport it was dealing with my least favorite airline:  Air Canada.  Of course the baggage fees ended up being $80 but I can't complain because I was checking in both a folding bike and an extra piece of baggage that I had successfully retrieved from Pasadena.

The flight itself was packed like sardines with pretty miserable service to match.  I just knew there was going to be a problem on arrival and sure enough there was.  They had lost my bike.  I spent hours trying to locate it and finally figured out from the oversized baggage clerk that it was on the next flight and would be delivered to me the next day.  Presumably it was because the flight was too full and they didn't have space to put the bike on.  Still this was extremely aggravating.

I was reunited with my wife at the airport and we both shared our stories  There is a lot more to say about all this in the next section of this journal, but I think it comes down to a paradox more than anything.  We fully expected that traveling 'back home' to Canada and the US would reveal more open vibes and welcoming people who never endured the lockdowns and restrictions that we did.  However, we found the people more distanced and isolated as if there also was a  lockdown.  

I already said for sure we will never fly Air Canada again after this trip.  A lot of people talk this way about 'I will never fly with  [name an airline]' but I'm the person who follows through on my talk, and this airline has pissed me off so many times.  Today was just the last straw.