June 2: Run outta town on a rail

I should mention, as a farewell to Vancouver, that I got in a brief walk on the seawall at Stanley Park, the second largest urban park in North America. Saw a couple of harbor seals!

I spent the whole day today riding the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Kamloops through some more astounding scenery. That seems to be in unlimited supply out here. I'll finish my journey to Banff on the train tomorrow and write more about it then, as well as catching up on some other stuff from the past couple of days, but I spent my whole evening here at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Kamloops figuring out how to get these videos I shot on the Whistler Mountaineer and while ziplining up on the blog. It took four hours and a technical consult from my seatmate, Joff from New Zealand, who just happens to be a professional computer guru (how's that for a stroke of luck?), but I got three out of five of them into blog-ready form. They're pretty damn good quality for a camera about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Two are of the Cheakamus Canyon, shot from the train to Whistler, and the third is shot from a secure location attached to my harness, in the vicinity of my right pectoral muscle, while I demonstrate ziplining with the help of one of our Ziptrek guides. Please watch and enjoy!

TECH RAGE NOTE: Reaction to the third video has so far been, "It sure would have been cool if you'd left the camera running while you actually slid down the zipline" -- and of course, I DID. I can see that when I play the video, but apparently others can't. Which makes me furious, because I lost a LOT of sleep fooling with that video, and it apparently doesn't even work right. So I'm going to leave it up, but let me tell you this: If you play it, look for the length. If it's loading at less than 2 minutes, DON'T BOTHER WATCHING IT. I start sliding at about 1 minute 50 and go till about 2 minutes 20, but if the full video doesn't load for you, don't waste your time. And there won't be any more video if it's going to keep me up all night and then not even play. Boy, that makes me angry.

June 1 part two: Pining for the fjord

Blogger's Note: I'm having to do this piecemeal, because Picasa will blog only four photos at a time, and I figure doing it this way is still faster than individually sizing each photo in Picasa (the version of Photoshop on this laptop is essentially useless) and adding it as a page element in Blogger. I could be wrong, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do this that isn't time-consuming and frustrating.

Also, I used my new Flip video camera to shoot some video, but I don't have time at the moment to try to figure out how to get it onto YouTube. I'm hoping there will be a couple of hours soon when I'm not (a) looking at astounding scenery, (b) packing or changing clothes, and (c) fully conscious. I've been running on four to four and a half hours' sleep since before I left, and when I fade at night after dinner, I tend to do it very suddenly. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence.

Which is why I was up at 5:30 this morning to do some remedial posting before breakfast.


But hey, are you looking at these pictures on the right? They're not optimal, because they're shot through train windows and the train is moving, but they should give you a taste of what the trip on the Whistler Mountaineer is like.

One of the things I'm noticing about rural British Columbia is the wonderful smell of the air. It always seems to have this faint, elusive perfume of pininess and fresh, damp vegetation, a very clean and natural scent.

That big hunk of gray rock is the Stawamus Chief, an enormous granite monolith that some people are apparently crazy enough to climb.


Other highlights of the train trip are Cheakamus Canyon, which is a craggy ravine where the train crosses a couple of trestles over a roaring, raging, surging river. I shot video of that, though some tipsy Australian guy talked over it.

I'm hearing lots of Australian accents, a fair number of British ones and more than a few I simply can't begin to identify. It's definitely very multicultural out here.

There's also a lot of consciousness -- going way beyond lip service -- of environmental issues, carbon emissions and sustainability. I saw evidence of logging on the trip to Whistler (stripped logs lined up along the water's edge), but the paper mills have mostly closed down and moved farther north, according to Onboard Attendant Lisa.

Despite all the talk of bears and bald eagles, I didn't spot any wildlife, but I can't imagine too many wild critters want to hang around noisy train tracks when they have acres and acres of nearly silent old-growth forest to enjoy.

I couldn't believe the couple sitting in front of me actually reclined their seats and fell asleep in the midst of all the waterfalls (Brandywine Falls is taller than Niagara, though much skinnier) and cozy mountain villages. I didn't even like to blink. This must truly be one of the most relentlessly scenic train routes on the planet.

May 30: So much for packing light

It's the eve of my departure, and I'm going to be spending it at an airport hotel because I am so not a morning person and I have to be at the airport at 5 a.m.!

I've spent the day doing laundry, running errands (why can't you get hair mousse in travel sizes anymore? THREE different drug stores, no joy) and trying to cram 100 pounds of stuff into three 20-pound bags. To be fair, it's not all clothes and shoes. A lot of it is electronic equipment that I hope to God I will be able to use effectively. Including a Flip video camera! I can't wait to shoot megabytes and megabytes of my shoes until I get the hang of it.

I know I won't sleep tonight, suffering a recurring nightmare that I'm up a tree in Banff and don't have a vital USB cable, but I am also really excited. I've got a detailed itinerary now, and I don't want to spoil the surprises but there are a LOT of cool excursions and activities in my future. If you're worried about revisiting this blog because you think you'll find me spending six days in a tent in the rain musing about my childhood, I can promise you that will not come to pass. Three days tops before I call for extraction.

(Kidding. I avoid tents.)

So: I'm finally packed (miracle), my flight leaves Pittsburgh at 6:45 a.m., I've got my passport (I know you're wondering) and I'm ready to begin the adventures! Hell ... where did I put the housekeys? ...

Saturday, May 24: One week from launch!

This time next week I'll be on Air Canada on my way to Vancouver via Toronto. I haven't started packing yet, but I did start a list with the goal of packing as light as possible. I have experience: I went to Russia as a teenager, Scandinavia in college, the Far East after graduation and Britain and France since. I learned not to pack anything I can't carry by myself through a train station, up a big flight of stairs and halfway across a city in a downpour. (So, yes to raincoat, no to three pairs of heels.)

The idea is to start in Vancouver and work my way across the western provinces to Ontario and finish with a few days knocking around Toronto and the Niagara region. Full disclosure: I'm doing it for the Canadian Tourism Commission and on their dime, but I've been promised total editorial freedom, so if the weather sucks or the train is late, I'll say so. I've vacationed in Eastern Canada since I was a child, and I am very fond of Canada and eager to see more of it, but I'm also a journalist, so I'm not interested in spin or puffery. What I tell you would be useless if it weren't honest.

So I hope you'll join me here as I depart on May 31 for my adventure. I hope you'll find helpful information that might help you plan a trip of your own. Let's face it: Despite everything that's happened in the past few years, Canada is still friendlier, closer and easier to get in and out of than a lot of other countries you could visit, and while the dollar is down a bit against the loonie, it's still not Monopoly money. Plus, they have very good beer.