Tuesday, June 27:

  Left home at 6:15 a.m., heading for the SLU parking garage to leave our car. After taking the Metro, we arrived at the Northwest ticket counter and were told we could take an earlier flight to St. Paul/Minneapolis than the 10:30 a.m. flight from St. Louis we were scheduled to take. We arrived at the Twin Cities by 10:30 a.m., spending several leisurely hours till our scheduled departure at 1:10 p.m. After a late boarding, our plane was on the taxiway, second in line for takeoff, when the pilot shut down an engine, reporting a generator problem with our number two engine. After returning to the terminal and repairs being made, we left for Winnipeg two hours behind schedule. Since we had a seven hour scheduled layover in Winnipeg, having it reduced to five hours created no problems. We even decided to risk using a city bus to get from the airport to Winnipeg's VIA Rail station, saving some $12 - $13 in the process. Successfully got there, got our RailPass implemented and got tickets for our trip to Churchill. After a bit of browsing in the craft booths at the station and with supper of cheeseburgers and french fries and shakes from the nearby "famous?" V.J's Drive-in (walk-through), we passed the time till our departure at 9:55 p.m.
  Since the train was less than half-filled, after a few minutes of watching the scenery, we leaned back our seats, took off our shoes, put our feet on the seats facing us (a technique everyone was doing - in some cases with the help of the conductor who turned some seats around to make this possible) and drifted off to sleep.

Wednesday, June 28:

  After a fitful night's sleep, we awoke to a misty, gloomy day as the train rolled northward. Had a pleasant breakfast in the dining car, including a most accommodating waiter who, in response tour inquiries as to the type of small grain grown in the area, inquired and reported later that it was durham wheat.
  Had a very intensive chat with a 29-year-old young man across the aisle who is from Vancouver. He indicated he is in the music business, arranging gigs from instrumental music groups. He is also a Kung Fu instructor with a third level black belt. He also shared with us his ideas about child motivation, religious indoctrination, capital punishment, privatization of public education, sightseeing on Vancouver Island and on the physical versus spiritual nature of a human being.
  Lunch on the train, then during a forty-five minute afternoon stop at The Pas, I went for a brief walk through the town, discovered a Dairy Queen and returned with two Buster Bars to share with Celia who had not joined me for the pleasant, albeit rainy walk into The Pas.
  Supper on the train, followed by a seventy-five minute rest stop an hour or so later at Thompson, giving me a chance to walk to that town (about a mile) find a Safeway grocery and return with apricot juice, apples and bananas. The train population virtually doubled at that stop, making the travel much more cramped. However, an hour or so later around dusk (11 p.m.), the crowd got off, leaving us with our two seats a piece again and a chance for more comfortable sleep.

Thursday, June 29:

  Although the train was supposed to arrive at Churchill at 8:20 a.m. this morning, we had gradually gotten "behinder and behinder" so that we arrived at 10:30 a.m., after 36 hours on the train. It was interesting to see the changes in the terrain as we traveled northward, with trees becoming shorted, eventually mostly shrubs, but with an abundance of wild flowers as we got close to Churchill - one kind must have been some kind of lichens because it looked as if someone had scattered a thin layer of fresh sawdust over the landscape, except for the pools of water in the predominantly marshy, swampy-looking terrain.
  Walked four blocks from the Churchill train station to our hotel, the Tundra Inn, had lunch at a bakery/coffee shop a few blocks away - except for the residential area, the entire town is located in a four by six block area. On the way back to our motel, we eye-balled the stores we planned to visit later. Then took a brief catch-up nap in our hotel room.
  Went for a shopping expedition in the grocery/hardware/souvenir store and got some goodies for our hotel room refrigerator - a regular size refrigerator, not a dinky one as one often finds in a motel/hotel. Then to the Church Motel restaurant down the street for supper. After a few hours of (satellite) cable TV in our room, we turned in and got a good night's sleep.

Friday, June 30:

  After an all-you-can-eat breakfast at the Tundra Restaurant across the street we rested a bit, then boarded a bus to be taken to a boat for a "whale tour" by Sea North Tours. We were then taken by the jet-powered boat up the river and out into the Hudson Bay for a three hour cruise. We dodged small ice floes, saw seals on larger ice floes, watched arctic gulls flying hither and yon and watch beluga whales cavorting about. For a while, the boat motor was turned off and a sensitive microphone put in the water so we could hear the whales communicating with each other.
  A bus ride back to town, some snacks, a brief nap in our hotel room and we set out to visit the Eskimo museum. It was informative, interesting and well done. Then several hours of browsing for souvenirs and it was time for supper at Gypsy's Bakery. We explored a couple of more stores after supper before relaxing for a few hours of TV in our room.

Saturday, July 1:

  Today, we had to check out of the hotel by 11 a.m., but we were also scheduled to take a four to five hour tour of the town and surrounding area. We were scheduled to leave Churchill at 9 p.m. on the train. The hotel was very accommodating - we would check out before leaving on our bus tour; leave our luggage in the hotel (but not in our room), and we would have access to the hotel lounge area all day before and after our bus tour. Some people come to Churchill on the morning train, take the tour, and leave that evening, so everything is keyed to the arrival of "the train". Thus the bus tour starts about 20 minutes after the train arrives, whenever that is. The train was scheduled to arrive at 8:20 a.m., but did in fact not arrive until 10:40 a.m., so the tour commenced about 11 a.m.
  At Cape Merry outside of town, we saw the location of a store battery that had been built in 1746 by Hudson's Bay Company to provide extra protection for Port Prince of Wales across the Churchill River. Nearby we saw a red fox; in the water we saw some beluga whales. The tour bus stopped at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Churchill which had its "written" origin in 1619. Its physical structure has been renewed and moved several times in its history. Our driver stopped at one point, dug down over a foot under the spongy top soil to expose the permafrost layer that underlies the Churchill region. We stopped at Gypsy's Bakery for lunch.
  Out of town again, we stopped at the Polar Bear Jail, where any trespassing polar bears are housed during the early winter season until the Hudson Bay freezes over and the bears can proceed on the ice northward to go seal hunting. We viewed the rocket range that was used for a number of years, then was discontinued, and now possibly being reactivated for the launching of weather satellites. Saw the Churchill Airport with its long two-mile runways authorized for emergency use by commercial jetliners flying between the U. S. and Europe. We saw century-old trees just a few feet tall along with other effects of weather on the plant life in the area.
  After the tour, which ended about four o'clock, we spent time in the motel lounge getting acquainted with three other people who had been on the tour, had stayed in our hotel and were leaving Churchill on the evening train. One was a U.S. government geologist who had spent many years in Albuquerque, the other two were a father/son combination from Saskatoon, who were making the trip to Churchill simply to experience it, since there was talk that part of the rail line from Winnipeg to Churchill would soon be abandoned. After supper, and after leaving the hotel to go to the train station, our "group" got larger - we met a man who had been professor of music at Missouri Southern in Joplin.
  The train finally left Churchill at 11 p.m.

Sunday, July 2:

  After a sitting-up night, we spent a day of watching the scenery go by and chatting with the almost intimate group of folk on the train we had gotten to know. While chatting with the professor of music about the relationship of math to music, we were overheard by a lady in the coach, who joined the conversation - she plays oboe, violin and has been a music teacher in Churchill for some years.
  We learned that some of the sleeping car accommodations would be vacated after leaving the town of Thompson and decided that being able to sleep in a bed would be worth the extra charge. It all worked out well, so by 4 p.m., we had our own "bedroom" with toilet and sink facilities and two beds (the beds being installed/lowered at our request about 8 p.m.
  Thus ended another day on the train.

Monday, July 3:

  We both woke comfortably after a night of sleeping horizontally. After breakfast in our dining car, we moved our luggage and ourselves to a coach and sat back to watch the scenery go by. Saw extensive sunshine for the first time since leaving Winnipeg. Saw may large fields growing mustard and canola.
  We arrived in Winnipeg and walked the two blocks to our Fort Garry Hotel, an "old style" luxury hotel, complete with gaming casino. After checking in, I followed one of the jogging routes that Celia had found outlined in some of the hotel literature in the hotel room. The 2.25 mile walk gave me a chance to see and get accustomed to the neighborhood. After lunch at a very nice but inexpensive restaurant that I had encountered along the way (not only was the food good and reasonable in price, but they give a 25% discount to seniors over 60), we explored some shopping "centers" in the area. Most were closed because of the "Monday" celebration of last Saturday's July 1 occurrence of Canada Day. Called the local "Gray LIne" and reserve a three-hour "City Tour" for tomorrow morning. Relaxed with an evening of TV in our room.

Tuesday, July 4:

  The double-decker Gray Line bus picked us up at our hotel at 8:20 a.m., then on to other hotels to pickup tour customers. It was a thorough city tour, covering its geography, its history, its people and its problems. After what turned out to be a four hour tour we were returned to our hotel. While Celia rested, I walked to the Winnipeg campus of the University of Manitoba about a mile and a half away from our hotel and was able to obtain Internet access there and check my Saint Louis University e-mail. Since Thor now has an e-mail account, I sent him a note, as well as one to Nichole.
  Upon my return to Hotel Garry, Celia and I left to explore at length "Portage Place", a mile-long trendy shopping center and office/residential complex, linked by heated sky-bridges to virtually every major down-town building.
  Supper at our restaurant catering to "seniors' concluded a busy day.

Wednesday, July 5:

  With a light drizzle this morning, we spent s leisurely morning repacking, watching TV and getting info on places to go this afternoon. We checked out of the hotel before the mandatory hour of noon and stored our luggage in a locker at the train station. We walked to "The Forks", a commercial development build on the land formerly used by the railroads near the VIA station. Visited one building with lots of small shops(crafts, food, jewelry, clothing from a variety of countries).
  Also visited a children's train museum where youngsters of all ages could walk through all cars of a train; youngsters could operate all a(dummy) gadgets and devices from walkie-talkies to engine controls, from sorting mail in the mail car to serving food in the dining car.
  We also visited a children's dinosaur museum with lots of realistic moving critters.
  Back to the train station for supper and then, at 6:35 p.m., boarding the train for Jasper. The train was very crowded - Celia and I were not able to share the same pair of seats till after 11 p.m. Even then, there was no chance to take off our shoes and stretch out over an opposite-facing pair of seats since the train had few empty seats.

Thursday, July 6:

  Morning dawned with the train rolling along per usual. The landscape changed from very flat, large, Kansas-type fields to occasional Missouri-type terrain. One out-of-the-ordinary occurrence: As we were approaching Edmonton this morning, we came to a halt and were told we had to stop for a while because a train ahead of us had broken down. After a delay of a half hour, we were on out way.
  We arrived at Jasper about 3 p.m., walked to the Lobstick Lodge where our splendiferous "room" was waiting for us - actually a bit more than a room. Upon opening the door you see a table and six chairs, a day bed (for grandchildren?), TV, closet behind the door, four-burner stove, sink, refrigerator, microwave, wall and base cabinets stocked with lots of cooking and eating utensils. Then walking through a "hallway", the bathroom door is to the right while another storage area for luggage and hanging clothes is to the left. Walking through the rest of the hallway leads to the bedroom with two queen beds, another TV, phone and assorted chairs, tables and lamps.
  After relaxing in the room a bit we spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool and spa.
  Supper, our most expensive so far, in the motel restaurant.

Friday, July 7:

  After an all-you-can-eat breakfast of strawberries, melons, bacon, scrambled eggs, orange juice and muffins from the breakfast buffet, I went for my three mile walk through the main street of Jasper. After more watching TV and admiring the scenery around Jasper, we killed time till our bus to Banff was to pick us up at 1:05 p.m., that is, we checked out, lounged around in the main lobby and had lunch.
  The bus ride from Jasper to Banff was scenic, to say the least. (the first 140 miles on the Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Lake Louise and 35 more miles from Lake Louise to Banff) with with mountain peaks, mountain passes, a number of glaciers viewable from the road, and animals such as elk a couple of times and even a bear jam where all traffic stopped to watch some black bears frolicking on the road embankment. The bus dropped us off at our Siding 29 motel.
  Having tired of $18 a person hotel meals, we walked the half a cozen or so blocks to the downtown Banff area and had supper at a Dairy Queen. We browsed at the stores in the almost continuous row of tourist/souvenir shops on the way back to our motel, arriving at 10:30 p.m. and ready for sleep.

Saturday, July 8:

  Up early for breakfast at McDonalds, about a half mile or so from our motel. We were serenaded part of the way there by a noisy large black bird flying around the neighborhood. After getting back to our motel, I walked to the bus depot to buy our tickets for a tour for tomorrow to return us to Jasper. That done, we browsed in the shops in downtown Banff till noon (except for some periods of sitting on street-side benches and watching the tourists, and a bit of time when we went to purchase a bear puppet that Celia said was still calling to her ever since she had seen it the day before in one of the shops). A very cosmopolitan group of tourists - in any five minute period you are likely to hear French, German, Japanese and English, with occasional Spanish and Korean thrown in. Although not tourists, three elk were grazing on the Banff High School campus when we were walking past that area, about a quarter of a mile from downtown Banff.
  After our lunch, back to our motel for an hour or so in the spa and pool. We had a lot of trouble understanding the language of a young man who joined us in the pool, It wasn't that he was speaking a foreign language - he was speaking "rapid British".
  After a comfortable afternoon nap, we took a leisurely meandering walk downtown for supper at McDonalds, then back to our motel for a evening of TV.

Sunday, July 9:

  After a 6:30 a.m. breakfast at McDonalds we were packed, checked out, and ready by 7:50 a.m. to be picked up at our Siding 29 motel (Siding 29 was the railroad's name of what eventually became Banff) by the tour bus. I have never quite gotten used to being picked up (and dropped off) by a 50+ seat tour bus at a motel with the bus winding its way into parking lots I wouldn't have wanted to enter with our mini motor home years ago. This tour went from Banff to Jasper. We stopped at Lake Louis for an hour and made shorter stops at a variety of places to view mountains, waterfalls, mountain valleys and even for unusual animals (animals such as elk are "usual" and can be found running free all over the place, we learned). Other animals sighted include dozens of (shedding) mountain goats, a full-grown black bear with a cub (actually not very far from one bunch of goats).
  Coming into Jasper we saw a herd of elk, some even crossing the road and causing traffic to stop. On the edge of Jasper we saw a mule deer crossing the highway. A Columbia ground squirrel and chipmunks were sighted at the Athabasca Falls area. We saw a large noisy black bird of the kind we had noticed in Banff - which our bus driver said was a kind of crow.
  One of the highlights of the day was a side trip on a 54-passenger ($500,000) snowmobile onto the Athabasca Glacier. The ride on the "Snow Coach" with its 42" by 66" tires included hills with 32 degree slope and a chance to get out and walk on that glacier, a part of the Columbia ice field.
  The Lobstick Lodge gave us the same room we had had before, as we had requested. An after supper session in the spa concluded a very active day.

Monday, July 10:

  Breakfast was busier than usual at the Lobstick. It seems that a Japanese tour group was there and was going on the train to Vancouver, as we were. After breakfast, TV watching in our rooms, while outside it rained harder than any day on our trip thus far.
  Next, checkout at 11 a.m. and taken to the train station by Lobstick personnel where we checked our luggage in a storage locker. Browsing in downtown Jasper shops took up the time from 11:30 to 2:30 - )the rain had died down to a light intermittent drizzle by then) with lunch at the A&W across the street from the train station.
  Boarded the train, along with a mob of others after several conflicting instructions from train officials:"All persons newly boarding the train should board: wait and board this car"; Five minutes later from another,"You can't board this car-go to that car"; later, lowering the steps to the car,"Only passengers who were already on the train when it arrived in Jasper may board here - others go to that car over there"; upon arrival to that car, we were sent one car farther before being allowed to board.
  The train left only slightly behind schedule (3:30 p.m.) and we soon made up for lost time. About 9 p.m. the train slowed perceptibly (as it often did when coming to a stop) but proceeded on at the constant slower rate for a minute or so. We soon realized why as we passed a spectacular waterfall coming down the mountainside just yards away from our passing train, with a rainbow formed in the falling water by the rays of the setting sum.
  And so to sleep.

Tuesday, July 11:

  Since the train was to arrive in Vancouver at 8:30 a.m., only a continental breakfast was available. From the VAncouver station, we called Avis, were picked up and taken to their downtown location, where we got a rental car and headed for the ferry to Vancouver Island, about 20 miles out in the Vancouver suburbs. Boarded the ferry (the Spirit of British Columbia, which can carry 470 cars and 2100 passengers) with no problem and enjoyed a late brunch during the 90 minute trip from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. After landing and driving 35-40 miles, we found the Swallow Hill Farm by 2 p.m. (actually Celia found it by recognizing the house from the picture of it in the brochure we had received and by verifying the number and name on the mail box - the public road did not have any "name" signs identifying the road.)
  The man who came to the door said his wife wasn't home - the room wasn't ready and wouldn't be till after 4 p.m. We proceeded to find a shopping center in a town a few miles back and spent time till 5 p.m., had supper in the shopping center and then returned to our bed and breakfast hosts.
  The woman was very gracious, showed us our room, where we settled in and proceeded to relax for the rest of the evening, enjoying the gentle breeze and the Pacific Ocean (actually the Strait of Juan de Fuca, leading into the Pacific) out our Swallows Nest window.

Wednesday, July 12:

  Had breakfast at 8 in the dining room of our "Bed and breakfast" hosts. Chatted extensively with our hostess about public education (she taught elementary school in earlier years), about family heritage (the area around our B&B location was settled by Norwegians) and even talked about the fire siren at the local volunteer fire department station that had awakened us all at 4 a.m.
  About 10 a.m., we left for downtown Victoria (about a 35 mile drive) to visit the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Royal British Columbia Museum. The mobs of people wanting to view it reminded us of Disneyland (zigzagging rows of people following the guide ropes to buy tickets). We got tickets for the museum before 11 a.m., but they were valid for the Genghis Khan portion only at noon (they were controlling the mob by letting only a certain number in each hour). We spent the intervening time looking at other exhibits - one a very impressive life-size reconstruction of a wooly mammoth. The guards were very kind to us and let us enter the Genghis Khan exhibit twenty minutes early. It was also very impressive with artifacts dating not only back to his time, around the end of the first millennium but also artifacts dating to several hundred years B.C. (or B.C.E., as they say now).
  Then on to the Butchart Gardens, the largest collection of plants and flowers impeccably designed and maintained that I had ever seen, with waterfalls and fountains. It included a Japanese garden, a sunken garden, a rose garden, an Italian garden as well as the inevitable gift and souvenir shop. Stopped for supper at a Dairy Queen on the way home and decided to celebrate by taking home a TREATZZA Pizza. We finished it before bedtime - it was delicious!

Thursday, July 13:

  Breakfast as usual at 8 a.m. Another family had "checked in" the previous evening and was there for breakfast at 8:30. Leisurely leave-taking at 9, traveling along the now-familiar outskirts of Victoria and then to the ferry some 30 miles north. We were one of the last six of several hundred cars to make the 10 a.m. ferry. AFter ninety minutes, disembarked at the dock south of VAncouver and drove to our Ramada Inn in Vancouver. Decided to drop off our rental car a day early (at the Avis location next to the hotel). A late lunch in the hotel dining room at 2 p.m., and lounging time and TV the rest of the afternoon and evening, except for supper. Made reservations for a city tour tomorrow morning. Since the Gray LIne tour wouldn't pick us up here, we chose Landsea Tours, LTD, who were more accommodating.

Friday, July 14:

  Breakfast at a local A&W at 7. The Landsea bus picked us up at 8:30 a.m. and gave us a thorough tour of sections of Vancouver, including Gastown, Chinatown, Stanley Park, Vancouver harbor, a high fashion shopping area, Granville Island Public Market, Bloedel Floral Conservatory, and other points of interest. An especially intriguing spot was a large blacktopped with "roads" wide enough for tricycles and pedal cars painted on it with regular, but miniature stop signs, and traffic lights at intersections with patrol officers on hand helping to train youngsters.
  Two people whom we met on the tour were Abraham and Joan Eisenstark from Columbia, Missouri. Dr. Eisenstark is a microbiologist serving as director of the Cancer Research Center there.
  After lunch at the A&W and supper at a Wendy's, with a leisurely afternoon in between, we spend a short evening watching TV in our room, asked the motel desk for a wake-up call for 4 a.m., set two alarm clocks ourselves, and turned in early, in light of our 7 a.m. flight from Vancouver to St. Paul/Minneapolis in the morning.

Saturday, July 15:

  Woke a bit earlier than planned, so that by the time our wake-up call came from the hotel, we were dressed and about ready to go. Hotel check-out went without a hitch, as did the taxi ride to the airport. Although we had less than an hour layover scheduled in Minnesota, that turned out to be more than adequate as the plane was on time all the way and we arrived in St. Louis almost exactly at 2:42 p.m. as planned. The ride on the Metro to the Saint Louis University parking garage and our drive home were also uneventful, ending a very different and interesting vacation.
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