That's right, Columbus Days, not Columbus Day. Because my partner and I spent last week in Columbus, Ohio, visiting family who live there.
WARNING: Below the fold, this diary is photo-heavy.
ANOTHER WARNING: Some of the photos below depict wild animals in captivity, at the Columbus Zoo. I understand that zoos are not some people's cup of tea. View at your discretion.
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Please snack on an orange croissant while the pictures below the fold fly through the air.
Getting there
There's an old saying that getting there is half the fun. That saying dates back to before the annoyances of flying these days, and dealing with agencies such as TSA. And of course, Customs & Immigration which has always been with us.
The journey begins at our Canadian home base in Calgary. As our first flight of the day was scheduled for departure at 6:00AM, we were both up bright and early, and on the road to the airport by 4:00AM. Plenty of time to check in, go through security, and relax a bit with a coffee and bite to eat in the Air Canada lounge.
The drive to the airport is typically about 20 minutes, and is an easy trip especially at this early hour. About 5 minutes away from the airport, we were both startled by a loud "bang". What was that, we both said. Then Partner, who was driving, noticed a red displayed warning: tire air pressure. A few seconds later, we heard the scraping sound that can only mean we were driving on a rim. Yes, that tire had blown out, completely. Fortunately we are AMA members (Alberta Motor Association, an affiliate of CAA and also AAA). Partner made the call, and the dispatcher said he would place the service call on high priority, given that we needed to get to the airport. The AMA service tech arrived about 30 minutes later, and had the tire changed to the full-size spare within just a few minutes.
As it turned out, despite the delay, we got through check-in and security with still half an hour to spare before boarding. The airport load at that hour was very light.
Four hours and a bit later, our Airbus 319 landed at Toronto. The first leg was behind us. Now, not all of you reading this will know that several of the largest airports in Canada have U.S. Customs & Immigration clearance on site. What this means is that a special secure portion of the airport is staffed by employees of the U.S. agencies. For direct flights from here into the U.S., you pre-clear Customs before even getting on the plane. At that point, you are essentially considered to be in U.S. territory, even though you are still on the ground in Canada. This is a considerable convenience and time-saver, avoiding long lines to go through Customs upon landing at the destination airport. And it increases the number of U.S. airports that can be reached directly, as some of the smaller ones do not have Customs facilities to process incoming international flights. With pre-clearance, you arrive in the U.S. as if you were on a domestic flight.
Our first flight of the day, Calgary to Toronto, was purely a domestic flight within Canada. The second flight, Toronto to Columbus Ohio, goes through the U.S. pre-clearance process. In the old days, our luggage would be checked through to Toronto then Columbus, but we would have to physically handle it in Toronto. That is, pick up the luggage from a special "connections" area, and manually take it through U.S. Customs in Toronto, dropping it off again to be loaded on the plane.
Well now, they have implemented a new system that is supposed to streamline the connection process.
Here's the concept: instead of having to pick up your connecting luggage and take it with you through Customs, it is tracked digitally.
Step 1: In Toronto, you step up to a kiosk operated by U.S. Customs. Scan your passport into the automated kiosk, and confirm that this is you.
Step 2: Move along to a set of large monitors that will, eventually, show your name and destination. Wait there for your name to show up. There are several rows of chairs available.
Step 3: Go to the podium where a U.S. officer checks your passport and boarding pass for the next flight, and directs you to one of the checkpoint lines further inside the secure area. Here, another officer will scan your boarding pass, and show you a digital image on his monitor of your luggage. You confirm that is indeed yours, and you pass through.
A nice idea overall. Not having to grab your luggage and drag it around through various processes is a huge relief. Everything is linked together digitally from your initial check-in, the tags the check-in agent puts on your luggage, and your passport.
Damn, is it slow.
The whole area seems rather disorganized, starting with people lining up to use the Step 1 kiosks, which you must use. There are two banks of these, but one is semi-hidden behind the other, and people going there for the first time don't know there are more machines in behind. Long line-ups form at the first row, blocking people who even know about the second row from getting back there.
Then the signage directing you to Step 2 is not obvious enough. People join the line for Step 3 directly, snake their way through to the podium only to be told that they didn't check the monitors in Step 2 and have to go back there first. At the time we went though (noon-ish on a Saturday), there was just one single agent working that line, and it had backlogged quite deep. Then people side-lined back to Step 2, having gone through the Step 3 line once already, tried to jump back to the head of the Step 3 line. Some of them were successful; others were rebuked and routed to the back of the line all over again.
The concept is great. The implementation is shitty.
And I haven't even mentioned the TSA inspection process yet. Don't get me started.
Anyway, that second flight from Toronto to Columbus was on board a 37-seat propeller-driven Dash-8. Comedian Ron White might describe this thing as going half the speed of smell. It's so small you can't even get to it via jetway from the gate to the plane. You have to go outside, and cross the tarmac to the waiting plane, and drop your carry-on bag on a cart beside the plane. There's no room for carry-on bags, except for especially small ones, in the cabin. Fortunately the flight only lasts just over an hour. Good thing, as it was hot in there. Hot, hot, hot. We thought that perhaps when the plane got up to cruising height they would find some cooler air to pump into the cabin. We were wrong.
Being There
In Columbus, the family took us to lunch at The Thurman Cafe, famous for huge burgers. So huge, that the restaurant was featured on an episode of the teevee series Man V. Food, which is all about challenges for shovelling down mass quantities of (usually greasy, heavy) food.
Mind you, the burger I had was tasty, and not one of the largest. But the massive quantities served here are kind of obscene.
Some of the family lives in a rural setting outside the city. The have lots of natural plant life as well as planted vegetables. There are also visiting deer and other wildlife on the property.
Ohio State Fair
We went to the fair on its second day of being open. We arrived before 10AM, long before the crowds appeared, but it was already hot and humid.
There were lots of flowers scattered around the grounds.
What this vendor, in one of the pavilions, has is plenty of candies of every kind you can think of. What it didn't have at that time was customers.
If you went to a state fair and didn't see a horse or two, you'd probably feel like you missed something.
Fried this, fried that, fried every damn thing.
I understand that this is a thing. What I don't understand is why.
Columbus Zoo
On yet another sunny, hot, and humid day, we went to the world-famous Columbus Zoo. If you got this far and zoos aren't your thing, please scroll down quickly to the Tops. In any event, I'll start the tour with some vegetation.
Pretty birds!
Various wildlife, obviously not out in the wild.
And finally, snakes.
Going Home
A week after arriving in Columbus, we headed for home. The reverse trip again involved two flights: Columbus to Toronto, then Toronto to Calgary. By comparison to the inbound trip earlier, the outbound trip was a breeze.
Of course, there's no pre-clearance of Customs leaving the U.S. going back home. The walk from the Toronto tarmac where the Dash-8 shitbox deposits you, to the Canadian Customs hall, is about 16 miles (exaggerated slightly for effect). By the time we walked that distance, our luggage was just entering the carousel to be picked up. Yes the transfer of luggage to a domestic connecting flight at Toronto still requires you to actually pick up your luggage, take it through Customs, and drop it off on the connections conveyor belt.
But despite that manual bit of handling, the process is all digital, and much smoother than the U.S. operation within the same airport. We approached one of the many Canadian Customs kiosks together. As a same-sex couple, we are allowed to define us as a family by our government, because we say so. It's that easy. We scanned both of our passports into the same kiosk session, and got a single printed receipt. Give that receipt to the agent at the door leaving the Customs hall, and we're done. Fast, friendly (we didn't actually speak to anyone), and efficient. Now if they can just eliminate that step of having to handle your luggage in between flights.
Presto, we're home!