Ash Thursday

 Thursday, April 13, 2023

We have been looking forward to our return trip to Japan for a long time. Today the journey begins. A journey, let us say.

Libby picked us up at the dawn's early light and drove us to the airport. As we were unloading our bags from her car, a guy standing nearby told us the airport was shut down and all the flights were cancelled. An ash cloud from that volcano in Russia was the culprit.

No! No, no, no, no! 

We couldn't believe it. We wouldn't believe it. 

A volcano almost 2,000 miles away? How could this be happening?

We didn't know what to do. Should we wait at the airport? Should we go home? Should we call the airline(s) to re-book? Should we get in one of the quickly growing lines at the airport? What would we say when we reached the front of the line?Would it be possible to also re-book our flight from Vancouver to Tokyo?

We gradually calmed down. We gradually realized that no one at the airport had any way of knowing how long the flight stoppage would last. Then Ken looked at his phone and found out that we had already been re-booked, for Saturday. We had heard that other people were getting re-booked to Sunday, so maybe we should just take our losses and go home. Rumors were the only things flying at the moment.

We needed to get to Seattle, then a short hop to Vancouver. We would arrive too late for the daily (?) JAL flight to Tokyo, so the original plan was to spend the night in Vancouver and then fly to Tokyo the next day. The operative word here is "plan."

 

BOOM!

So much for plans.

Satellite image of Shiveluch volcano from April 12, published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on April 14 at https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-volcano-erupts-kamchatka/32363579.html

Today's color? Do you have to ashk?