My regular readers are familiar with this theme that runs through many of my posts – for those who are new I am talking about “When Things Don’t Go as Planned, or “WTDGAP.” Every trip I have taken has had a number of these “mishaps” – and they are often the funniest and most memorable moments. I think the powers that be sprinkle these in as a reminder to take a deep breath and go with the flow and more often than not things will work themselves out – if not you have a funny story to tell. I will share some of my favorites after concluding my Canadian Rockies posts. For now here are a few WTDGAP moments from my most recent journey.
1 – LIGHTS OUT! A few days before the tour was to start, I received a call from one of the travel company’s agents. She began by saying, based on the information she was going to give me, I would be perfectly within my rights to cancel the trip and receive a full refund. Okay, this sounds ominous. She then tells me that between Tour Days 4 -5, during our Jasper stay, the lodge needed to perform some critical maintenance to its electrical system. As such, from 11P through 6A, we would have no lights, nor hot water.
My reaction? I started to laugh. THIS was the dilemma? I have been on many trips where, without “warning” lights etc went out without warning – when you are in remote areas this is always a possibility. In addition, this planned outage was to occur during the night where I would be sleeping – so outside of not having air conditioning/fan to cool things off, to be this was no biggie, I was going to receive a complete refund for a day’s stay, plus a generous stipend to spend at the lodge. In addition, with the warning I was able to prepare by packing a flashlight plus a 2 portable small fans that could charged on my travel charger.
To give you a sense of our surroundings, the Fairmont Jasper Lodge is actually a sprawling and quite scenic grounds on which many lodges and cabins nestle along the lake with sweeping views of the Rockies. Our lodge was typical, compact but with all the necessities and a lovely backyard to have cocktails and picnic meals while watching the local elk mosey by:
Before the evening of the “blackout” we also received a care package from the lodge – one water bottle (a bit odd since there was two of us )and I think a bottle of Purell. Most importantly there was this Lantern:
This was any old lantern, it was a multipurpose marvel!!!! It was very compact and had handles for bathroom breaks:
Not only was the lantern chargeable, it contained ports to attach our electronic appliances.:
and a charging platform for a phone:
Thanks Lenore for the pics, taken post trip.
As advised, we opened the front and back doors of our lodge – with screen doors of course – to cool the rooms before we went to sleep. We also put the exiting fans of the ceiling and desktop at high speed for as long as the electricity was on so the rooms were quite comfortable overnight.
All in all still an enormous upgrade from sleeping outside in a tent!
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PS. We did learn that the credit and extra spending cash idea did not originate from the lodge, nor the travel company. One of our fellow travelers lodged a very strong complaint when first learning of the predicament and with quite valid concerns and shrewd negotiations obtained the results of a day’s credit and extra cash. Thank you!!!!!!
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