Peter Pan Getaway Boots: Getting there is half the fun!

Well, depends on how you look at it. First, warning, this is a long post, as I'm catching up on three days (really? It's only been 3 days?) of adventure. (Note, I am at the posting of this, now about 6 days behind....)

So, Linda (my friend and traveling companion) sent me an email a few days before we left, and said Mercury is in retrograde which means travel delays. Ever the optimist, I was undeterred, or maybe just not as much of a believer in such portents. The weather was promising to be quite good, with no snow in the forecast, and relatively "not cold" temperatures. We should be fine, right?

We meet at the airport with lots of time to spare to get checked in and through security, and the wait for boarding is much easier with someone to explore and talk with. We discover Wahlburgers (wonderful, you must try), and then hunt for the boarding gate for the first leg of the journey. By the time we reach the gate, we discover that it has been changed, pretty much across the hall, so far so good. When we get to the real gate, however, we learn that the incoming flight has been delayed, and our flight time has been pushed out by 15 minutes. Not good. We only have an hour in San Francisco to change planes, so a 15 minute delay could make it pretty tight. Then the flight gets moved again. And again. The plane still has not arrived, and we are already past our original boarding time. Uh oh. Doesn't look good at all.

Finally we are able to board, wondering what we will face in San Fran as far as options for connecting flights to Auckland. The flight attendants and airline staff continue to assure a very full flight that anyone with connections will be taken care of, but that they will wait until we have taken off to make those arrangements. Settled in for a five hour flight, and it's now after 8 p.m., the original flight time being 7. We are told that we will first need to de-ice the wings, expected, but a further delay. Finally taxi out to the runway, and we wait till we are second in line. The Captain now announces that the weather forecast was slightly less than accurate, and that the previous plane to take off had informed ATC that there was freezing rain on the runway, and we would now need to wait further until the runway was also de-iced.

Now at about two hours past our original flight time, we know that we won't make our connection. The plane shuts down to conserve fuel, and we're allowed to get up, move around, although most people are starting to nap, myself included. Some time later, the cockpit announces that Canadian government regulations state that any flight is not allowed to keep passengers on the plane without moving for more than four hours, and if we reach that time limit, we would need to return to the terminal to refuel etc. So hopefully the runway would be cleared for use shortly. However, we would need to probably go back to de-ice the wings again. Mercury in retrograde, eh?

Finally, we get the word that we will be allowed to take off, and it is now almost midnight, close to five hours after our original takeoff time, and about the time we were supposed to be landing in San Francisco. Connections, we are told, will be re-arranged by Air Canada staff. There is no word on what else they will take care of, and all we can do is wait and see what awaits us once we get there.

No worries. We arrive in San Francisco, tired, a bit frustrated, concerned but not worried, and follow the yellow brick road to the airline service counter along with about 50 other people who have missed their connections, probably half of whom were also headed to NZ it seems. We are told that our flights have all been taken care of, and we will be in San Fran until 10 p.m. that night - flights to Auckland happen only every 24 hours - so they set us up in a room at the Hyatt, with some money for food, and shuttle us off for a chance at a shower and a brief nap.

We decide that if we have to miss our day in Wellington, we should try to see some of San Francisco. I've never been there, actually never been in California, and Linda has been there but not for many years. So after a bit of a nap and a shower we pick out a Ho-on-hop-off city tour, grab an Uber to the first stop and off we go. First stop is close to the Fisherman's Wharf, and we find some fabulous and famous sights, some wonderful lunch at what we find out later is an excellent and well-established restaurant, watch a seal playing in the marina, ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, see Alcatraz from a distance, experience an exquisite performance of a hanging drum musician in Golden Gate Park, get a great history of the city from a very good tour guide, and manage to get back to the airport in time for our 11 p.m. flight.