Selection | Day 0 | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Video

2002 Q4 Random Vacation
(50°17.58636' N, 95°16.04416' W - Crowduck Lake, Manitoba, Canada)

Day 0 - 14 Nov 2002

00:00 UTC - 09:00 UTC (Television and Getting Ready)

Well, it is finally time for the Q4 random vacation.  Things start out slowly as usual.  Tired from work and not too much sleep the previous night, I watched some television, and starting laying out the things that needed to be done before leaving.  Some laundry, paying some bills, watching some TV and of course packing...  but first, just a little relaxing in front of the television. 

This of course turned into 9 hours of basically watching television as well as a bit of email, a game of chess on the internet (I won)...  and a little bit of actual preparing to go type work.  I did several loads of laundry.  I pulled out my suitcase.  I started to pile up the various electronics and cords I wanted to be sure to have with me.  All thjat sort of stuff.  I felt tired the whole time though, so mostly milled about, sat and watched TV, and about once every 15 minutes I'd do something actually related to getting ready.

09:00 UTC - 12:00 UTC (Sleep)

Eventually I was so tired, I realized that I had better either actually get myself into gear, and pack and then plan on going straight to the airport without too much sleep, or I could try to take a quick nap, then get up and do my final packing.  I of course decided to lie down.  It was a risk.  If I overslept I would have missed my flight. That would have been bad.  But I was sleepy.  I went to bed.  I was asleep almost immediately.

12:00 UTC - 13:00 UTC (Arise)

The alarm had been set for 11:00 UTC, but I didn't actually wake up and get out of bed until 12:00 UTC.  It was still only three hours sleep.  I had to drag myself up out of bed.  But I knew I had to.  I dragged myself up and into the shower, and after unloading one more batch of laundry, I got ready for the day.  It was time to be up.  Only three hours of sleep or not.

13:00 UTC - 15:00 UTC (Pack)

OK, now I had to be serious about the whole packing thing.  I had really wanted to be out of the apartment by 13:30, but that wasn't going to happen.  But I had to be out as quickly as possible.  So I ran around grabing clothes and other things I needed, stuffing them either into my suitcase or my backpack.  Of course I ended up overfstuffing both.  I can never figure out how to pack light. 

I started taking things to the car...  and there was frost on the car!

This was the first time this season I had seen frost.  Of course, I usually wasn't up this early, so there had probably been frost before, but burnt off before I got up.  But I took it as a nice little foreshadowing of things to come on my trip.  :-)

Then I scrambled to clean the birdcage and all that sort of thing,and making the arrangments for them to be taken care of while I am gone, etc.  And of course I was answering any emails that were coming in while I was doing all this.  But eventually I was packed, and it was time to go.

15:00 UTC - 16:00 UTC (To Newark)

Getting to Newark was uneventful as usual.  I was running a bit late, but unless I hit somethign unexpected, I had enough time.  So it was just the turnpike from 8A to the airport.  I took the truck lanes, which turned out to be a good choice, because there was construction in the car lanes a few miles before the airport that definately would have slowed me down.

As it was, I got to the airport with a decent amount of time left.  I parked in the monorail lots to save time.  A little bit more per day, but definately more convieniant.  Driving all the way out to the economy lots, then waiting for the bus back, would probably make me very tight for my flight.  So I was willing to spend the extra cash.

But I soon realized I had another issue.  I needed to take my "big wad o'electronics" from my car with me.  That is, my GPS, my phone charger, and my XM radio setup.  But both my bags were already stuffed seemingly as full as they could go.  So I had no choice.  I spent about 10 minutes unpacking and repacking things so that I could fit everything I needed.  The biggest change?  I would actually wear both of the coats I was bringing with me, instead of just one of them. 

Other than that, it was just moving things between bags to make them fit, and squishing them as much as they would squish.  I would later also add a sweater to what I was wearing.

16:00 UTC - 20:00 UTC (To Minneapolis)

Once in the airport, I checked my bag (I got the extra special X-Ray treatment), and then I headed to my gate.  I had time to buy and eat a pastry and some sort of fruit drink, and then they were boarding my flight.

It was not a very crowded flight.  I had one other guy in my row, but once we were in the air, he moved to an empty row so he could stretch out, which of course also let me stretch out.  I read the book I had brought, I listened to some music, I watched the scenery out the window.  At one point for several minutes along the side of the plane there was clearly visible a full circle rainbow.  I think I've heard them called sundogs, but I'm not sure I am remembering that right.

And before I knew it we were landinging in Minneapolis.

The Winnipeg airport was very pleasant.  I had to walk from one section to another to switch flights, but it was a nice pleasant walk.  Not very crouded.  It looked like I had almost an hour until my flight, so I stopped to get some food at one of the airport bars.  I had a gyro thing.  Nothing special, but it would do.

20:00 UTC - 22:00 UTC (To Winnipeg)

After I was done with the food, I figured I would go sit down, crack open the computer, update my trip log, and maybe even see if I could get online.  So I opened up the computer, I started to type, and "Now Boarding flight to Winnipeg".  Woops.  Guess I had less time than I thought. 

So it was off onto the plane.  An almost full flight this time.  More looking out the window.  More reading...  some magazines I'd brought with me this time.  Minneapolis had been a little chilly, 30's, but no snow.  But soon after we left, you started seeing snow on the ground under the plane.  Then some frozen looking lakes. 

Then lots of snow.  Then snow on everything. 

The guy next to me said "It just keeps getting whiter, doesn't it" while shaking his head dissaprovingly.  While thinking to myself "Duh!" I nodded and agreed with him.  And then we were on the ground.

Going through customs was fast and easy.  Although the guy at customs laughed a bit when I answered the question "So what made you decide to go to Whiteshell Park from New Jersey in November?"  He let me into the country though.

22:00 UTC - 23:00 UTC (To The Carlton)

To get to the rental cars, you actually ahd to walk outside across the street.  The pilot had said as we were landing that the temperatures were in the mid-teens.  I walked outside, wearing one jacket and holding the other.  My immediate thoughts...  This is not bad at all.  This is invigorating.  Nice crisp, clean air.  I took some deep breaths.  Nice!

Then I went in to get the car.  There was a trainee.  So I patiently waited while each and every step of how to do the paperwork to rent the car was explained to the trainee and she was taken through each step one at a time.  It took me about 15 minutes to get checked out and get my key.  I finally headed to the car.

Then it was time to do my act from the parking lot in Newark again, but in reverse.  Open up the suitcase, pull out the big wad o'gadgets and cables, and start setting everything up in the car.  There was a difference this time.  It was around 14 F.  Invigorating.  Crisp.  Clean.  Yeah, whatever.  Five minutes later I was freezing my ass off.  Being silly me, while I had packed nice things like gloves and a hat (not to mention long underwear and the like), those things were not on me.  I most missed the gloves.  My hands were freezing as I tried to untangle the cords to the XM antenna.  At some point I figured out I could do some of that from inside the car with the heat on, but I was definately chilly now.

Lesson learned.  Next time I go outside, I will wear gloves for sure.  And perhaps even a hat.

23:00 UTC - 00:00 UTC (The Carlton and Getting Online)

So then it was off to find the hotel.  I was staying at a Carlton Inn downtown.  Turns out it is right next to the Winnipeg Convention center.  I find it without too much problem.  On the way there I drive through several parts of downtown Winnipeg, and think that it looks like a nice walkable downtown.  I make a mental note that sometime during this trip, I should just walk around Winnipeg for awhile and see what there is to see.

All the parking around it seems to be pay parking, but I pull into a lot and go to check in.  Surrounding the check in desk are several signs warning everybody to not leave *anything* in their cars, as there have been multiple recent occurances of break ins to cars in the area.  Uh, OK.  nice.  Also a note saying the hotel restaurant is closed for resarvations.  (They were very sorry.)  Lovely.  And it looked generally a little run down.  They shoudl renevate the whole place after they are done with the restauraunt.  Oh well.  I checked in.

Then I went to get my stuff from the car.  I was annoyed, because based on the notes on the signs, I was going to have to undo all the electronics setup.  I had been assuming I'd be in a nice hotel parking lot in a safe area and not really have to worry about it much.  But instead, I was in a public parking lot, with a little thing to stick in my windshield saying I was a hotel guest, in a part of town that appearntly had a little problem with car break ins.  Oh well.  So I took the extra few minutes to repack all my stuff yet again. 

Of course, I was freezing again, cause I still hadn't put the gloves and hat on, even though they were right there, and it would have taken me all of ten seconds to do so.

In any case, I gathered all my bags, found my room, settled in, pulled out the laptop, and proceeded to try to get online.  It took a little work.  The dialup number I had already set up didn't work.  So I had to connect to AOL, have it find a local number, then once online go to Earthlink and find a local number for them, and then finally set things up to use that number.  (Oh, and since there was no actual data port, either POTS or high speed, in the room, I had to also do the find the phone jack and unplug the hotel phone thing...)  In any case, I eventually got online. 

And that was the end of Day 0.

Selection | Day 0 | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Video

Samuel Minter abulsme@abulsme.com http://www.abulsme.com/