Weary But Cheerful Travelers Headed Home

Well, you know how all year long I've been bragging about all the amazingly good weather we've had on every trip? I think that streak may have come to a screeching halt with hurricane Sandy! However, in another strange way, our tremendous "luck or good fortune" stayed with us!

Now, I'll be the first to admit we weren't "roughing it" -- the Chatwal is a far cry from that!! We were only 5 blocks away from where all the power outages for Manhattan started! The actual night that Sandy came ashore with all her destructive might, we were in a very insulated bubble. Our little section of Manhattan had very little rain and less wind! I think the position of all the buildings in our area shielded us tremendously! We all were thinking that there was an awful lot of "over reaction and hype"! Boy were we wrong! But, you have to understand that where we were, there were still several restaurants open and we were fine outside walking around. When the news stations began to show all the damage in the first light of day we were amazed and dismayed! There is tremendous devastation. Donations to the Red Cross would be a great idea and I encourage all who read this to text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10.00 to the relief fund.

After much scrambling and a lot of different plans our "SUPERWOMAN" travel agent, Arlene Feen, managed to get us on a flight out of Bradley Field in Windsor Lock, CT! She secured a car and driver to pick us up at 5:00am at our hotel and drive us to the airport. Now, as we wait at the gate, we are hoping all goes smoothly in Atlanta! We are trying to get Grant's friend, Mike, home in time for his daughter's first Halloween! His son and daughter are going as Batman and Batgirl-- something he didn't want to miss!! Looks like he will make it!

We have been scheduled every day since Monday on a flight out of LaGuardia. LaGuardia remains 2' underwater. We think it's going to be quite a while before air traffic will be going in or out of there. We considered trying to rent a car and drive back to Florida, but ultimately rejected that idea because of the blizzard hitting south of NY and not knowing how bad the roads were going south. We were briefly booked out of Philadelphia, but better flights became available in Hartford so here we are!!

I do have to add one other piece of information to show you how our "luck" continues to hold. Though its embarrassing to admit, this experienced traveler left her drivers license at home!! I had taken it out of my purse and put it in a fanny pack to go to the football game and I forgot to put it back in my purse. Once again, our trusty travel agent saved me by faxing a copy of my passport to me. We were concerned TSA would give me a hard time, but with the faxed copy of my passport, my Medicare card, and photo id from Woodfield and the Boca Resort, it was no problem at all. It probably helped that I'm a registered GOES traveler!

Our flight from Bradley is showing a 20 min delay which will make our Atlanta connection really tight, but we remain "hauntingly hopeful"! Happy Halloween to all!!

NYC, JETS/DOLPHINS, MONSTER STORM SANDY

Well, who would have known that our wonderfully fun trip to New York would end in a Monster win for our Dolphins and a RECORD monster storm for the east coast?!!!

We are safely holed up in our wonderful Manhattan hotel - The Chatwal on 45th Street near Times Square! The hotel is keeping us for an extra two nights since flights for today and tomorrow have been canceled. At this point we're just hoping to get home Wednesday in time for Halloween.

Except for being hugely bored, all is well. The hotel staff is being wonderful and we have a great little Irish Pub right next door that is staying open and has quite good food.

Grant and his friend Mike are outside walking around between the rain bands. The buildings seem to be blocking the worst of the wind where we are.

Saturday morning we made our way to the impressive 9-11 Memorial. It's a beautiful site very well done. They are super organized in moving people through screening procedures. If you can, be sure to visit.


We saw two fantastic Broadway plays on Saturday. The first one was Nice Work If You Can Get It--- a total hit as far as all of us were concerned! We all thoroughly enjoyed Matthew Broderick in this play!! The second play is also a hit-- though quite raunchy and very irreverent. It was VERY funny-- The Book of Mormons-- this play brought to you by the creators of South Park.

The best part of the weekend was yet to come, though. We went to Met Life Stadium for the Jets/Dolphins football game. Our seats were graciously given to us by Santonio Holmes (part of a charity he benefits) and they were some seats!! We were in the Presidential gold level suites!! Couldn't have been any nicer. The other guests in the suite were two Jet wives with their families and an attorney who represents several NFL players. They were all gracious losers and we tried to contain our enthusiasm! What an exciting and complete game for our Dolphins!!!

But now, the rest of the story... We are here for the duration of a record storm!! This one will be in the record books for a long time!! Big THANK YOU to our tirelessly working travel agent, Arlene Feen with ProTravel, who is trying to figure out how to get us all safely home as soon as she can!!!

Last Day in Banff, Alberta, Canada

What a beautiful hotel we stayed in!  The Fairmont Bannf Springs Hotel is a story book picture!  We happened to get amazing weather!  There was a light dusting of snow the night before we arrived so the evergreens were lightly coated with the cold white stuff!  (A big deal for those of us who live in Florida!---- The Chicago girls were not so easily impressed!)

We had a wonderful tour (thanks to a much appreciated gift from our trusty travel agent, Arlene Feen) of the Banff area including Moraine Lake and Lake Louise.  We were blessed with the sighting of a Big Horn Rocky Mountain Sheep and an Elk!  The foliage, while a surprise (I'll explain in a second) was gorgeous... We were surprised to learn that there is almost no red fall color in the western part of Canada.  You need Oaks and Sugar Maples and those are few and far between in the areas we traversed -- Vancouver to Banff.  There are, however, beautiful golden aspens!  Did you know that an Aspen grove is  one of the largest single living organisms in the world? A single tree can grow large enough to cover an entire mountainside while the trees inside the grove are interconnectd through a shared root system.  Each tree stands as an individual and is at the same time connected to the whole!  Pretty cool, huh?

I have to give two thumbs up to both the accomodations and the glorious breakfast buffet at the Fairmont in Banff!  YUM for the extravagant buffet breakfast and YEA for the great rooms with wonderfully fluffy duvets!!

Our guide in Banff was the nicest young man by the name of Ryan.  He is an "old soul" at the age of 25 if you understand that phrase.  He is a park ranger, great educator and adventurer.  All the women in our group thought he was fantastic and probably secretly wished we had daughters of the appropriate age for match making since he is currently footloose and fancy free!!

Our last day on the train was so much fun!  We sang and laughed and ate VERY well!  What more could you want?  There was even a gentleman, (sorry I didn't get his name) who whipped out his harmonica and started playing a lot of old familiar songs!  We had the whole car singing and enjoying the day.  The only downer for the day was that we were delayed by passing rail traffic for almost three hours.  This resulted in our arrival into Banff three hours behind schedule and the last three hours of the trip might have been the most beautiful -- but we couldn't see it!  Alas, they tried to make us feel better with the offering of freshly made home made oatmeal raisin cookies! (We all wondered why we saw all the Chefs running back into the kitchen well after lunch time.)  It was a worthy try, but we would have preferred the scenery to the calories!!!  Not that the delay was anything the Rocky Mountaineer could have controlled... Rail traffic is what it is....

A quick word about the cuisine aboard the Rocky Mountaineer Golf Leaf service.  It was SPECTACULAR!  Not sure how that tiny kitchen could turn out so many beautifully prepared meals.. There were always at least five choices on the menu -- AND THE DESSERTS!!!  They were so yummy!  Even those who wanted to resist didn't....

Our spectacular six ladies had an amazing time... We laughed and giggled and felt like we were all 30? again.. There is just something about  women getting together and sharing a good time...  We are already thinking of our next annual girls' trip....  Hmmm..... Perhaps Vermont, Maine or New Hampshire in the fall and a charming Inn?  Have to wait and see!!

PS  I do have to explain the "Pear photo".  A gentleman dropped his camera and broke a small plastic piece off of the camera.  Annnette diligently looked all over for the missing sliver but to no avail.  After the front of the car went down to lunch (did I mention there was even an elevator in our car?) Annette searched once again and was successful the second time around.  We decided her "find" deserved a special presentation for the gentleman -- hence , Mr. Pearman whose nose is the missing camera piece!!!

Also, the beautiful lab was at the Lake Louise Lodge.  He is their mascot and his name is Marcus.

Next blog posting will be from NYC.  There are four of us flying up for the NY Jets/Miami Dolphins football game Oct.28.   We have a couple of broadway plays booked and Santonio Holmes is getting my son and his friend onto the football field and in the locker room on game day....