Student Surprise

August 5^th/2017

What a difference a day makes…

This morning we are having breakfast in the restaurant connected with Whistlers Inn. No more Gold Service Continental breakfast for us. Ken ordered  the breakfast special which included bacon and eggs and toast , the usual fare. But wanting a bit less I ordered a bowl of oatmeal and a side of toast. Well what a surprise the oatmeal was.!! It was a gigantic bowl of very thick oatmeal. I am certain the bowl held at least 2 full cups of the cereal. It was full of raisins and the cereal was so thick you could have stood a fork up in it. I was able to eat less than a quarter of what was offered. The waiter said that he had only ever had one customer finish that serving. I was not to be the second.

We went back to our room and gathered up our suitcases and proceeded to the lobby. Ken stayed with the luggage and I went outside to wait for our tour bus. Today we will be travelling to Maligne Lake and taking a cruise out to Spirit Island. We had asked about our luggage and they said we could leave it in the lobby and they would keep an eye on it. We were not comfortable with that so I asked the tour guide if we could take our cases with us on the bus

The driver Joe arrived and assured us that it was fine to take our luggage along. He would deliver us to the train station at the end of the day.

The tour bus was actually a special touring van. We had lots of room because the bus was not full. The guide was a lot of fun and he began the day by telling us stories and he proceeded by showing us amazing places and things. Before long it was discovered that he had been one of Ken’s former students. The day went along with Ken and Joe comparing notes and filling each other in on former students and teachers .

The scenery was spectacular and around noon we arrived at Melinge Lake and we boarded our boat for the cruise to Spirit Island. This iconic view was something I had seen pictures of many many times but I really did not know where it was and did not ever expect to be there. The day could not have been more perfect. On the return Joe regailed us with stories of the country and his explaination of the attitudes and behaviors of Canadians and his general philosophy of life. We agreed with him on all counts 

We arrived at the train station and we checked our bags and then we went up town for lunch. We took Joe’s advice and stopped at a place called the Jasper Brewing Company. Ken had a beer and we shared a turkey club. It was served with a flat bread instead of the usual and it was the best turkey club we had ever eaten by far.

Then we returned to the train station to wait for the train. It would be a 2 hour wait and I filled the time by trying to catch up on the blog. There was a wifi connection but it was VERY slow and it was sporadic. I took the entire 2 hours and it was not very well done. In the end I had to just give up. There is no wi fi on the train so this report will have to be posted in a couple of days when we are in Toronto.

We finally boarded the train and found our room. The first order of business was to stow our things and then head for the observation car and the complimentary champagne to toast our journey. It was good and the view from the top really was special. Since we had early dinner it was not long before dinner was called.  It was a high quality room as we expected. I had salad to start and Ken had soup. Then we both had salmon as our main course. I had mine with rice and Ken had his with potatoes. It was perfectly done. For dessert I had cheese cake and Ken had chocolate cake. Coffee finished the meal off perfectly.

We spent the remainder of the evening in the observation car enjoying the company of other travelers. When we returned to our room our beds were made up and we discovered just how compact the room was. There are bunk beds and there is a separate room for the toilet. A sink and mirrors etc are in the room itself. The bunk beds are not wide enough for 2 but we did share the bottom bunk for awhile as we watched the country go by and we enjoyed the glorious full moon.

I am sure it was almost eleven before we called it a night. Ken got to climb the ladder and have the top bunk.:-)

 The train was a lot more bouncy than a cruise ship but much to our surprise we both slept very well.