Victoria - It's almost a ghost town

Friday February 12, 2010

While Vancouver must feel electric while the Olympics are in town (especially on this, the day of the opening ceremonies), Victoria, just across the strait, seems much quieter than usual. Victoria acknowledged the games by putting up these pansy baskets with Canadian flags.

Final report of the great Canadian train trip

Saturday May 30, 2009

On the last morning of our train trip we woke up in Hope, BC. Before arriving in Vancouver we had breakfast on the train. Two women came to the dining room wearing matching pajamas with snow-globe designs. It must have been a dare.

This was our first view of the morning, in Hope.

Before long we were into the flat farmland of the Fraser Valley.

Glenn says this is the Pattullo Bridge. Below it then would be the Fraser River Bridge, which I believe we crossed on that first moonlit evening of our trip. By the way, when Glenn was 16, Pat Carey (Canadian Airways pilot) and he flew under the Pattullo Bridge in a Waco biplane on floats. Crazy.

One day I came home from work to find this nice surprise from Glenn. :-)

All in all it was wonderful trip with lots of variety. If we had just taken the train trip east, I would have said it was a great experience but it wasn't as good coming back. They never did get our sink and tap fixed. So, expect to have plumbing problems on Via Rail, but also expect good food. The food was the star of the show on the train.

The only real disappointment of the trip for me was that I didn't get to see a cardinal, but that's pretty minor as compared to all the wonderful memories. We were quite lucky with the weather.

The End!

The start of our train trip - Victoria to Vancouver

Friday May 8, 2009

Our trip started on the right foot with a good taxi driver from home to Victoria’s bus depot. The older driver told some interesting stories about his life and played a song he had recorded. He had a very nice singing voice with a slight western twang which tied in with the Willie Nelson song ‘On the Road Again’ that was in my mind before we left.

View from the bus of the Empress Hotel
and Convention Centre, Victoria

We caught the 11:45 am bus and the 1:00 pm ferry. When we arrived at the Vancouver bus depot / train station at 3:30, Glenn's sister and her husband from Delta were there to greet us and take us to dinner. It was nice to see them again and it made life easier for us. There is only a McDonalds in the old train station and since the station is not in the nicest area we would've had to have taxied across town to one of the few restaurants we know.

They chose a downtown restaurant called the Cactus Club where we shared appetizers and Glenn and I split a steak, mashed potatoes and asparagus. It couldn't have been better. A most interesting feature of the restaurant was the stylish washrooms. Push a button and new plastic wrap rotates out to cover the toilet seat! Small tv screens were set inside cubicle doors (I'm not sure I needed to see Tiger Woods at that very moment but there he was). Later, when Glenn went to the washroom, which is on the 2nd floor, he took the elevator and found a screen in there too, but instead of showing a program it was a camcorder view, focused on our table! Coincidence? Or does someone sit in a little room watching to see who gets into the elevator and then turns the camera on the table they left?

Cactus Club, Vancouver

After supper, we went for a drive down to the bay to see the new convention centre near the Pan Pacific Hotel. It was bigger than I expected.

Convention Centre with reflections
of Canada Place and cruise ship

We were surprised how many new tall buildings have been built in Vancouver since we were last there. We rather felt like the Clampets visiting New York City for the first time. Most of the towers have slick, shiny surfaces, so it almost seemed that direct light doesn't come into the city as much as it reflects from building to building. Tulips were blooming and, as in Victoria, pink tree-blossoms drifts were on the streets and sidewalks.

Downtown Vancouver

We said our goodbyes and boarded the train just after 8:00 pm.

We are travelling with two carry-on bags apiece. Via Rail allows fairly large bags as carry-ons, up to 50 lbs total for each person. Even though we weren't checking any luggage, the agent, who was 'right there' at the station as if he had been waiting for us, took three of the bags we didn't want to lug with us to dinner and said they would be in our room when we arrived. And they were. No charge, although I had expected to pay $3 per bag.

The train left a little later than its scheduled 8:30 pm departure time. After getting settled in our room we sat in a dome car as the sun set. As we were passing the Pattullo Bridge a large full moon sat above the horizon.

There are a variety of sounds as the train slows and speeds up, lurches, squeaks over bridges, through tunnels, etc. The eerie, loud and sudden sound of a passing freight train can jolt you out of a sleep like a horrid nightmare. The movement takes some getting used to. It's like being on a ship except, as Glenn pointed out, the movements are less predictable. But I like this train. It has a substantial feel, and there is the historical factor in that British Columbia joined the Confederation based on the promise of this link. The last spike was driven in BC in 1885.

We are about to see many trains and yards, and will pass or be passed by many long freight trains. Some are 12,000 feet long, we are told.