Last Days in Victoria

Our time in Victoria has been good.

Friday for us was a time for some walking about town. We did some planned activity, arranging for a rental car, and buying some presents for Pat, whose birthday is the 18th. But we mostly re-explored the downtown of Victoria, had a nice lunch out by the harbour, and just had a pleasant time.



After meeting Pat for a quick drink and some snacks after he was finished work, we went out to the Finnies for a well-prepared and enjoyed dinner. Yum!


Next day, we were up early, and got on the road in our rental car, stopping for a quick breakfast at "the Old Farm" just south of Duncan, then going on to Crofton to visit with Darlene's brother Don and his wife Betty. We had such a good time, trading stories and listening to Don's talk about his own childhood memories, that we decided to stop a second time the next morning. Because this time, we wanted to be in Nanoose Bay to be with the Price-Munns for supper there.



And a delightful time was had, I believe by all, but certainly by us.


As mentioned, the next morning, we left after breakfast, stopped again in Crofton for an hour or so, and then got back to Victoria. Pat had suggested that the thing which he would like to do for his birthday was to do some cooking with his mother, and so they worked on a Shepherd's Pie together, after buying some food. His mother and I like to leave the larder well-stocked after we are there. And boy, is it stocked now. The Pie was fantastic, better because Pat had contributed a lot to its making.

Sunday, we heard from Dan, which was nice. He is doing well, or as well as can be expected. Things are getting planned as they should, and the pieces are beginning to come together. It was so nice to see his face, and we managed to have all three of us in Victoria on the same conversation with him.

Pat and I went for a long walk. We also went to Russell Books and spent more on used books than we had planned. And Pat and Darlene cooked a Scotch Broth for supper, so again we ate at home and well. That boy is doing some good cooking.

It was an early night, since we had to be up at 4:30 in the morning to catch our plane. The trip home was like going from Canada to Bermuda. It was drizzling and about 4 degrees in Victoria, and 23 with sun in Hamilton.



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Location:Government St,Victoria,Canada

West Coast Blues

Again, I've been lazy about posting to a blog. And this in spite of having some time for it.

Vancouver has, and promotes, its image of the green, warmer city on the edge of the continent. Well, I'm here to tell you it ain't true. When we got off the train in Vancouver, it was cold and rainy. And windy. The ferries were not let out of their docks, some planes were re-routed, the temperature was a full ten degrees colder than at home, and there was a lot of water coming from the sky. We took a cab to the Sylvia Hotel.

Settling in, calling Darlene's cousin Jane, and resting took a while. Jane is working, and met us after her work, and we all went for a glass of wine in the hotel bar (it was raining too hard to think about going out). Fueled by our wine, I was dispatched to see if we could score a bigger room in the hotel, since we were going to be there for three nights. And we did: got one about twice the size, with a sitting area as well (room 315). (Then, since the rain had settled a bit, the three of us went walking to a local Greek restaurant for a splendid meal.) And we got the larger room just in time: the mild sore throat I had acquired on the train blossomed with the hard rain of Vancouver into a full cold, with my nose mimicking the rain outside. I spent the third day there mostly in bed. But the second day, at least the sun emerged timidly for a bit, and a walk was enjoyed along English Bay, and through the West End.

The second day there, we had a rollicking dinner with both Darlene's cousin Jane and her niece Bonnie. After visiting Bonnie's apartment, we went over to the Fish House in Stanley Park for a wonderful, and horribly expensive, dinner at Bonnie's expense.

And the final evening, we had a terrific supper with an old friend, Art Moses, and his wife Suzanne, at their apartment by the park.

Yesterday began with us Vancouver, getting packed and ready for the ferry ride to Victoria. The winds had finally died down, and it looked like blue sky was threatening to break out. We got a taxi to the ferry docks, hopped on the boat, and were picked up on the other side by our friends the Finnies. Returning to Victoria has a feeling for us of returning home; we have been there now three times, and we know the downtown area fairly well. Settling in was no problem (again, we had to negotiate for a larger room). Contact with Pat was made, and we agreed to meet later that evening. Which left us free also to spend supper with the Finnies. A place called "Blighty's Bistro" served us well.

Our time at Pat's place was interrupted by a call from Dan, letting us know that his girlfriend Electra has died just minutes before. While we all knew this would come, it was sad to realize that reality of her death had come to pass.


We went home to a fitful sleep.

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Location:Johnson St,Victoria,Canada

The End of the Line

So after the last blog, we went through the main part of Saskatchewan and up to Edmonton at night, getting into Edmonton early in the morning (although the train was about ninety minutes late). Actually, they have moved the VIA station to the industrial suburbs of the north of the city, just for the wonderful scenery, I guess. This was about as far north as we got on the trip. Some pictures of the Prairies.










We then followed the Yellowhead Highway up into the Rockies, stopping as always to allow the oh-so-important freight trains to pass by ahead of us. Sometimes we were stopped for over a half hour, waiting for a train to pass. Very frustrating. So by the time we made it to Jasper, we were over two hours late! One of the women I met on the train was on her way to a ski meet, and had a four hour drive ahead of her. This was difficult enough in the daytime, but it was snowing and going to be dark.


We had a shortened time in Jasper, and it was raining/snowing while we were there, so we were not too keen to be outdoors anyways. After we got back on the train, we went for supper and passed some spectacular scenery while at supper. I got a few photos.







And then the picture of Darlene looking out the window of the observation car.




Then to bed and we woke, almost in Vancouver. It's actually warmer in Dundas right now. The wind is blowing hard, and it's raining. Sigh!
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Location:Stanley Park Dr,Vancouver,Canada

Manitoba and Beyond

There had been a major solar flare in the last few days, and the sky was clear as we went through Northern Ontario. So I assumed there would be a good show of Northern Lights. After my supper, I went back to the dome car and watched the sky hopefully, but (alas!) unproductively for these lights. After a bit, I resigned to going to bed instead. Some reading , and then quietly rocked to sleep, for an excellent night's sleep.

By the time I woke, we were almost at Winnipeg. Certainly out of the Northern Ontario woods and into prairie with some houses thrown in for good measure. By eight o'clock, we were in the station, fed breakfast, and ready to go. We had signed on for a tour of the city, since we had four hours in "the Peg". And we were glad we had done this - we went to the downtown, the Assiniboine Park (where we saw a white bison), the legislature building, and St. Boniface parish, where Riel was buried, and the church (basilica) was magnificent. So it was worthwhile, and the city is quite impressive.






Than back on the train, and heading west. I have a confession to make: I had defended the Prairies as being not really flat, but having gently hills and valleys. This was based on my impression of the Saskatchewan I had been in a student. But the part of the Prairies around Winnipeg is FLAT, no argument. You can seen forever, and there is nothing but land, with very little in the way of distinguishing features.


As we got a bit further West, we went beside the Qu'appelle valley and this was beautiful.


Then we went through Brandon, and on into Saskatchewan (Melville, actually). A quick stop for smokers, and then on we went. Sunset over the Prairies, soon to have supper.


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Location:Somewhere in Saskatchewan

Training West

The Canadian is just that: a Canadian tradition, representing what we used to think about ourselves. It is quietly comely, clad in stainless steel; it is past middle age, but has been refurbished rather than trashed; it is underfunded, but eager to please anyways.
This is the train that we are to spend our next three days plus on board. We had found a good deal, just over five hundred dollars, for the cabin plus all meals (and we knew the meals were very good). So we ended up, on a Thursday evening, traveling by train to Union Station for the 10 PM departure. And since we had a sleeper, we got to go to the First-Class lounge and rest before getting on the train itself.
We went west and north, not surprisingly but different from what I had thought, then stopped, backed up a bit, and took a more northerly line that would take us along the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe and on to Sudbury. There was a reception for us, once we we settled, and an observation car where we watched the city disappear under the full moon.
Then to bed and a sleep which you only get on a train: rocked and shaken a bit, probably more disturbed than at home, but refreshing.




Darlene was up early this morning, sitting in the observation car and watching the northern terrain by the light of the moon. When I got up, at about seven, we had stopped in Capreol, and she was out for some fresh air. Not me, I was happy to wait for breakfast without the fresh air.
I remember this part of the trip from before. Northern Ontario is immense, and the rocks, trees, and lakes seem to go on for ever. It must be hard for environmentalists, when you see all of this, to feel that we are actually running out of it all, or that it is endangered. It is beautiful and terrifying all at the same time. For at least the first few hours. John A. MacDonald was crazy to think that we




should have a railway across this land! There's too much of it!
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Location:Northern Ontario