Day 7 - Toronto to Calgary....eventually.

 18 December 2025

As you can imagine, today was a very early start and dash back to the airport to catch our 0630 plane to Edmonton, which of course was delayed. No matter, this was an easy flight. After a splash of anti-freeze being sprayed all over the plane (it still amuses me that this is necessary in this part of the world). Despite the previous days weather in Alberta, the flight was smooth sailing. 

Adjusting for time zones, we arrived in Edmonton well before lunch and had at least an 8hr wait before leaving for Calgary. We toyed up all of our options:

1. Head into Edmonton. This would be an hour's drive via bus or uber. We didn't have our winter jackets with us so would be restricted to indoors. Even the small taste of the bitter -18C with a wind chill via the plane gate was enough to tell us that what ever we did, needed to be indoors.
2. Pick up a hire car and drive to Calgary. This would be a 3.5hr drive but we weren't sure of the road conditions given the weather had caused a 100 car pile up. Plus, we would likely incur a higher rental fee given we weren't returning to Edmonton. 
3. Joshua's idea - hire a e-scooter and scoot to Calgary. Definitely not an option. 
4. Ride out the 8+hr wait and stick to the new flight schedule.

Steve had lounge access so he paid for two extras to join and we lounged around, wandered through the airport retail, had a few Starbuck coffees and I got to catch up on 3 days of the blog. We tried going on standby for an earlier flight but knew this would be in high demand.

Somewhere along the way we found out that two of our cases had gone ahead of us to Calgary and was merrily spinning around one of the carousels. Steve quickly had this sorted. 

Time to board at 1830ish, and I should have been a bit more suspicious when the gate number has subcategories i.e. 36a. As we checked through, Belle, who has a level of anxiety about flying, looked at me aghast when the attendant asked us to follow through to the steps on the tarmac. We walked out to find our selves on the smallest plane either Steve or I had ever travelled on. Belle was more than freaked out to find a 90 person twin turboprop plane awaiting us. Reportedly, it had active noise and vibration suppression - I'm not sure I could feel or notice this fancy feature.  

Imagine after our 8hr wait, to be informed that we would be landing in Calgary within 35 minutes. We had been led to believe that it would be at least an hour.

So with Belle gripping my hand for dear life for the entire flight, off we went. It was actually a really smooth take off and landing. For sure, you definitely feel all the lumps of bumps of turbulence, but it was so snappy. I didn't expect to have a beverage service, but it too was snappy. No sooner was it over, than the descent began. 

We landed beautifully in Calgary a little after 7pm where I pried Isabelle's finger nails out of my palms. There is plenty of snow on the ground and it is bitterly cold here. There is a yellow alert for tomorrows weather in Calgary and Alberta (sorry I don't know what yellow means and how this is different to any other alert, but I do know it isn't good). After a sleep and a nice breakfast tomorrow, we will review what to do next. 

Full stars to Air Canada who kept us informed, were always polite (and even apologetic for the weather), and provided amazing support throughout. 

I think this is Edmonton.