Our Canadian Adventure: The long sky to PEI.

Hoorjay! We leave for Canada this morning at a refreshingly reasonable hour: 9:30am instead of the ungodly 5am that has been typical of our last few trips. Of course we knew this blessing in advance, which gave us the opportunity to negate it by not sleeping the night before. (Well, a few hours but they were not in a row.)

Another factor that takes the shine off our civilized departure time is the ridiculous length of our journey today. Originally, we carefully researched the cheapest flights that would also get us there the quickest, but an apparent downturn in ticket sales led to an ongoing consolidation of flights until we found ourselves shuffled to the latest possible departure from Detroit to Prince Edward Island, putting us in around midnight instead of our desired 8pm.

We start by puddle-jumping to Dallas, since the Little Rock Airport only actually serves three cities. We grab some grub at TGI Fridays. Very good potato skins and mozzarella sticks, but you should stay away from the boneless chicken wings in a burnt sour sauce. After a quick layover, we are off to Detroit where we will spend several unnecessary hours.

If you have to spend unnecessary hours in an airport, we suggest Detroit. It has the coolest tunnel connecting terminals we've ever seen. The walls are oyster-shell white and they glow with fluid, beautiful colors in time with catchy music. It would be tempting just to lie down in the middle of the tunnel and stare, but getting kicked in the face could detract from the magic.

We pass the time watching episodes of 30 Rock on Jacob's laptop. We barely hear our boarding call for Prince Edward Island over the screams of a half dozen children. Looking around the plane it seems to be mostly kids. Did they leave their adults at home? The screaming continues until we are in the air and then, as if in response to the sudden change in altitude, all the kids slump over unconscious. Works for us!

Finally, we arrive in Charlottetown, PEI. As is customary in 1980 and in Canada, we disembark directly onto the tarmac, sweet-smelling island air wafting over to greet us. A painless customs check and car-rental later, we are on our way into the mysterious darkness.

It takes us a bit of u-turning to find our motel, Rodd's Confederation Inn. When we finally do, Leighann is amused by the desk clerk's thick Canadian accent as he tells us "G'day!" and checks us in. He's a very friendly guy, sipping his coffee and answering our questions about money exchange. We drive several buildings over to find our room, and before turning in try to look up some local geography on the internet, only to be unable to find the advertised wireless connection. Jacob calls the desk clerk and asks, "Is there a trick to getting the wi-fi to work?" to which the man replies, "You can't get the wi-fi from that building. So, that's the trick."

Another episode of 30 Rock ("I want to go to there.") and we call it a day.