Acrophobia

On our last day in the Rockies, we undertook our shortest day trip yet, to Banff. It is far and away the largest tourist-trap I've ever seen. And I've seen Niagara Falls. We took a wrong turn and wound up in a construction zone where a friendly flagger was kind enough to point us in the right direction and recommend a scenic drive. Although I didn't find anything in Banff that wasn't scenic.

Much to our surprise, the gondola at Sulpher Mountain was still operating (take that, shoulder season!) so Deborah and Neil grabbed a coffee...

and rode to the top while Veronica and I sat in the car and tried not to look as their cable car swayed in the breeze. 

It's a twenty-minute ride (round trip) and there's a scenic lookout at the top with a gift shop and a restaurant. There was also a wooden boardwalk that led to another peak but since it was snowing and windy, they opted not to attempt the hike. Also, Deborah is a doofus and wore her sandals. 

Outside the mountaintop gift shop there was a very lonely dog who looked eerily like Fera.

Next our excursion took us past a scenic waterfall, where we stopped to marvel at the breathtaking views and tourist stupidity. 

On our way out, Veronica spotted what we thought was a deer standing grazing right on the shoulder of the road. We stopped, rolled down the windows and took tons of pictures. It paid no attention to us whatsoever; just continued eating the grass. Later, Bryan informed us it was an elk. Although, when we got home there was much debate over whether it is an elk or caribou. Feel free to weigh in.

We, in fact, found a whole herd and took a million pictures. Smart tourists that we are.

After a quick stop for some Beaver Tails, we headed back to the condo for the night. 

Stupid Jasper

The next day, our plan was to hit the Columbia Glacier on our way to Jasper. At the entrance to the Glacier National Park, we were told that the glacier was closed for the season (?) and that they had snow on the road. We decided not to risk getting slushy and headed instead for the tip of British Columbia (Kootenay region).

After some fairly endless driving and some pretty spectacular mountainous roller coastering, we arrived in Golden, where learned the term 'shoulder season'. We tried to learn the origins of this term but can only assume it refers to the shrugging that occurs when they tell us that everything is closed. From Golden we headed through more mountains toward Revelstoke stopping at Kicking Horse Pass.

By this point it was raining and quite cold and as it was still 'shoulder season' very little was open. Neil and Deborah visited the local fire department and museum and we proceeding on a very long drive back to Canmore. Everyone was a little punchy as we passed back through Golden, so we tried to feed various members of our mormon family to the vast quantity of roadside bears statues.

Beautiful! Gorgeous! Wish you were here...

This was our view on the first morning in Canmore and to say our reaction was stunned is an understatement. Rachel has never been west of Sarnia and while I've been in the Rockies before, it was on the western side and not quite so surrounded!

We spent most of the first day exploring Lake Louise which has vistas that are barfingly breathtaking. 

While the husbands were shopping for booze and tacky souvenirs, Rachel and Veronica stayed in the car. They were laughing at a particularly fat crow that was aggressively following pedestrians in pursuit of food but the crow obviously heard them because he then decided to perch on the passenger side mirror and tap on the window. Which Rachel found hilarious but Veronica did not.

Rachel rolled up the window but Veronica wanted to drive away. Rachel wanted to wait until the husbands came back from shopping to see how they handled a menacing crow but Veronica chickened out and drove around to a different spot. The crow, however, was not to be so easily dissuaded. He followed the car from spot to spot tormenting Veronica at every turn, much to Rachel's delight. It was quite the afternoon's entertainment.

Enough with the prairies, already!

South of Calgary we plummeted into the Alberta badlands. The earth fell away suddenly, leaving Deborah feeling like she was sitting in the front car of a roller coaster. Layers of sedimentary rock rose on both sides of a long, narrow canyon. It was a breathtaking place to run out of gas.

Just shy of Drumheller, AB is the ye olde mining town of East Coulee, which the residents informed us is now mostly a filming location for western movies. Jim, the kindly proprietor of an antique store, rustled us up a gallon of gasoline and we were back on our way.

We skirted around the outer edge of Calgary just as the sun was going down and made it to Canmore eight hours after leaving Saskatoon. When we checked into our hotel, we were stunned by the swank factor of our 2-bedroom, 2 bathroom luxury condo, which features a full kitchen with a dishwasher and even laundry facilities. After a long day in the car, we picked up burgers from a local brew pub, played a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity and collapsed into our respective beds. All the while unaware of what lay right outside our bedroom windows...

The Mormon Honeymoon

We arrived in Saskatoon finally! Around 11 last night we were finally reunited with the remainder of our Mormon family.

We should probably explain... 

It's really just that Neil and Rachel have been friends for a long time and talked about doing a quickie Vegas wedding so they could use their spousal work leave. When he began dating Veronica, it was often a joke that Rae was his first wife.

Neil and Veronica got married two years ago and this trip was intended as their honeymoon. Since Neil is bringing three women with him on his honeymoon, it became known as The Mormon Honeymoon. That makes Rae wife #1 and Veronica is wife #2.

The exciting news for today is that I've been promoted from Wife #3 to Husband #2. My helpfulness in carrying luggage and packing the car apparently resulted in this slight bump in status. I'm excited because it means I get to sit in the front seat.

We are about halfway between Saskatoon and Calgary. The great big skies are blowing my mind!

A few words about the food...

Mmmm. This is delicious.

So here is the way that meals work on the train; breakfast is served between 6:30-8:30 first come first serve while lunch and dinner you need a reservation for one of two time slots. 

Each meal contains four options for the main course. At breakfast there was a different specialty ommelette and pancake each day as well as a continental and trans-continental option. Tea, coffee and juice were provided at all meals. Breakfast came out in record time and was well worth getting up that early.

At lunch there was generally a sammich, a salad, a vegetarian option and a seafood option. It also came with a soup and dessert.

Rachel's lunch (below) is turkey and bacon open faced sandwich with spinach, Brie and apple on ciabatta.

Dinner seemed to be a much more formal affair with a starter (soup or salad), four coices between lamb, beef, fish and a pasta. They served alcohol at dinner (at a reasonable price with a decent selection) and included a dessert as well.

I tried to get a picture of Rachel's dinner (above) but it was too delicious and she couldn't wait and began eating!

I had a delicious four cheese pasta with zucchini and red peppers.

Also, as a side note, the inbound train from Vancouver hit a herd of cattle so the running joke all night was that dinner was catch of the day, beef au jus.

Rachel would like it pointed out that there is a vast difference between economy and sleeper class, even when it comes to the coffee.

Generally we were very pleased with the meals, however, it was very interesting how they put you at a table with strangers to make polite chitty-chat during the meals. We met lots of terribly interesting people, one loud jackass and one bitchcake.

Sheila

We had a strange-ish and funny experience in Winnipeg. Somewhere in the vast metropolis is my Doppleganger, a VIARail employee named Sheila. No less than four time while we were stopped there, I was mistaken by strangers for this person. It even resulted in a special greeting by the new staff who boarded in Winnipeg and a heartfelt hug from the Grand Poobah of train travel (I'm pretty sure that's what his name tag said). When Rachel pointed out the mistaken identity (I was gonna milk it), we all had a good laugh and then the staff (and Rae) proceeded to call me Sheila for the rest of the trip.

Finally out of Ontario!

After more than 28 hours of continuous train travel, we finally broke free of the bounds of Ontario and hurtled into Winnipeg station. The station proper smells like hot, wet garbage. We went outside to escape the sweltering stench and explore the Frank Ghery-looking building to the south. Our dad directed us this morning to visit some weird bridge his engineering firm designed and it was sure there, alright. We resisted the urge to cover it in oddly specific graffiti. See, Eli, that's how that's done. Even though I had a sharpie in my purse, I didn't write my name all over the bridge. Or my sister's face. We also checked out the Railway History Museum (which consists of two old guys with a model train set) and got some souvenirs for the train afficionados in our family. Only ten more hours to Saskatoon!

I'm on a train!

Aside from a one-way trip home to Toronto from Montreal avec mon ami Gregoire (and Pickles, may god rest his kitty soul) about 20 years ago, this is the first time I've ever been on a train.

All my prior long-distance travel has been on planes so I was expecting a similar experience: narrow aisles, cramped seats and dry, recirculated air. I'm pleased to report that I could not have been more wrong!

Rail cars are much more spacious than I'd anticipated and Deborah and I are lucky enough to have our section of the sleeper car to ourselves. Which is a good thing since the train was more than an hour late picking us up and we boarded at 4am. So we were free to spaz around and fling our luggage all over the top bunk. We both have lower berths right across the aisle from each other, which means there was a lot of excited whispering.

We tried to grab a few hours' sleep right off the bat but we weren't accustomed to the sway and noise of the train. This is an aspect I don't want to downplay. This train honks A LOT. My apologies to everyone in northern Ontario who lives near the railroad tracks. The constant shimmy is vaguely reminiscent of Deborah and Bryan's smartie-blue Jeep Cherokee; a sensation only Becca and the ghost of Dakota can ever truly appreciate.

The pace of train travel is not for the faint of heart. We've honestly spent more time stopped waiting for freight trains to pass than we have rolling. To compensate for which, we alternately hurtle at alarming speeds through the gaps in the CN/CP schedule. If you're not in a hurry, then I highly recommend train travel. Unfortunately, we are in a hurry to get to Saskatoon before Sister Wife #2 implodes from sheer excitement.

Day 1

Since we were still awake, we walked back three cars to the dining car for breakfast. 

We were one of the first tables so we are quickly and walked back to our car. Rae and I sat in the third bunk area and chatted, took pictures, did some writing and crocheted. 

The cell reception is spotty; really only available in the mid-sized towns we stop in so anytime our phones make any noise we both dive for them to see if we have a signal. We stopped for a spell in Gogama and I had enough juice to call home and talk to the kids. Abby told me the house had already descended into chaos (her words) without me. I'm sure she's just trying to make me feel better.

We went for lunch and sat with some other women travelling on the train; one of whom turned out to be the onboard entertainment! 

After lunch we ventured the entire length of the train to the rear domed lounge where I took some pictures and then headed back. Rae went for a nap so I went to check out the entertainment.

All aboard!

It was a long cold night waiting at the train station in Parry Sound. We arrived at 2:00 am and immediately unloaded our gear onto the platform but quickly determined that there was no way we could stand around in the wind for any length of time. So back to the car for an endless game of "Do you hear that?" "Is that the train?" for a full two hours. We were even fooled once into jumping out but alas, it was only a freight train. Finally, the train arrived and we boarded. Rae and I have our section of the car all to ourselves!!! There are three sets of bunks in our area which means that as long as no one else gets on, we might be able to leave our beds down for the day.

Seeing how it was now past 4am, we ditched our baggage and immediately tried for sleep. 

But this is way too exciting to sleep!

I lay there drifting in and out to the rumble of the train for a while but when I felt it start to slow, I gave up on sleep and sat up. It wasn't light enough outside to see anything but my phone's map says we are just outside Sudbury. 

They said that breakfast starts at 6:30 so we might as well stay up now and eat before we try once more to sleep!

The Final Countdown

Countdown: 17 hours and 45 minutes!

Okay. I'm packed. Now comes the hardest part; waiting this last seventeen hours!

Also, I hope that song is stuck in your head. You're welcome.

Banff or Bust?

So since we've started planning this trip, Banff has experienced a poisoned lake killing the frog population, forest fires and two earthquakes. One as recent as this morning.  Albeit more of a gentle wiggle as Twitter user Beth Allan (@adolwyn) put it. At this rate, Banff just might be a smoking hole in the ground by the time we get there. We'll still drive there and take pics of said smoking hole in the ground. It's not about the destination but how and who you get there with. Specifically my wives.

Counting down to the Mormon Honeymoon,

Brother Neil

Panic Time!

Countdown: 2 days, 14 hours and 56 minutes left.

Wait. What?

But I'm not ready. I'm not packed. My house is in chaos. I'm sure I'm forgetting everything.

What do I need to remember?

I may not be prepared but come hell or high water (the high water is probable) I will be getting on that train. I just may have to buy some undies somewhere along the way.

Practice makes perfect...

Countdown: 3 days, 4 hours  and 23 minutes left...

I'm sitting in the Emergency department. I've been sitting, standing and pacing in the same 12 square feet for the last 9ish hours. 

I figure it's a good rehearsal; not only for staying up all night to get on and off the train but good for trying to maintain my sanity in close quarters with strangers!

Ditching the family...

Countdown: 4 days, 10 hours and 39 minutes until train time!

Let me start by saying that I'm already nervous about leaving the real husband and children at home while I go on a cross-country trip. Not that the husband can't handle it; he can. He's just not as used to it as I am.

The little one provided a nice example this morning.

He's never been a good sleeper. But as I was rousing him to get him up and dressed for school this morning, I noticed he didn't quite look right.  And then I noticed the hair all over his pillow.

He must have gotten up in the night, snuck out to the kitchen to fetch the scissors and then returned to his bed to complete his haircut.

It's hard to tell from the picture because he really REALLY didn't want me to take a picture but he cut off half his bangs on the front and nearly scalped himself above his ear.

If this were an isolated incident, I wouldn't be so worried.

Wait, why am I worrying?

*wipes hands clean*

Countdown

9 days 11 hours and 41 minutes

GULP!!

Suddenly feeling intimidated at the thought of contributing to a blog alongside the prolific Comrie Sister wives.
I shall give it a go.

(Clears throat)

Soooooo... do you like stuff?

Vee.

I predict this trip will be positively Simpsonic!

Expect many blog posts like this one:

Last entry: I have mountaineered to the utmost but the peak is unclimbable. Worse still, that treacherous skunk Neil Ruskay stole my oxygen and tried to eat my left arm. Tell my remaining sister-wives that my last thoughts were of them...blinding and torturing Neil Ruskay. Cheerio.

All of a sudden the trip is real...

Well, third time is a charm. After two failed attempts, Rae and I are finally making out trek out to visit the Prairie folk (aka Neil and Veronica).

After a lengthy conference call - which sounds way more professional than it was - we have all our nonsensical ducks in a row and ready to start shooting!

So here is the spot where we can write about our trip. And force everyone else to read about it.