The Andersons Get to Halifax

We had planned to take the train all the way from Saskatoon to Halifax.  Our trip started well, even though it began in the Saskatoon train station.  For anyone who ever has or ever will see the Saskatoon train station, please do not judge our city by the station.  Even we thought it was dumpy.  The train trip to Winnipeg was great.  Our first day on the train the kids met a friend who was their age.  We ate great food, watched a movie, played games, read books, and visited with others on the train who were from as far away as Australia. 

In Winnipeg we had an unexpected-to-us two-hour stop while the train switched crews and did whatever else they needed to do.  Fortunately, we were able to meet up with friends of ours.  The Winnipeg train station is nice and close to The Forks, so we wandered around, took pictures and visited with our friends.  Once we re-boarded the train, we got ready for our first night sleeping on a train.

We had a sleeping cabin.  Or more accurately, we had two sleeping cabins with the wall between removed.  The kids both slept on the top bunks.  And we all let the rocking of the train put us to sleep.

Our second day was good, too.  Many times I heard the kids declare that the riding on the train was the best way to travel.  And by now in our trip we had moved from endless prairies and sky to endless trees and rock.  At one point near the end of the day, Bruce was heard to say he longed to see a great open space for a while.  Once a prairie boy, always a prairie boy!

Our second night on the train was also restful.  When we got up, we packed up because we were planning to switch trains in Toronto.  However, this is where our actual trip deviated from our planned trip.  The train was running unbelievably late, and our two-hour layover turned into being almost an hour late making our next connection. 

Since we missed our train to Montreal, Via Rail arranged for our family to take a plane the next day from Toronto to Halifax.  Normally we would have just continued to Halifax the next day by train and been a day late.  However, because Adelle has dialysis, we needed to be in Halifax for Monday morning.  It was disappointing to realize that we weren't going to finish the trip by train, but with one unexpected night in Toronto we decided to make the best of it.  We explored downtown Toronto a bit, went up the CN Tower, and found the Toronto Railway Museum. 

After a restful sleep in a hotel in Toronto, our propeller plane flew us to Halifax with a brief stop in Ottawa.  We didn't get off the plane, but the kids got to sit in the pilot's seat!  However we got here, we are thankful to have made it safely and to see so much of Canada - on land and in the air!

P.S. - pictures to follow after we get home.