“Your prompt for January 19th, 2018, brought to you by my dear friend and fellow Canadian, Kerry, is “Darkness.” Use it any way you’d like in your post. And make sure you visit Kerry at her blog, “Her Headache,” to read her post and say hi! Here’s her link:  https://kkherheadache.wordpress.com/” (https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/19/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-19th-2018/)  These Jots are not only my 500-words a day challenge, but also part of my  Ultimate Blogging Challenge challenge (http://ultimateblogchallenge.com).

Darkness

Darkness.  Darkness was what it was this morning when I left the house to walk down to the Harbour Air terminal in the Inner Harbour to catch my plane to Vancouver.

Darkness was what the city was still enveloped in when I reached the terminal.  Daylight Savings time, you know.  Well, not so much Daylight Savings time as Winter.  I mean, even if we didn’t change time, 7:00 am would still be dark at this time of year.  It’s the end of the day being dark I object to.  Dark when you go to work, dark when you go home from work.  I can hardly wait for March!

Darkness is a state in which float planes do not fly.

Thus, the first plane out of the city at this time of year is at 8:00am, and the last plane coming back from Vancouver is 4:00pm.  Makes for a tight day.  But a much better (and cheaper) way to get from Victoria to Vancouver when you are having meetings, etc. downtown.  Other ways to get to Vancouver include driving all the way to the big airport and taking a jet to Richmond and finding a way (cab? Bus?) to downtown Vancouver (and then back again). Or driving to the ferry terminal, waiting in a ferry line, taking a ferry for an hour and a half to Tsawwassen and the finding your way to Vancouver (driving your car, taking a bus…) probably during rush hour, since you are going into Vancouver for a meeting.  Oh, and the first ferry leaves at 7:00 am, which mean you need to get to the terminal one-half hour before it leaves (pay extra for a reservation if you’re worried you will not get on if it’s too busy).  All that as opposed to me getting up and walking for 20 minutes from our house to the Harbour Air terminal, checking in 25 minutes in advance, then a 35-minute flight downtown Victoria to downtown Vancouver, then a quick walk to the meeting.  No driving, no parking.

Of course, this doesn’t work so well if you DO have to drive somewhere else in Vancouver.  So then, the ferry is a better bet.  But anything I can do to avoid driving in Vancouver (especially in the rain, or in the Darkness) I will do!  Even flying.  On a small plane.  That is very bouncy when it’s rainy and windy (as it was today for part of the flight).

Anyway, we made it back uneventfully, and without anyone losing their lunch (as far as I could tell), gliding into our Inner Harbour, and parking smoothly at the dock.  I disembarked, once again without dropping my bags (or myself) into the water (those stairs are NARROW!!).  And, thus ended my adventure, in the Darkness once more. An adventure of flying on a float plane for the first time, from downtown Victoria to downtown Vancouver for a 6-hour meeting.  Commuting by plane, like some commute by car or by bus or by rail.