USA – On the Move – Flight to Washington, DC – Sept 3, 2024

Up early! Time to move onwards and that is to fly to Dulles Airport in Virginia, which is the major airport that serves Washington DC. Today we are flying to Dulles and then driving south west to Staunton, VA, our first overnight stop and where we are going to hopefully join the Blue Ridge Mountain drive south to Charlotte, NC via an overnight in Roanoke, VA.

To start, we filled up on yet another awesome buffet by the Westin and were off to Union Station where we would take the UP (that stands for Union station Pearson airport) train back to the airport to fly with Air Canada to the USA. This UP train, like our Canada Line, is a great service! In some ways it is better than the Canada Line as it only makes 2 stops, one at each TTC subway connection point prior to arriving at Union Station. The time takes about the same however it is a bit more expensive with $25 for a return ticket. As I am checking out accessibility when at these different airports, and in Canada the airport is to provide service from the curb (in this case the UP station) to the check-in for the airline, I emailed Air Canada as the website suggested that I do and you would never imagine what happened – no one showed up! It is a bit of a walk from the UP station to the Air Canada check-in for Transborder flights, however we made it! Also traveling with less luggage seems to help! As we are flying Business Class, we went to the Priority Line as I noticed several people already at/in the Special Services desk/area. Now, we are on vacation and so not wearing business attire – I believe, based on the response from the agent when we walked up, that he though we were in the wrong line. Low and behold – do not judge a book by its cover! We were in the right place. After getting checked in, we went through secuirty and up to the Maple Leaf lounge. Our flight was at 1:45pm and they told me at the lounge that I would be picked up in a wheelchair at 12:45pm no later. I thought that was awfully early and asked if I could just walk there and they said no – you are going by wheelchair and be at the desk at 12:45pm. I was able to charge some things and Andrew had his Guiness and cookies and we relaxed for about 2 hours prior to getting assistance getting to the flight. Now I know why they wanted me to take a wheelchair and they needed to leave an hour prior to the flight – that is a LONG walk to the gate! It is about twice the distance from the C gates to the last E gate at YVR. They have the wheelchair service really well set up though with a handoff point and various people able to push and rotate in and out. We got to our gate and then waited…. and waited…. and waited… at 1:30pm they explained that they were waiting on flight attendant for the flight and that it will not be long. Finally at 2:20pm we were able to board and we took off an hour late at 2:45pm. The captain did come on the overhead and welcomed us to the flight and indicated that the flight attendant on the inbound flight had gotten sick so they had to request a new one for this flight. Thus the delay. So off we fly to Washington, DC!

Very nice flight on a CanadaAir Regional Jet down to the DC area. We were also really lucky that Air Canada’s gates are in the main terminal so we did not have to take those lovely “transporters” with the fin on the back to look like a blunt plane, to get to the other terminals. I understand now that there might be tunnels below the tarmac to allow people to walk between the terminals like in Chicago between B and C terminals.

After we got our luggage and I had an enchanting experience with a IAD volunteer who should probably not be volunteering as he gave me incorrect directions, we were off to get our rental car from Avis. It was SO NICE of Avis to “upgrade” us from the small SUV like a Rav4 that I had booked to a humongous black SUV – so large I would have problems getting into it and Andrew refused to drive it. So back to the priority book to downgrade. Now we are in a nice Chevy SUV that works just perfectly and is a breeze to drive. Now, off to Staunton we go! As the flight was late and it was now 5pm we had to miss the activity I had planned for when we arrived which is an aviation museum that is next to Dulles airport and while part of the Smithsonian system of museums, some people say that it is better than the one in downtown Washington DC, which I find hard to believe as I LOVE the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum! The drive to Staunton took us about 90 minutes and we were easily able to avoid the toll roads which is good as Virginia now has tollbooth free (so electronic) toll lanes which car rental companies charge you very dearly to use (toll plus $7.00 EACH TIME) unless you are at a tolling station with a person where you can pay. Google Maps makes it easy to avoid toll roads it seems so we gave it a try and worked on our way to Staunton!

The drive we made to Staunton – avoiding tolls the whole way!

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