Day 3 of July

Well I thought I better get a blog up here before I start getting those "little" hints.
Well I can now cross off another item on my 50 list - "Visit the Canada East Coast". And what a visit it was.

Today I am just going to talk about my train journey..... Actually one step before that was the Greyhound journey from Calgary to Edmonton. I didn't realize I had actually signed up for the milk run, but we did a short stop over in Olds and Wetaskawin. At the Calgary bus station, I met two young men; about the same age; but totally opposite in every other way. The first young man was a recent University graduate from ------ Nova Scotia. He had flown out to Alberta, all by himself, and was on his way to Jasper to go climbing. This was his reward for finishing school, and to give him time to think on what and where he would do his future schooling. He was a civil engineer and wanted to pursue a carreer in robotics. The second gentleman, was from Okotoks (sort of); had just got kicked out of his mothers home, because he informed his Dad that his mother was having an affair; he was off to Wetaskiwin to stay with his girlfriend. Two interesting young men - both with a tough journey.
So I'm on the wonderful Greyhound, and I sit next to a young girl; maybe 21 or 22ish. Poor thing. She had headphones in, and I must have interrupted her several different times. She finally just put the once head phone in. Thankfully I remembered to apologize and tried not to start any more conversations with her.
Once in Edmonton, I grabbed a cab and headed to the train station. I was a little early, but that gave me enough time to ask alot of questions and get some writing and reading done.
We finally boarded our train around 11:45 pm. The porter showed me how to make out the bed and as soon as she left; I was changed and in my bed. I don't think I slept much the first night, because I was so excited. I wanted to stay awake until the train left the station. And even then it seemed to take forever to get out of the station. I slept with my curtain open so I could watch the "darkness". I missed most of it.
I won't go into every nook and detail of the trip. And in this blog I'll just talk about the actual train ride itself. I ate my first breakfast in the dining car; but because breakfast is not a big meal for me, I ate the rest of the breakfasts in the dome car, with a juice and muffin and taking in the few from up high. Dinning car was two cars ahead of mine. For the first couple of days there were two sittings for lunch and supper, but after Winnipeg, there was three sittings. That must mean they picked up many more people in Winnipeg. You had to chose which sitting you wanted, and you usually sat with different people each time. The meals were amazing; and just the right amount, so you had room for dessert. There was a games room, but it was closer to the front of the train and i never did venture that far. My room had a bed, chair, toilet, sink and a little storage space up top. There were common showers on each of the trains; but I didn't take advantage of those either - just a quick wash up in the room. (hopefully trees can't talk).
That was the details up to Toronto. For those that think this would be wonderful to do - it would and there is currently a great sale on. For a two bed sleeping car from Edmonton to Toronto, they have a couple of cars left at around $350.00.
Next Blog I'll talk about the people on my train to Toronto.
Stacey