Travel to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
June 1-7, 2015
I arrived at Jacksonville International airport around 4 PM. Parked my car in the Economy Parking Lot 1 and took the airport shuttle to get to the JAX airport. Then my Delta flight to Minneapolis-StPaul left Jacksonville airport around 6:30 PM EDT and scheduled to arrive at MSP at 8:40 PM CDT. The flight was about 3 hours long and it was okay flight. Due to summer there was sunlight as we landed in Minneapolis-StPaul. I had to run to new terminal to catch my next flight to Saskatoon, SK. My next flight was from completely in a different part of the terminal so I ran from F terminal to C terminal and there was only about an hour time and I had to have something to eat. I grabbed some sandwich at the C terminal and soon boarded flight to YXE. The flight was 2 hours long and arrived at Saskatoon, SK around 11 PM. I had to go through both immigration and customs. Since it was a small airport there were only two agents and by the time everything was over, it was almost 11:40 PM MDT. Unfortunately neither of my cell phones worked (T-Mobile prepaid and Mobal International). So I tried to log into Gmail. That got rejected because I was logging in from Saskatoon far away from home. So not wanting wait I took a taxi and went to Ogle Hall at the University of Saskatchewan campus. The ride was quick and costed ~C$22.
The next morning my old prepaid quad band T-Mobile cell phone (poor the clam shell flip phone) worked. That saved my trip. The texting on it was bad but worked. Once I arrived at Canadian Light Source, I was able to log into Gmail by typing in the secure phone number.
I arrived at Saskatoon International airport around 3:15 AM using a taxi cab and it cost ~C$25. Since it was so early there was no one at the Delta counter. Then around 4 AM people came and I checked my luggage and got the boarding pass. The Starbucks opened around 4:00 AM too and got coffee and waited at the gate.
We boarded the plane on time around 5:50 AM but never took off for another hour or so as the pilot needed to get some clearance from the ground and main office due to some problem with a light. Finally we arrived at Minneapolis-St Paul almost one hour late. The Delta people requested that those who had connecting flight to leave early. At MSP, I had to go through both immigration and customs. Fortunately, the Automated Passport Control (APS) and the airport helped me finish the process quickly. Then I had to wait for the luggage to arrive and cleared through customs and rechecked the bag. Fortunately, again the my gate was literally next to the plane from Canada. I then arrived at ATL around 1 PM. My final flight to Jacksonville was at 3 PM and that arrived at JAX by 4 PM. I was surprised to see my luggage make it all the way from Minneapolis especially when it took a long time before everyone had collected their luggage.
I paid for the parking fee and headed home and arrived by 8 PM.
