M&M Frog take to the rails

 The final travel day for our Rocky Mountaineer train trip was to be a challenge for me as the route was identical to (albeit the reverse of) the first travel day.  We caught the bus to the train station at 7:30 am, as instructed. At 8 am we answered the “All Aboard” call and took our seats in car JA02. The intention was to ride from Kamloops, BC to Vancouver, completing the circuit through the Canadian Rockies. As for tonight’s blog I was reminded of what Mickey Rooney said about his honeymoon night the eighth time he got married: I know what to do but I don’t know how to make it exciting.  Sure there would be some new pictures, but it was the same set of rails between the same two points as before. Fear not! One thing I’ve heard repeatedly in the 30+ years I’ve known Scott and Bev (granted I’d often uttered the words myself) was that any trip with them will be an adventure!  A hint of what was to come came shortly after we were seated. It seems that a fire had brok...

 It appears that Alicia has gone to social media quicker than I’ve been able to respond to her request to tell the story. But, for what it’s worth… Alicia had been feeling “under the weather”, as they say, for the last couple days, culminating in a (very expensive) visit to the emergency room in Jasper, Alberta. I know my wife has a tendency to allow her mental state to derail her attitude when she doesn’t physically feel well. She wasn’t eating, she wasn’t drinking, she had a killer headache. In short she wasn’t drinking downright miserable. Because we were in Lake Louise at an elevation she was not used to I figured she needed and altitude attitude adjustment, something to cheer her up. While she was spending our entire “down day” (which had nothing at all to do with Canadian goose feathers) in bed, I wandered over to the Jasper National Park lodge and did some window shopping. When I spotted a flower shop downstairs I knew what needed to happen. Karen, who, if she isn’t the shop...

Our day started early. Not so early as to be burdensome, but early enough to pack luggage for pickup in our room shortly after we departed for the bus stop.  A 7:30 am  schedule had been predetermined. A brief ride into town culminated with our arrival at the Jasper (Alberta) train station, where the 14 pieces of equipment merged to form the Rocky Mountaineer, carrying 177 passengers (and our 40+ staff) to the town of Kamloops, BC. We passed through nearly endless stretches of trees, over river crossings, and along miles of mountainous backdrops. For much of the day we were crisscrossing the N. Thompson River, which eventually joined the Fraser River. Tomorrow we retrace the route to Vancouver. The journey today was one of tree-lined tracks, sweeping vistas and towering peaks, although we did stop briefly for a photo-op at a beautiful waterfall.  Our host, Ewen, has been exceptional, with his knowledge of the route (he says he has made this trip 750 times in the 19 years ...

 Wandered around the grounds at the Jasper Park Lodge this afternoon. Nothing extraordinary to report but thought I could throw a few extra pics in here. I’ll be leaving on a wildlife viewing tour in about an hour so I may have a few more pictures for later. Fish and chips with the emphasis on fish! I like to collect rocks when  I hike. They may want me to buy an extra seat for these. I didn’t check passports to see if these are Canadian Geese, but they look at-home. Last year’s fire burned right to the edge of the park lodge grounds, but was kept at bay there with a Herculean effort by fire fighters. The park has an 18 hole golf course. This is the 16th hole (hole number 18.2 on the metric score card.) This is our home for the last 24 hours. Beautiful room with no A/C, but the weather didn’t require it.

 Thursday evening, Alicia told me she wasn’t feeling well. I ran around like a madman in the huge Fairmont “Chateau Lake Louise” and found that the extent of their medical expertise was very limited. The Chateau is actually up the hill from the village of Lake Louise which has no medical facilities, relying instead on the hospital and clinic in nearby Banff. They were able to send a medic to the room to check her vitals and the diagnosis was that, because we were at about 5800 feet elevation (even more in metric!), she was suffering from elevation sickness, something they see on a regular basis. This morning (Friday) she was feeling miserable, unable to eat or drink, but still able to climb into the bus. We boarded a bus that was to take us, indirectly, to Jasper National Park on the north end of the Ice Field Parkway, a distance of about 150 miles. We had stops along the way, some for pictures, some for “rest stops”, one for lunch, and one for a special opportunity. Through it all...

 Today was a relatively late start for what was slated as a short day. We were to take a motor coach past Lake Louise and climb into the mountains, make three brief stops, then end up back at the Fairmont Chateau at Lake Louise. The all-aboard time was 9:05, a far stretch from the early calls of the past several days. We bid farewell to Banff and travelled west on Highway 1, the Trans-Canada highway. The route took us past the Lake Louise exit and we climbed and climbed, past looming mountain peaks, crossing back into BC (Banff is in Alberta), to a roadside parking area where we could almost see the “spiral tunnels” that provided us rail access to Alberta just two days ago. Somewhere up there are two tunnels in a figure 8 path, designed by Swiss engineers and built by over a thousand Chinese workers who blasted rock from both sides of the mountain and successfully met on target in the middle. A topographical model gives visual reference to the construction of the spiral tunnels. Fr...