AC Planning to Get Us to Toronto Earlier

With plans for our EuroCrossing, the earliest of this year’s trips complete, today I turned my attention to the next international trip on the calendar — our Quark expedition to the High Arctic.

Coincidentally, I got an email from AC [Air Canada] today. You got it. A schedule change. But nothing major. Our new ETD has us flying out of DEN just 15 minutes earlier … and arriving at YYZ earlier by the same amount of time. These kinds of changes I don’t mind. We always give ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport anyway, so no change in our planned departure from the house.

With a Quark expedition, I don’t have a great deal of planning to do. They will take charge once we join the group. I’ll do some reading of articles on the Quark website that pertain to our itinerary … watch some video clips … read a couple of books about the Franklin Expedition. In fact, I just finished reading “Ice Ghosts,” which documents the various search efforts for the lost expedition … over a period of some 160+ years … concluding with the ones that found HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

Most of my research and planning will center on our pre-expedition days in Toronto. We already have a place to stay. So, my focus will be on figuring out places that are of interest to us and coming up with a loose plan of what to see and do. Unless advance-purchase admission is required, we’ll play it all by ear in Toronto. I will also check out local transportation options since we have pretty much decided against renting a car … unless, that is, I can find better rental rates. At the moment, $100+ per day seems a bit excessive to me.

On the COVID-19 front. Entry requirements for Canada have eased a bit. An antigen test taken the day before will now suffice. The requirements might ease again by July to remove the testing entirely 🤞🏻. I’ll look into all that in the weeks leading up to our departure.Read more