Aldergrove Only A Short Drive Away

Thursday March 14th 2013

Going through Immigration in Canada was a breeze compared to Los Angeles. We collected our bags and made our way to car rental where we collected out Toyota Venza SUV (equivalent to a Lexus). We waited for Sue and Cassie to also collect their car before we headed out in the hope of making it to Aldergrove before the traffic got bad. Apparently this happens at 2pm.

We pulled out of the airport and knew right away it was not going to be easy as the GPS kept reading that we were still in St Agnes....not much help when in Vancouver. It was pouring with rain and all we had to go by way a crude map and directions from the car rental lady - Highway 99, Highway 10 and Highway 1.

Despite our best efforts the GPS would not work. Neither would our mobile phones with Global Sim cards. Unfortunately we lost Sue and Cassie somewhere on Highway 99. Eventually we pulled into a service station and were finally able to get the GPS to recognise we were in Canada. From there it was a reasonably straight forward, albeit a little terrifying, drive to Aldergrove. The only thing we kept hoping was that David had programmed Sue's GPS correctly.

We arrived at the hotel just before the bus carrying the team (thankfully Sue and Cassie arrived safely a few minutes later). We had enough time to check in and to meet Connor's amazing host family, Jan and Michelle Kristensen (and their 3 sons, Darrien 16, Jake, 14 and Trey 8). Once Connor arrived there was time for a brief goodbye before he headed off with Michelle and Jan. We had a quiet dinner in the hotel restaurant, White Spot, where David got to try some of the local brew before we headed up to the room to watch the Canucks game and tried to stave off jet lag for as long as possible. Needless to say it wasn't long before we were all out cold.