I told Dad...."all you have to do is get yourself to Ottawa, and let me take care of the rest"... so on March 14, 2003, my dad boarded a VIA train in Bathurst, bound for Ottawa. George and I decided to head out east of town just before his train arrived and catch the train as it sped into town so that I could start my picture gallery of his trip with a shot of his train. We in fact did manage to speed alongside the train for a while as it shot along at 150 km/hr (I was in the back seat taking pictures, and George was speeding just a wee bit...), freshly powdered snow billowing everywhere. The speeding train was, to me, a metaphor for our trip kicking off into high gear.
We managed to get to the train station just as my dad was walking into the lobby. He was coming off of a cold he had caught the week before and sounded quite horrible, but he was in good spirits and assured us that the effects were wearing off. It was off downtown for a quick bite to eat and the start of final planning for the trip. The next few days were spent packing and ensuring that nothing had been missed. Nothing worse than arriving at your destination and realizing that something is missing!
Clip of dad talking about when he last camped:
The time for the flight to Las Vegas soon arrived. As luck would have it, Mr. Bush had just issued his "ultimatum" to Iraq, and so we were pretty unsure of how our travel would go. Fortunately we would probably get down there before any war started. As it turned out, the screening was thorough, but we had no problems, and the flights went smoothly. Soon we were in vegas, slot machines chiming and clicking and clacking as soon as we disembarked off of the plane. Our rental vehicle turned out to be a 4WD vehicle, and I thought to myself that this might turn out to be useful to us in our travels.
We drove into our motel (my usual Motel 6 location at Koval & Flamingo) via Las Vegas blvd, so that I could give Dad and George the classic Las Vegas strip view. It is, after all, quite a sight, no matter what you think of the place.
