Happy New Year!

Hey everybody. Once again I'm falling behind with the blog but with the holidays now over I can devote some more time to it. As a brief update, I was able to return to Toronto for a week off over Xmas. It just so happened that I flew into Toronto on the day a big storm hit (Dec. 19th). I looked at the schedule and the forecasts and I thought I was safe because I was going to arrive after the storm. Well, this winter taught me that airlines run lean, mean, operations and delays in one part of the country have a domino effect everywhere else. With Toronto being a hub city for Air Canada, it's not surprising the winter storm had a ripple effect on the entire Air Canada network.

All my flights were delayed, which is actually good because it meant I could still catch all my connections. At the last connection point I was stuck in Montreal. It took an hour to leave the gate and make it to the runway. Toronto wasn't any better and it took an hour after landing to make it to the gate. By the time I got home it was 3 AM -- better late than cancelled!

I enjoyed my week back in Toronto. As expected, lots of Chinese food, catching up with friends and family, and a little bit of shopping. Not much in the way of big news from my family. My dad says he is going to return to China for a visit in April some time which is good news. He has also resigned himself to the fact that I'm not terribly interested in going with him (see previous post) and I'll have trouble scrounging up the vacation time to go for very long anyway. He has also hinted at an impending retirement from the rental apartment business which is also good news as well. He's definitely the sort of person who would have a hard time retiring.

Unfortunately, I can still sense that my parents are both having a hard time adjusting to me being in Newfoundland and I still think they're being somewhat irrational. My mom just worries excessively about whether I'm getting the basic necessities of life (you'd think I was living at the north pole). My dad worries about the same thing but he never fails in bringing up the inevitable topic of my marital status. I would write more but I promised to tone this down so I'll leave this topic for another day.

Fortunately my trip back was somewhat smoother except I was delayed by about an hour in Halifax because the flight crew for our flight was delayed. By the time I arrived in Deer Lake, had a bite to eat, and hit the road it was 8 pm. This was when I made my next mistake while driving in Newfoundland.

Usually, a tank of gas will just get me from Deer Lake to St. Anthony during the summer. In the winter and with a load of cargo it won't be enough so I usually have to plan my fuel stops. I usually don't fill up when I leave Deer Lake to minimize weight when going through the hills of Gros Morne and that's what I did this time. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that gas stations along the Viking Trail close no later than 9 pm. This is what happens when a city boy used to 24/7 gas stations starts driving down a remote highway in Newfoundland.

It was with a slowly increasing feeling of dread as I passed through every town and saw only closed gas stations. I made it about half way before the low gas warning light came on. Fortunately, I was in Hawkes Bay which had an Inn I could stay at. It was also getting late so I didn't complain too much about the $100 fee. The next morning I got up as soon as the gas station opened and I managed to get to St. Anthony 2 hours later. Lesson learned!