It’s official, I am retired. Well technically my retirement date is not until June 30th, but between vacation days, yesterday ended up being my actual last day of work after 31 years with the same employer.
When we started planning this year’s birthday trip, we looked at many options including a driving trip through Switzerland. But after looking at the prices of flights, hotels and a rental car, it would be far too expensive. I am now on a fixed income. I have always wanted to visit the Yukon and with an Air Canada Companion Pass ($99 CAD for a flight within Canada), it just made more sense to stay in Canada. After much research, we landed on a Yukon driving trip. We are very fortunate that Karen has a friend Cheryl who lives in Whitehorse. She sent us so much reading material ahead of time and this helped us immensely with our planning.
Nana is looking after Kai while we are gone. This will be his first sleepover. Karen dropped him off at our house at 8:45am and with a few final instructions, we were headed off to Toronto. Karen’s brother Ross and his wife Susie live about ten minutes from the airport. While we were having a quick visit with them, they surprised me with a birthday/retirement cake. What a nice send off.
We left their place at 11:20am and by 11:35am, Ross had dropped us off at Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson airport. The Air Canada Priority Check-In line took about five minutes and with our NEXUS cards, security took less than five minutes as well.
We headed to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge where there was some confusion with our boarding passes but the agent sorted it out quickly. I was surprised as to how quiet it was on a Saturday at noon. We managed to find a couple of comfy seats and then spent the next hour or so enjoying all of the free food and beverages. I really like this laid back way to start our trip.
At 1:00pm, we left the lounge and stopped by the Air Canada Cafe. This is a much smaller version of the lounge which offers grab-and-go food options. We loaded up with cheese and crackers, veggies and dip and some chips before heading to our gate. It was not long before boarding began. It was a full flight and just before 2:00pm, we were on our way to Vancouver.
We were not too far into the flight when we hit some really bad turbulence. I would say this was one of the worst experiences we have had. It was coming from every direction .. up, down, side to side. Lucky for us it only lasted about fifteen minutes and then the rest of the flight was fine. I spent the time watching show I had downloaded to my iPad, snacking and playing games on the in-flight entertainment system.
Just after 3:30pm we landed in Vancouver to a gorgeous sunny day. We were in no rush to deplane since we had a four hour layover. We purposely did this so that we would not have a fiasco like we did last year on our trip to Maui. Once again we made our way to the Maple Leaf Lounge where we found it about half full. We settled in for a late afternoon of eating, drinking and a bit of napping. There were quite a few people gathered around the giant TV watching a World Cup match between Brazil and Morocco.
When we left the lounge, we swung by the Air Canada Cafe again hoping to get more chips. Unfortunately this cafe does not offer them. Oh well. We made our way to the gate where it seemed that this was going to be another full flight. During check in yesterday, we picked 33A (Karen, window) and 33C (me, aisle) hoping that no one would end up between us. When the pilot announced that boarding was complete, we were thrilled that no one was in the middle seat. This meant that we each had extra legroom for the two and a half hour flight to Whitehorse.
We left just before 8:00pm and the scenery along the way was stunning. We finally touched down in Whitehorse at around 10:25pm and it was still light out. While waiting for our luggage, we decided to go and pick up our rental car which we booked through Driving Force. As we stood there, who should come to meet us but Karen’s friend Cheryl. How nice of her to come and greet us. We caught up for a little bit while we waited for the bags.
Once we had our luggage, we headed outside where it was much chillier than what we left behind at home. We stopped for a few photos ops before making our way to our AirBnb where we will be staying for the next two nights. after getting settled in, we stepped outside and caught the sunset at 11:40pm.
What a great start to retirement.
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