UMTravels

Back on the road again! Off to Toronto to catch the train to Vancouver.

The United Club isn’t as fancy as Delta or Alaska, but free food and booze is free food and booze.

And the view from the gate…

Views like this is why I call Seattle, home.

On Air Canada today, in the pointy end:

And lovely views on the way out…

And then the parade of food and drink starts…

You might notice that I was gifted a spare seat this morning. Apparently, Air Canada doesn’t upgrade people, or there was no one to upgrade. I’ll take it!

Met up with Marybeth at the airport, and we are off to the hotel.

Oddly, this is the only picture I have from the hotel:

I do have pictures from the lounge in the ViaRail terminal in the morning!

With the massive traffic jam on the way in, we had about 10 minutes in the lounge before moving into our Cabin For Two, and they say at ViaRail:

And our car attendant found a table to “liberate” for us – MUCH BETTER!

And our first lunch…

Then dinner…

Then dessert…

Once the bed is made up…

To give you an idea of the weather, this is a good example:

So, here is one thing that ViaRail DOES NOT do as well as Amtrak – their lunch burger. Federal law in Canada mandates that they cook it to death.

The breakfast, on the other hand, is wonderful:

And we ARE prepared in our cabin:

And then there are the views from the bubble dome and bullet car at the end…

And this is what we settled on for the day layout of the cabin…a couch(bed) with a table:

We even ordered our lunch in one day! And they brought a tablecloth!

And more pictures of hanging out:

It’s a little fuzzy – but this is a great picture.

And if you look closely, you will see a car attached to the bullet car – a safety measure implemented a couple of months ago when they realized they weren’t crash worthy.

Dinner tonight was French Onion Soup and Prime Rib:

But if you want to see me in the morning, it’s less than pretty – even though I am in my sake pajamas I had made in China:

The dining car was slow because we were in Jasper for a couple of hours, and most of the people were wandering around town.

It was a nonstandard meal day – continental breakfast early, then brunch through until 1pm.

For brunch, I had the Chicken Pot Pie – which was GREAT! Marybeth had the omelet.

And then we were in the mountains!

And here is how we viewed it. Curled up on the “couch” in the room. MB is napping.

We needed the nap so we could have the lamb chops for dinner (salmon for MB):

Had dinner (it’s community seating) with Michael and David, who ODDLY, Michael knows Solus who we are having lunch with in Vancouver – small world.

We had planned for breakfast in the cabin, but for some reason, our attendant pulled the table out of the room when she made the bed rather than putting it in the closet – so we really had “breakfast in bed”!

We arrived two and a half hours EARLY (definitely NOT Amtrak), but they don’t throw people off until the 8am timetable arrival (definitely NOT Amtrak).

We hung out at the train station until my friends swung by and picked us up for high mass. It’s Sunday, and the Anglican Cathedral is downtown.

Service ran about an hour fifteen, and I will admit that every time the organ and choir fired up, tears were rolling down my cheeks. Probably memories of evensong services at Winchester Catheral in England to which I’ve been to many times (after coctails with my friend’s mum).

Lunch was a Sylvia’s on English Bay:

Took Amtrak back to Seattle, and here is the final shot of the trip, at the station in Seattle:

The end to a fun trip.

[198.8]

For more blog posts, click here.