A Record-Tying Week, Day Two

Having so much fun really makes the time fly by. It was already Wednesday, Day Two of our week, and already I was anticipating lots of stops and good times. We left Portland around 9:00 AM towards Seattle-Tacoma Airport, better known as SEATAC. Although I've been to Seattle countless times and love it more every visit, I had never landed at this airport. We usually go to Renton or Boeing Field, which I flew over on our approach to SEATAC. We also flew right over downtown Seattle, which I passionately love. SEATAC is insane. What an awesome airport! It's where all the big traffic flies, and we were right there for all the action! I could watch airplanes all day and not get bored.

Nerd Alert!

After just a few short hours in Seattle, and a delicious and healthy lunch at Roasters, we were on our way north to Canada. Clearing Customs in Canada is a completely different story than trying to come back into the States. These folks don't even come to the airplane to see our passports. We simply call them on the phone, verify there were no changes to what was filed with them, and then write down an entry number for our logbook. Pretty simple, right? Soon, we were unloading passengers at the Esso Avitat FBO. I pulled up the rental car for them and sent them on their way. Then I tried to take a nap and failed when we started making plans for our next trip. The decision was made to visit an island. And why not?

Big Boss wanted to go a little further west to Victoria Island. He wanted to land at an airport called Nanaimo, which prohibits flights at night unless one is familiar to the airport thanks to some astounding mountains all around the runway. The FBO would be closed by the time we got there, so we had to take enough fuel from Vancouver to make our later flight into Edmonton. Since we certainly didn't qualify as familiar with the area, we gave Big Boss a time limit of when he had to be back so we could take off before dark. While they were gone for a few hours, we waited inside the passenger terminal and watched some interesting Canadians. Later, though Big Boss showed up half an hour late, we still had enough light to get out of that mountainous terrain! Thank goodness it gets dark so late in the great north!

We were soon on our way to Edmonton for the night. We use the downtown airport to avoid a thirty-minute ride into town. The nice thing is that after landing around midnight, the hotel was just a few blocks away! I crashed, knowing an early morning was coming all too soon. After getting up that morning at 6:30 AM, bed sure felt good nineteen hours later!

Portland - Seattle/Tacoma - Vancouver - Nanaimo - Edmonton