No need to rush this morning, with a 2pm flight we have plenty of time to do whatever we want. Which of course is go to the gym here for the final time, close up the suitcases and impatiently hang out a bit until we can’t stand it any longer and leave before check out time.  Since we have hours to kill, we decide to visit the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, located right on the Winnipeg airport grounds.  Why not?  We’ll be right there, we can easily spend an hour our two before heading to check in.

We get the car all packed and head out.  Unfortunately, Google Maps has different ideas as to where the museum is located.  We’ve scoped it out and it is right on airport property, as in, drive through the airport, past the terminal to the museum.  Nope.  Google takes us all the way around the airport and into some warehouses at the back of the property. Sigh.  Really?  Sometimes those maps are the pits.

Correcting the Google error, we just head directly to the airport and easily find the museum and the parking lot, right where we thought.  Problem solved along with the extra time we have.  A great way to spend the time too – tons of airplanes, lots of explanation about how Winnipeg became a major air transport hub (located at the longitudinal center of North America, major crossroads for people and goods traveling across the continent) and tons of history.

Ed is in his glory, especially trying his hand as a fighter pilot in the Voodoo bomber!

There is also a fantastic video documentary on the Ghost of Charron Lake – a Fokker Universal that was forced to land on the frozen surface of Charron Lake in 1931 during a storm.  The plane broke through tice and sank to its wings, but the pilot and engineer managed to escape after recovering supplies and set up camp on the lakeshore. They were rescued by a Cree trapper and they returned safely to Winnipeg.  The plane remained frozen on the lake until spring when it sank, its location a mystery for more than 7 decades.  The Aviation Museum began hunting for the plane in 1974, not locating it until 2005 using sonar.  Divers discovered much of the plane’s structure was intact, the museum eventually cutting the wreck into pieces and raising it piece by piece to be reconstructed here.  Totally cool. 

Moving on, we reveled in all things airplane.  Touring through an old passenger plane, reading about how pilots fixed anything and everything with whatever they had on hand – fur or skins to make the floats watertight, sardine cans to patch the metal when it was punctured by rocks.  Crazy.  Even making a new bear friend – I so wanted to take him home!

Visit complete, we hop in the car, make the circuit around to the airport, get checked in, through security and are in the lounge enjoying beverages by noon.  Perfect timing. 

And then we are off, flying over the outskirts of Winnipeg, south over farmland and finally over Lake Michigan on our way to O’Hare. 

Lounge once again….for hours since we are delayed by 90 minutes, then finally onto our last flight of the trip, soaring off over the massive tangle of runways that is O’Hare and off into the sunset and Asheville.

We wrangle our bags out of the terminal and into the dumb shuttle (that is not bag friendly – AT ALL!) to get to the dumb ride share lot because the airport can’t possibly manage to do all their long-term construction and make things easier on their passengers. Sigh.  But, we do finally get our Lyft ride and arrive safely – if not really late – back home to relax a bit, inspect our loot (amazed that the suitcases closed) and then happily fall asleep in our own bed.  All is right in our world.