The Joys Of Winter Travel Or Have We Left Yet?...

As a Canadian, it is my primal right to complain about the weather, and being able to complain not only about the weather, but travelling and weather is the perfect storm.

One of the joys of living on the East Coast is that there is always weather to complain about - we are on the frequent flyer plan of most of the weather that heads this way - storms blowing their way across Canada have this lovely way of connecting with storms sliding up the Atlantic Coast of the the U.S. and holding family reunions over our heads. Not so bad in the summer, just some great bouts of rain and the occasional hurricane, but it is in winter when we truly get to exercise our weather complaining genes - bad weather and travel together - who could ask for anything more?

Now travel, particularly air travel, and particularly this time of year, can be an adventure in Canada. For the purposes of the airlines, Toronto is the center of the universe (this is not an acknowledgement on my part of this fact, just an explanation of the airlines reality), so if the Pearson International Airport is storm-stayed, then air travel across the country is affected. This past week, Pearson has been a mess due to a swath of storms blowing their way through Ontario. On top of that Vancouver has gotten snow and cold tempeartures causing delays there too (and introducing residents of the Wet Coast to the frozen variety of their normal weather), so the result was all sorts of delays - and boy is that good for the real official Canadian sport - weather complaining. I made it here to Ottawa for the Holidays, but even then there were delays because planes couldn't get from Toronto to Halifax to fly other places (and two hours after I landed in Ottawa a storm blew through paralyzing air travel in Eastern Canada). Speaking to friens travelling later during the day, the delays set in and the complaining began...

The other main travel types in Canada are car and train - car is an adventure due to road conditions, and well, rail travel just isn't what it used to be - so that means you meet most of the happiest complaining Canadians in airports across the country - like one of my co-workers who finally got to their warm-weather Christmas destination after three days of trying to get to Toronto, or the family from Vancouver who spent 5 days flying home to Maritimes - the good news is they all eventually made it to where they were going, complaining all the way...

So wherever you are this Holiday Season, or wherever you are going, may you travel safe, and warm, and with only enough complaint to satisfy your Canadian constitution. I know it's not terribly Canadian, but here's hoping your travel is delay and complaint-free and that you and yours have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

P.S. I sort of cheated - the picture is from "White Juan" the blizzard that hit Halifax in 2004...