Bugging Out: Another Planes Trains and Automobiles Reprise

October 1, 2018

I'm falling into a pattern of using this headline for our travel day. Turns out we just missed having a remake of the movie.

Our drive to the airport in Calgary was uneventful. Light traffic and good road conditions. The check in was one of the quickest and easiest we’ve ever had, and even after I discovered that I had let my Nexus card expire, there was no queue at security so I really didn’t need my Nexus.
The only hiccup with the flights was a delay in Calgary to de-ice the plane – very unusual for 1 October – but we made up the time in flight and landed on schedule in Frankfurt. The connection to Geneva went off as planned and our bikes were there with us when we arrived on Tuesday afternoon. All good!
We spent the night in Geneva with Warm Showers hosts Maude and Ben Sauvin. They were tremendous hosts who have done some great tours of their own in SE and Central Asia. After being up for 30 hours it was great to finally get horizontal and get a good night's sleep.
Tomorrow we take the train to Andermatt through what promises to be pretty spectacular scenary, and on Thursday, we get on the bikes and start retracing these steps … under our own power.
So what’s all this business about just about remaking the movie? Well, when we got up this morning we were getting texts and emails from friends and family back in Canmore / Calgary. The plane de-icing was the precursor to a MAJOR snowstorm. While we were in the air, anywhere from 40 – 60 cm of snow fell on the Canmore area and we had friends who took 6.5 hours to get to Calgary (it’s a 1 hour drive). They were lucky. They made it. News reports were telling stories of people being stranded in their vehicles for over 13 hours on the Trans Canada highway.
Hope it melts before we get back. It’s sunny in Switzerland and we’re looking forward to the ride.

View from outside the house in Canmore before we left. By the time we landed in Geneva there was more than 30 cm of snow on the ground!

Building the bikes in Geneva - pretty quick and painless, seat, pedals, front fender and wheel, straighten handlebars ... good to go

Cool sculpture in front of a restaurant close to our Warm Showers host

Kirsten and Ben, one half our our wonderful warm showers hosts in Geneva

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