Since the check-in of a tandem takes a little longer, we decided to be in Geneva already at the opening time of 04:00, as stated on the Internet. Unfortunately, the check-in started only at 04:30, but we were fortunately the first in the queue, so that the long duration of the check-in (including payment of the tandem) of 45min led to no time problems. Fortunately, the tandem was only charged as a normal bike.

On the long flight from Frankfurt to Houston we were amazed about the good food of Lufthansa. Unfortunately the onboard entertainment system of the new A380 was very poor compared to the one of the Air NZ flight to New Zealand 2009/2010.

The entry into the USA worked very well. Before checking in our luggage again, we had to reinforce the tandem box and the luggage bags with tape, as they had already suffered massively. Afterwards we had the boarding card for the flight to Edmonton issued, which took a relatively long time, because not all data had been copied during a data transfer.

When we finally sat in the plane, we had to wait almost an hour for the departure, because some feeder flights were delayed. For us this was a great luck, because one of our luggage bags was loaded just before departure...

In Edmonton, all of our bags were at the special baggage counter. There we noticed that the late loaded luggage bag had lost all its stickers and had a rush tag with name and flight number attached. The airport staff was apparently still able to determine the destination airport in time, as each bag in our luggage bag had a handwritten label with names and flight numbers. Lucky us...

In front of the airport, our reserved large-capacity cab was already waiting. But the driver wanted to load our tandem only after a long discussion, although we had announced the dimensions in advance.

Afterwards we were able to enjoy a short night in the hotel and thus recharge our batteries for the next challenges. In the morning we were charged for the overnight stay from the deposited credit card, although we had paid it in advance via the travel agency. Since we could not solve the problem in the discussion at the reception, we turned to the hotline of the travel agency, where we were assured that they would take care of the problem. So a few days later we received an email from the travel agency that the hotel would refund the charge.

On what must have been the most expensive 1.5km cab ride of our lives, we were taken to the train station where we had to reinforce our luggage packs again. The luggage check-in went smoothly again and the tandem was transported cheaper than expected.

Then, with more than an hour's delay (in Canada, freight traffic has priority), our train set off in the direction of Jasper.

In the historic looking, very comfortable, train we enjoyed the journey through long forests and had breakfast in the dining car.

When we arrived in Jasper in the afternoon, we successfully assembled tandem and trailer. Only the rear brake disc gave us a lot of work when bending back into shape, because this was bent during transport (next time we will dismantle it).