Adventures in Fort McMurray

Like any good adventure, it begins early in the morning. Too early in the morning if you ask me; however, that’s the way it is. Beth and I got up around 4am, got ready then headed to the Saint John airport. Everything went smoothly until it came to leaving. We sat on the airplane for about 30 minutes before someone asked what was going on. The stewardess lets us know they are working on it. This is exactly what you want to hear before the airplane takes off. Turns out there was a hydraulic problem with the door Luckly, they didn’t risk it and canceled the flight. So we had to speed walk back to the Air Canada counter to get another flight. We got there quick enough to make the flight to Montreal. We got on that plane just before it took off!

The highlight of this flight was the airplane magazine I was reading. Someone wrote with a red pen “This is Sparta” over every person on the pages. They also had things like “This IS Sparta” when looking at places, and “These are Spartans” when there was a group of people. It cracked me up, but Beth didn’t really appreciate it.

Once in Montreal, we ran around looking for the next gate as we now had to fly to Edmonton. The bad news was that the next flight from Edmonton to Fort McMurray involved at least a seven hour stay in Edmonton. Not what we wanted, but it was that or not getting there that day. We had a chance to get a bite to eat before leaving on the next flight. This one was long, four hours, and we didn’t get seats together. So I sat between two random people and watched Wild Hogs and Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me. Eventually, we arrived in Edmonton. Five minutes later a flight to Fort McMurray was boarding. We asked to fly standby on this and were lucky enough to get on and seats together! So instead of a long wait at the airport all day, we were able to get into Fort McMurray only a few hours later then we had originally planned.

The downside? Our luggage was left behind in Saint John on that plane. We had to make a claim here and luckly they just called (the next morning), so we will hopefully be getting it soon! Hurray, change of clothes!

So what is Fort McMurray like? Let me help explain with a top five list.

How you know your in Fort McMurray:

1. It’s dry and there is dust everywhere.
2. Trucks outnumber people and cars by a factor of twenty to one.
3. Stores close early because they can’t find people to work.
4. Drunk drivers roam the streets at 10am.
5. Getting a Tim Hortons coffee in the morning lineup takes an hour!