On the Road Again 2013 Train #4

6:30 AM Edmonton - it is another cloudy gray day. Which is a shame as yesterday was so nice and in fact hot out. It stuck me at some point last night as I was tossing and turning that I could have planned to get out at Edmonton and start my trip. I had forgotten that the Via Rail station is on the outskirts of town and while I am sure there are buses, it would have been a steep learning curve trying to figure out the bus system. 

The train is on time and in fact it has been on time ever since Winnipeg. Hopefully that continues and the train will get to Jasper when it is suppose to.

 I slept reasonably well last night - I think. But it is never a really deep sleep. If the train stops or when it starts again there is noise, when someone walks by they may brush against some part of your body and when any door is opened whether it is the door between cars or the washroom door it squeaks. Still I feel reasonably refreshed and ready to go. In fact I am anxious to get this show on the road. 

I have only taken the train across the prairies once before but I don't remember the landscape between Winnipeg and Edmonton being so beautiful. It was really quite extraordinary. While there are advantages to travelling along the major highways, in exchange for speed one loses the opportunity of seeing much of the country side.There were miles and miles of glorious rolling hills and lots and lots of water.  It had clearly been a wet spring. The old page wire fences had water up to the third wire. A major river that we past over just before Saskatoon ( Northern Saskatchewan river ?) was moving fairly fast and it looked as if there was some debris being carried along. Every pond that I saw had a few ducks swimming around. They looked to be small things. I wondered if there were so many of them because they were too small to hunt and therefore lived with some sort of immunity. I also saw a couple of bison farms which would have been more exciting if I had not seen the wild bison on the side of the road near Yellowknife last year. I also saw three female and one male elk - that was pretty neat!   

 Definitely a good day to be looking out the window!