June 1 part one: All aboard!

This morning, I checked out of Opus in Vancouver, bound for the Whistler Mountaineer train station. When you book a trip on the Whistler Mountaineer, they literally roll out the red carpet for you. Everyone is incredibly friendly. Then it gets better: The train is beautiful -- not just clean but luxurious. The "onboard attendants" can't do enough for you. You get a mimosa followed by a full breakfast followed by coffee, tea, booze and coaching about which side of the car to look out to get the best views and pictures. You know they have thought of everything when you look in your seat-back pocket and find a train-sickness bag. I am not kidding.

That lavish attention to detail would be fantastic if you were on Amtrak getting hauled from Washington to Newark. But the amazing part is that you get all that pampering AND scenery so idyllic and glorious it's hard to believe it wasn't painted on glass for a "Lord of the Rings" movie background.

Once the exits have been enumerated and the sparkling wine is on its way, you find yourself rolling through the wealthiest community in Canada, West Vancouver. The houses are large but tasteful and in keeping with the climate and culture.

As the train rolls through a park, people stand and point and wave. Lots of waving all along the route, actually, and lots of smiling. I saw one oldish lady hanging out of her window to wave at us. I did my best to wave back, but I think the Mountaineer's tinted windows prevented people from seeing us.

But after we passed the park, the scenery remained so charming that even the wildflowers along the track seemed exquisitely landscaped. There wasn't that wretched trash-grafitti-and-abandoned-rusty-things ambience you get along rail lines near so many American cities.

The water the tracks follow for about the first half of the trip is Howe Sound, the southernmost fjord in North America. Joseph pointed out a campground at Porteau Cove that, for about $15 per person per night, is only about 30 minutes from Vancouver and offers access to some of the best scuba diving on the coast. (What's down there? A sunken ship and a man-made reef.)

The train slows down for the best views, and many of us braved the chill and went back to the Henry Pickering Heritage Observation Car, built in 1914 and opened to the elements in 1955, to get pictures without risk of glass reflections.

The train left North Vancouver a little after 8 a.m., and by 10 I'd had a mimosa, a fruit plate, coffee, an omelet with potatoes and back bacon (it was inevitable) and was washing it all down with a Kokanee light beer. All that and a stunning temperate rainforest and fjord. Kind of puts a day at the office in perspective, no?