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For this blog:

This blog is about our rail trip across Canada from Vancouver to Halifax with many stops in between.  After the rail trip we spent a few days in Pennsylvania,New York, and New Jersey looking for fall color, with limited success. 

Please do read through this blog for our narrative and the related photos.  

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More (category) Albums:   Photos, not in the blog, that fit a certain category.  Same reason as above.  They open in a new window. 

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October 3 - Vancouver BC

We arrived in Vancouver on Monday, Oct 1 but have been spending our time working on photos from previous trips, sorting through documents for upcoming trips and in general working.  It is pretty cool here compared to Greece, where it was hot and humid. 

Today we transferred from our hotel to the tour hotel and met Jim and Phyllis Bratt, who are joining us on this leg of our travels.  We had a nice dinner out, as part of the tour, at the Cactus Club Café right on the water.  The food was very good and the views were phenomenal.

We are doing the rail trip as part of a tour.  However, it isn’t really a tour per se.  We are basically doing independent travel.  They booked everything for us but we had to find our way to and from the restaurant (no tour bus with a mob of tourists).  But the restaurant had our names so no money changed hands (at least not today).

October 4 - Vancouver BC and Stanley Park, Canada

Today we took a taxi to Stanley Park to catch the Talking Trees walking tour.  Our guide was Alfonso, a member of one of the First Nations tribes here in the Vancouver area.  He took us on a relatively short walk through a forested area of the park.  He shared a lot of information on the area, the tribal customs and cultures, the impact of the white settlers on the indigenous peoples of the area and the work that is being done to restore the culture, language and customs of the people.

It was a heartwarming and sobering talk. 

On a lighter note, he brought his native drum and sang two songs for us (very good voice) and later shared some black licorice and blueberry tea with us.  It was actually very good.

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Watch video of a chant.
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This area of the park was very natural and forested...

with a large beaver pond.

We caught the city bus back into town and decided to eat at the Cactus Club again as it was good food and very convenient.  Then it was a walk back to the hotel (not too far) and an afternoon of working on photos.  Paul finished the blog on two very old trips, Southeast Asia (2016) and Indian Ocean/Ladakh (2017).  It is so good to have those done and off the list.

We had dinner at a Thai restaurant across the street and then came back to the room to repack.  We leave very early in the morning to catch the train.

We had a great sunset out of our window tonight.

October 5 - Vancouver to Kamloops

We caught our bus to the train station at 6:45 am (way too early).  The train station was stuffed with people.  Turns out that 712 people are riding the Rocky Mountaineer today. 

They certainly are doing this operation up well.  We were greeted with Champagne and juice, a pianist was playing at a grand piano in the middle of the station and we were welcomed with a bagpiper who piped us aboard the train.  

And as we were leaving the station all of the Rocky Mountaineer staff were out lining the tracks to wave us on our way.  There must have been 30 or 40 or more of them standing in the rain waving.

Unfortunately it was a bit rainy and definitely overcast.  We didn’t really have any sun all day.  However, the ride through the Fraser Valley and then the Thompson Valley was just beautiful.  

We passed some interesting old churches.

We are in a dome car so we have lots of windows to see all of the high mountains around.  They car also had an observation deck so that you could go out onto it to take pictures without having reflections from the windows.  Of course, it was pretty cold and windy out there so we didn’t spend a lot of time on the deck. 

Often we were going around curves and we could see the train ahead of us and behind us... 

and trains on other tracks.

There were a number of bridges we saw (but didn't go over most of them).

There were interesting (colorful) rock walls along the way...

One area had avalanche sheds over the tracks.

There were beautiful stretches of river...

and even a waterfall.

We spent a lot of time in the dining room of the car.  They had two seatings for breakfast.  We were in the second seating so they brought around cinnamon scones with butter and jam so we wouldn’t starve.  When it was our turn to eat we had a full, to order breakfast.

Since we were in the second seating for breakfast they then brought around cheese and fruit to keep us from starving while the first group had lunch.  Because of the snacks no one was really hungry for either breakfast or lunch…but we ate anyway.  By the time we arrived in Kamloops we were so full that we decided to not bother with dinner.  Of course, when we arrived at the hotel they had fresh baked chocolate chip cookies so we had those for dinner.

We arrived at Kamloops at about 5:30, which is earlier than they usually arrive.  We were greeted by all of the staff waving to us and also by mounted police.  Such royal treatment.

Since we didn’t go out tonight for dinner we were able to get through most of the photos from this trip so far so we aren’t too far behind.

October 6– Kamloops to Banff

Today started very early again and a bit dreary with low clouds.  Fortunately it cleared up reasonably early and we had beautiful clear blue skies most of the day.  

We had rode through some farmland

We followed six rivers as made our way east to Banff.

One of the rivers had a large number of logs in it, being stored or moved, we weren't sure.  

We also passed a number of lakes...

and a waterfall (the trained also slowed for this so that we had a better chance to get a picture.

Along the way we passed Doris waving to the train.  She does this each time it goes by.  How does she know when the train is approaching?  Her dog barks, but only for the Rocky Mountaineer.  Three years ago Doris and her husband were given tickets to ride the train.  The company flew the to Vancouver and upgraded them to gold status.  Some of the off-duty crew drove to her home, stood on the porch and waved to the train-and Doris.  She was thrilled!

The train slowed as we went through Craigellachi, where the last spike was laid for the Canadian Pacific Rail Line.

The higher we went the more mountains we saw, many with snow.

The closer we got to Banff the more spectacular became the lakes and snow covered mountains.

Some passengers were dropped of at the train station in Lake Louise.  They said that this train station was the one used in the film Dr. Zivago.  It looked pretty much like it had in the movie but we were too close to get a picture.  

They slowed down again so that we could photograph the marker at the Continental Divide. 

At this point the snow was getting much thicker, making for a winter wonderland.

We saw a herd of elk just prior to arrival i Banff but it was too dark to get any pictures.  

When we arrived at Banff we were met at the train by a representative from our hotel who gave us our room keys.  Our luggage was waiting for us in our rooms. 

We had dinner in the lounge and then called it a night.  

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More photos from the Rocky Mountaineer
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