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Vancouver to Edmonton

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 24 December 2021

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So a couple of days away from work - I'll come back to that in another post - and I'm ready to head to Edmonton for Xmas. It's been a long time. And my flight - a WestJet ticket out of Abbottsford, I'm regretting the "deal" - (!!NOT) I got on the ticket when I realize I have to spend another $50.00 and 2 hours on the bus. 

Meh. The day is largely given over to travel, a few trifles before I leave, I'd planned to get some 'shrooms from one of the dispensaries around town, but they're too obviously packaged, there's no subtlety whatsoever. I compromise and get myself a gram of "African Goliath", fill in the required "Medical Disclosures" - essentially for medical reasons & not recreation - and far be it for me to enjoy myself - and I'm off to the Station to catch my discounted flight ($650? TO Edmonton? Are you PAYING ME BECAUSE IF YOU ARE $650 ISN"T FUCKING ENOUGH!!!!)

But nope...

Anyways, a rainy day, waiting to get on the bus and then waiting to get on my flight to Edmonton and then waiting to land in Edmonton...

Only, get to Abbotsford and I can't seem to find my flight. Where's my flight? Chill. Don't worry. Notice that I'm not commenting on the Abbottsford International Airport - or countless hectares of rainy parking lot, filled to the brim with cars. I mean...

Another time...

So, can't see my flight, wait for the "Departures" screen to clear and load the next screen. Grab a coke, Grab some twizzlers, wait. Go for a smoke. Wait.

And, weird, it's like - this Abbottsford International Airport - the "Departures"  screen doesn't update...

And checking my ticket - trying to find what's up, searching for it, for the flight, and -....

FUCK I'm departing VANCOUVER. YVR. "WHERE IS YVR??" I ask someone - but, maybe, not "asked" so much as pleaded or shouted and shook them in a panicked and insane realization...

Then a mad dash into the rainy evening again and hail a $200 cab into the Vancouver International Airport. 

$250 spent on the nighttime tour of Abbottsford. Burn it down I say.

And how - how exactly - did I come to understand I was leaving from Abbottsford? I have no clue, only that from the moment I booked my ticket I was 100% sure I was leaving through Abbottsford, and - take this as a lesson for life - 99% of our certainties are most certainly wrong. Hang on to only 1 % - let the rest go - because - well, you need an anchor someplace or you'll go insane - and when you've found new certainties let the old anchor go as well and drop a new one in better harbors. 

So, finally, 5 hours and $250 later and I'm at YBR, smoking, getting ready to get on my flight, take my "African Goliath" mushroom - 1 gram, a microdose, and head through security. 

Chatting with the daughter, who tells me not to grab a glass of wine inside - "It's OverPRICED" she tells me, and - this microdose - whew - wow- the colors are great and I'm feeling the release of waves of anxiety and I'm gonna grab a glass of wine, even if it is overpriced. And - it is. $24.00 for a glass of what I was pretty sure was Jackson Triggs. $24.00 and tip option on the machine that starts: "18 - 20 - 25%", and - fucking hell, I don't have to say it. She should have told me the price, not that it was "OverPriced", maybe phrased it more as "Would you prefer a Jeep or this Glass of Wine", at which case I would have made a better decision...

This takes my mushroom glow off in a hurry, but it comes back when I wander away from the bar and eat a chocolate bar. Also overpriced but not $24.00 overpriced. Fucking amazing. 

And - definitely not a tripping dose, but a hell of a lot more than a microdose. 

Finally, plane is late, board plane, cram-packed, full to the brim, a late departure - but a mere hour and 7 minutes to Edmonton. I mean the flight. The whole fucking journey, well, that was an Odyssey, an ordeal, but it seems I can't go anywhere lately without it turning into a shit-show of one sort or another, so - relative to all other adventures this ones a trifle, I'm glad I'm here, warm, and a few days away to pray the weather relents before I head down to Nelson.