Day 1 - Travel Day
Day 1 of our San Francisco trip - the travel day - started out great and ended up being pretty stressful. We woke up around 8 am and had a leisurely couple hours until our flight. We finished packing, went to Blue Fox for breakfast, and drove the car out to the airport listening to Radiohead the entire way. Easy does it at the Victoria airport, land in Vancouver, attempt to go through American customs and all of a sudden Tim is a terrorist! At first we were told that we could fill out the same customs form because we lived in the same household, then we were told we had to fill out separate forms so we did and then took turns going up to the customs agent. I went first and there was no problems. When I was finished I tried to stand just past the agent and wait for Tim but was told I needed to wait in the next area. I wandered 30 feet away and began waiting only to be told by another security agent that I actually needed to wait behind the exit sign another 40 feet away. By the time I got over to where I was allowed to wait for Tim he was being told he had been tagged for a secondary security check and of course, he had no idea where I had gone. So I watched him walk in the complete opposite direction from where I was standing and soon realized that it wasn’t going to be an easy trip through customs. After some discussion with another woman whose husband was also going through secondary security and one of the most personable security agents, I realized that missing your plane because of customs is a pretty common occurrence. Shit. About 15 minutes later I was headed to the gate, tears streaming down my face. I kept thinking, this is not how my vacation should be! why didn’t we go through security together! what if he doesn’t make another flight to San Francisco tonight! He has my clothes in his carryon bag! what if by the time I land in San Fran Tim is already on another flight there and I am stuck at the SF airport not knowing if I should go to the hotel or wait! Before I found the gate I realized that Tim had left a message on my cel and called him. Despite not being allowed to use his cel we were able to connect a bit and he assured me that I should just go without him. As I handed the AirCanada agent my boarding pass I told him, my boyfriend is still in secondary security and I am worried that even if he gets out in time to catch this plane he won’t be able to find this gate because he is visually impaired and we probably should have stayed together but we were separated at security. I don’t know if it was my tear stained face and look of desperation or the words ‘visually impaired’ but immediately he took down Tim’s name and called over to the secondary security holding room. I entered the plane thinking there was very little chance that Tim would make it to San Francisco with me. I found me seat defeated. I began telling the person sitting beside me about my ruined trip. (Tim and I had been slow checking in at Victoria and had ended up getting seats 6 rows apart on the Vancouver to San Francisco leg of our journey). She listened to the entire story, the plane was completely seated, and the flight attendants were going about their business as I sniffled. At the last possible minute Tim emerged through the doors and marched victorious to his seat 6 rows behind me stopping only briefly to give me a high five.