As has been previously mentioned, part of the joy of living in Rochester is the opportunity to leave for warmer climes and break up the winter. For this exact reason, we travel more in the winter than we do in the summer.
Traveling in the winter is not without its risks.
We were all set to go on our original itinerary, leaving on the 27th, until an email from United on the morning of the 26th informed us that, due to high winds and storms across the Midwest, we wouldn't be able to start our trip by connecting to San Francisco through Chicago. Instead, we were to be rebooked from Newark to Beijing in economy on Saturday, the 29th. This, as you can imagine, is unacceptable. Both of us have traveled from Newark to Delhi (about 15 hours) and lived to tell about it. It's no way to vacation. [First world problems disclaimer.]
While storms may slow down weak-willed airport staff in the United States, we happen to live 90 minutes from the border of more hearty Canada. Surely a little snow wouldn't slow down jumbo jets flying out of the metropolis of Toronto.
By luck and persistence (read: 2 hours on the phone with three different United Airlines agents, explaining their own rules to them), Adam was able to find two new award seats in business from Toronto to Shanghai and onward on the 27th. We would still get a morning in Singapore for durian pancakes. The only requirement was to drive to Toronto early that morning.
It snowed around 16 inches the night before our drive, beginning right when we rented a car for a one-way journey.
On the morning of the 27th, we awoke at 5:30 AM and began shoveling the driveway. The street had been plowed at some point during the night, but was still a little dicey. We had to clear the mound of snow where our driveway met the street.
At 6:45, after over an hour of shoveling and packing and switching out cars, we pulled out of our driveway and set off for Toronto (estimated travel time, according to Google: 3 hours). Our flight to Shanghai was scheduled for 12:35 PM.
We made it about 80 yards down the street before the car swerved into a snow bank. On Raleigh Street, where we live, about 20 yards short of Mount Hope Ave.
Spinning the wheels didn't work, either backward or forward. Our only option was to walk back down the street to our garage, get our shovels, and dig ourselves out.
We dug. The plow passed by. (Lesson: Don't be greedy. Just wait for the plow to return.) We dug some more.
At about 8:00, after 70 minutes of digging, we were able to free the car (a 2013 Nissan Versa with a higher wheel base than our Corolla). Adam ran down the street to return the shovels and close the garage.
We then proceeded down to the NY Thruway on incompletely-cleared roads. On the Thruway, Adam called United to see if we could rebook onto the Toronto-to-Beijing flight that left at 2 PM. Google Maps informed us we would miss our Shanghai flight. (Punchline: the flight on the 27th ended up leaving an hour late.)
No luck.
So we turned around, went back to Rochester, and re-scheduled two seats for the same Toronto-to-Shanghai flight on the 28th. We lost our planned morning in Singapore, and now are in the middle of a seven-hour layover in Bangkok. On the bright side, we switched from six to five and now to only three flights from Toronto to Vientiane.
On the 28th, we made it to Toronto without any problems.
We flew Air Canada in business class across the Pacific for 14 hours. The seat fully reclined and we had a window seat with direct aisle access and we were served options of real food. We would strictly prefer it over flying in economy anywhere.
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