Coming Home

I slept better on the train the last night than I had the two previous nights. My seat mate said the same thing. We wondered  if it was because we were so tired from not sleeping well the previous nights that we were able to ignore the discomfort and unusualness of sleeping sitting up. For me I think it was at least in part because we went to sleep a bit later - resisting the urge to sleep in exchange for more conversation and because when I woke up at 2:00AM I didn't try to go back to sleep - something that never works -but instead spent thirty minutes watching the ephemeral landscape drift by. I should know by now that if I am not tired - no matter how long I lay there with my eyes shut - I am not going to fall asleep.

There was more snow on the ground in Kamloops than we had seen anywhere else but it still was not nearly as much as I would have anticipated. It may have been my imagination but I think I did notice that with snow on the tracks the ride was quieter and it felt smoother.  The smoothness of the ride  somehow reminded me of riding a horse through the deep snow. By the time we left Kamloops we were only two hours and a bit late.

As the sun rose the next morning, I woke up my seat mate as we were passing through the last of the mountain ranges. Again the sun was shinning and the mountains looked really impressive. My seatmate went to the dome car for the last time. During the hour or so that he was gone, I packed up all of my stuff. It was so much easier doing so when I didn't have to clamber over his legs.  As I was moving back and forth between where I had stored my pack and my seat, I looked out the window. Somewhere west of Chilliwack we had left the snow behind and entered an area where everything was green, The grass looked luxurious, there were rows and rows of grape vines and it looked as if spring could be just be round the corner.

We got to the Vancouver train station just after 11:00, I said good bye to my seat mate, waited for thirty minutes to get my bag and was off to the Skytrain. The Skytrain was as good as always, I didn't get lost downtown, I didn't have to wait too long for the express bus and before long I was in the waiting room of the ferry terminal. The ferry ride was extraordinary in that it was very sunny and the mountains to the west were post card perfect with their gentle covering of snow. The only glitch in the crossing was when it appears as if the ferry was heading towards Crofton and had to slow down and turn north.

My son picked me up at the terminal and in less than an hour I was in Duncan.

It had been an interesting trip. I had talked to a few people, had some great conversations with my Chinese seat mate, managed to get some sleep, read a lot, listened to a lot of music, managed to stretch out my food with spending too much money, didn't get lost..... and now I was home...... ready to start a new phrase in my life.