The flight from Westchester County to Toronto was aboard this Beechcraft 1900, a remarkably comfortable turboprop puddlejumper that holds 18 passengers (we had about 12). Everyone has a window and everyone is on the aisle. That's one of the pilots in the white shirt, supervising the unloading of baggage.
The yellow bus, departing at right, brought us from the airport to downtown Toronto.
Our digs were in the Hotel Victoria, built more than a century ago. It was very nice and very affordable.
Lunch-goers under glass dine at the Richtree Restaurant. This unusual restaurant is like a supermarket of food -- you walk around to various counters that serve almost any imaginable kind of fare, all of it freshly made, and then bring it to your table. When you walk in, you are given a plastic card that looks like a credit card; you use it at each food station to record what you buy. When you finish eating and are leaving, you hand the clerk the card, which produces a bill. The food was great and the selection amazing; fine Belgian ales on tap; many kinds of wine.
“Immigrant Family,” a sculpture by Tom Otterness, is on lower Yonge Street.
Captain John's Seafood Restaurant in Toronto Harbor is a retired ship, permanently docked.
The ferry from Algonquin Island, just off the Toronto Harbor port.
Police patrol the boardwalk on Lake Ontario.
The temperature was pushing 90 degrees that Friday, June 6. Here's how one shopper/office worker handled it.
A Toronto harbor view.
The CN Tower as seen from a harbor spot. Second Cup is a popular coffee chain.
We arrive at Union Station Saturday morning.
Inside Union Station.
The head of our train.
The rear of the train, known as the Park Car. The Canadian had 18 cars and two engines on this transcontinental run.
In our cozy room, Sally updates her trip diary....
...and Jack just watches the passing scene (with a GPS attached to the window so he could see where the train was, how fast it was going, and how high the tracks were).
The counter in this mirrored alcove flips down to reveal a sink.
And the room was equipped with all the comforts of home....a pot in its own little room.
This shows how the room is set up at night for sleeping. The two chairs fold down and are underneath the lower bunk. There is a ladder near the foot of the beds to reach the upper bunk, which the geezer found quite comfortable. It lacks, however, the window view that the lower bunk has.
The hallway. The window at right was situated so that, seated in the compartment with the door open, you could view the passing scene on “the other side” of the train.
The best car is the Park Car at the very end of the train, open only to those with rooms or berths. It includes an observation dome, this lounge, and another lounge with bar. Light snacks, coffee, and drinkers are served by a host or hostess, such as the young lady at the right. The view from here is 270 degrees and actually better than up in the dome.
Up in the dome.
The glass is very tinted so the man at right doesn't have to worry about burning his dome.
Looking down from the trestle coming into Parry Sound, Ontario.
This bridge at Parry Sound is said to be the second longest wooden trestle in North America, running more than 400 feet. The train went very slowly.
This is what a portion of the bridge looks like from the air. There are many spectacular bridges on the trip, but being in the train limits your ability to see them unless there is a curve in the track.
Parry Sound from a Park Car window.
Parry Sounds is a couple hundred miles north of Toronto.
Typical northern Ontario terrain, rolling, with lots of white birches.
We were amazed at how many freight trains we passed. Often, we'd be sent to a siding while the freight passed, but sometimes, the freight would be on the siding. Here, there were two tracks so we passed each other. Most of the way, there is but one track.
The geezer at the station in Capreol, a tiny town but major rail crossroads in northern Ontario.
Fueling up the engines in Capreol, Ont. The town is a couple hundred miles east of Sault Ste. Marie in northern Michigan, but it was a good 80 degrees out.
The Capreol station.
Northern Ontario, as one traveler put it, is endless lakes and trees.
Thousands of miles of old telegraph poles and wires line the Canadian railroads. Virtually none are used any more.
Sunday morning at the station in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, a couple hundred miles north of the wilds of Minnesota.
The Sioux Lookout Subway: You may be in the middle of nowhere, but expect to find at least one sign of so-called “civilization.”
At least, in Sioux Lookout, there's nothing fancy about their liquor store names. This is the main street.
Our train amid the spring dandelions, blooming there about two months after they peaked in Connecticut.
A “dandy” view of Sioux Lookout -- so-called because of a hill which the local Indians used to keep a wary eye out for possible attacks by the Sioux from the south.
Swallow nests at the Sioux Lookout station.
More of that clean-looking terrain of the Canadian Shield of northern Ontario.
Shrubs were in bloom.
The sign says: “Downtown McIntosh.” Located near the Manitoba border, McIntosh is little more than a dozen camps at one end of a clear, tree-lined lake. The train stopped here and at other outposts, by special arrangement, to let off a passenger or two, or to pick someone up.
Inside the train station at Winnepeg, Manitoba, designed by the same person who did Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Winnepeg is a half-way point for the crew (who started in Quebec), and a completely new staff came on board here.
The dome of the Winnepeg station.
A view of Winnepeg outside the station.
Everywhere in Canada, taxis are switching to Prius.
The Winnepeg station includes an interesting railway museum. This is a snow plow from the early 1900s. Built mostly of wood, the car was pushed by an engine while those iron blades that were lowered in the front, and wings that came out at the side, moved the snow off the tracks.
The station yard at Winnepeg was filled with Prairie Dogs.
Many were pretty scrawny.
This one was drinking from a puddle.
Out on the plains west of Winnepeg, and north of North Dakota. There are many hundred of miles of “big sky” riding through flat country, but it was never boring.
They may not be elegant, but these apartment buildings in Saskatchewan are probably very well insulated.
On the plains, when you saw hills, it was a sign of a stream.
Over the eons, as the inland seas drained from the plains, the streams created hills and valleys in otherwise incredibly flat terrain.
Nearing Edmondton, Alberta. These are new houses. Notice how an effort was made to try to make each one look a bit different.
Edmondton, which looks fairly close here, was actually nearly five miles from the train station. Edmonton is the northernmost point of the trip, and is on the same latitude as Labrador, and nearly as far north as the southern tip of Alaska. The city boasts North America's largest mall, a dubious distinction.
The crew chats while waiting for passengers to reboard.
This appears to be a malnurished coyote, which was hanging around the rail yard in Edmondton -- which is about the northern limit of the coyote's range. Ridgefield coyotes look MUCH healthier.
A church -- perhaps a monastery -- out in the flatlands west of Edmondton.
A coal-burning power plant in western Alberta. The power company didn't have to go far for the fuel; the coal mine is nearby, on the same property.
The train staffer, barely visible in the front of the dome car, is explaining how, in August 2005, a freight train traveling this line went off the track and into Wabamun Lake at the left, spilling 343,000 gallons of bunker oil and thousands of gallons of other chemicals into otherwise pure water in one of the the province's most popular bodies of water. The result has been devastating and, although you can't see a problem from the passing train, it is said it will take years for the lake to fully recover from the pollution. The lake is 32 square miles, about the size of the town of Ridgefield.
One of the many rivers the train passes over in the foothills of the Rockies.
The river is muddy from recent heavy rains.
Another wide river.
We begin moving into the Rocky Mountains east of Jasper.
Very rocky mountains.
Lakes mix with mountains for pretty scenes.
The train tracks, of course, try to follow river valleys and here, the valley is fairly wide and flat as we approach Jasper, Alberta.
Wildflowers and mountains....
More scenic vistas...
Minerals picked up by melting snow and glaciers cause this color in some of the ponds.
The train arrives in Jasper -- this is the streetside view of the station.
A silly sign in front of a Jasper cottage.
The main drag.
The main street of Jasper with the station in the center.
A Jasper road named for a famous northern Vermont novelist.
The head of our train, waiting our return, alongside a spare engine at the Jasper station.
The train crosses the upper reaches of the Fraser River after crossing the continental divide.
Another stream along the Yellowhead Pass. The rail bed reached a high of about 3,500 feet above sea level, but many of the nearby peaks were around 10,000 feet high.
We are now in British Columbia, and for more than 10 miles, Mount Robson, the highest point of the Canadian Rockies, is in view. It's 12,972 feet.
The track through this valley traverses “muskeg,” unstable swamp that swallowed beds of many logs before the tracks could be laid.
The train slowed down to a crawl so that shutterbugs could photograph this waterfall, visible only from the train. There are no roads near this pass.
A valley view as the sun begins to set Monday evening in the mountains.
In the Park Car, Sally chats with Florence, who's 87 and with her husband, was on the last leg of a journey that took them, all by train, from Portland to Los Angeles, to San Antonio, New Orleans, Washington, Boston, New York, and Toronto.
Tuesday morning in the lush Fraser River valley near Hope and Chilliwack.
They get a lot of rain hereabouts...
Logs on the Fraser headed toward mills outside Vancouver.
The industrial outskirts of Vancouver.
Our train crosses the Fraser River to enter Vancouver proper.
Near the station, we meet the Rocky Mountaineer, a train that explores the Canadian Rockies.
One of my favorite pictures shows the skyline of Vancouver from the Stanley Park, as a seaplane (or float planes, as they call them) lands in the harbor.
Another view of the harbor and skyline.
Yachts and the office buildings that support them in Vacouver Harbor.
Canada Geese, of course.
Andy and Marion Ponzini point out the sights across the harbor.
A lighthouse in Stanley Park. In the background is the Lions Gate Bridge, the route we took to investigate a bit of the north coast.
The monument to lumbermen in Stanley Park. The park actually has stands of virgin trees, a rarity in the Pacific Northwest.
The ferry docks at Vancouver, from Stanley Park.
A shocking color in Vancouver Harbor is this yellow pile of sulfur. ”The sulfur is the result of 'scrubbing' the natural gas that comes to the coast from Alberta," says Andy. “It is high in sulfur and there are cleaning stations along the pipeline that extract the sulfur, dry it and grind it to powder.” Waste not.
North Vancouver.
Another North Vancouver view.
Sally and Marion check out Shannon Falls, north of Vancouver. That's all melting snow from up above -- and it's June 10.
Just a close-up of Shannon Falls.
One of Andy's favorite salmon fishing rivers at Squamish, B.C.
Overlooking Squamish is The Chief, the world's second largest granite monolith (the biggest is El Capitan at Yosemite).
Marion and Andy at the local brewpub in Squamish, where we had lunch. Many's the time Andy, fishing nearby, came here to warm himself in front of this fireplace -- no doubt, brew in hand.
The two other brewpub diners.
Andy and Marion's house in Delta, B.C., south of Vancouver. They have a beautiful yard.
However, some of us look skyward for the “real” beauty -- a three-element, 40-meter beam, and sundry other antennas, on a nice tall tower.
People in Delta have hedges, not fences, in front of their property. It's much nicer.
Andy as catcher in a geezer-ball game.
He scoops one up -- creek.
He steps up to the plate (and hit a home run the week after we left).
A power swing.
The fan base: We were it.
After the game, another brewpub and another happy photo.
Sally feeds ducks and a fussy gull in a local slough (pronounced “slew”).
A veterans monument in a park in Richmond, B.C.
Looking out over the harbor in Steveston, an old fishing village in Richmond, B.C., south of Vancouver.
Some of this fleet still fishes for salmon, but most of these boats are now recreational. This once was a major fishing port -- where Marion as a child worked for her fisherman father.
The boardwalk at Steveston now is lined with restaurants.
The Gulf of Georgia Cannery, the last of several salmon canneries at Steveston, is now a museum.
Sally and Jack are about to embark on the hour and 45 minute ferry ride to Victoria.
During the passage, we meet another ferry, the same model as ours, heading in the opposite direction.
These are big, comfortable vessels. BCFerries has more than 50 boats operating in the Pacific Northwest, and is said to be the largest ferry operator in North America.
Folks up front with their cameras to catch that passing ferry.
A 45 minute bus ride took us from the ferry landing south to Victoria, built around a beautiful harbor.
The Empress Hotel in Victoria, dating from early in the last century, overlooks the harbor.
Another view of the Empress.
The two odd trees at the entrance to The Empress Hotel.
Though on an island, Victoria is the capital of British Columbia. This is the Parliament Building.
Another view of Parliament.
A piper and a totem pole: What could be farther apart in cultures?
The geezer and a carillon in front of the Parliament Building.
Along part of the boardwalk
This, believe it or not, is The Royal London Wax Museum....
...and this, believe it or not, is what they were featuring the day we passed by.
Overlooking the busy harbor through park trees.
Flowers grew right out of the stone sea walls in the harbor.
A sailing vessel that's not embarrassed to advertise its rates.
One of the many seaplanes in the harbor preparing to take off....
Off she goes...
Some are pretty big, such as this West Coast Air plane, which runs between Victoria and Vancouver ($134 per person each way).
Whale-watching trips are popular. Here is the Prince of Whales -- ha ha, get it?
Harbor view from a hotel walkway.
A pedicab driver chats with a potential customer: Imagine peddling him and his crew around the city when it's 80 degrees? “Our operators have the horse-like strength but we smell better! ” says a pedicab ad.
Sally checks out the map at a hotel restaurant overlooking the harbor.
This fellow never realized there was a crow perched right above his head, watching him. Perhaps the crow was hoping for a share of the man's lunch.
Another way to tour Victoria.
Along the boardway (with no boards here).
“Exposed” whale-watching required heavy duty outfits, even though the air temperature was close to 80.
The old Grand Pacific Hotel in the center of the oldest part of Victoria.
Market Square in downtown Victoria dates from the late 1800s and has 35 shops and restaurants.
The famous gate at Old Chinatown in Victoria.
The headquarters of the “Lee's Benevolent Association.” Since it is in Chinatown, we doubted Sally's Lee ancestors were involved in its membership.
A class in oriental arts in a Chinatown park.
One of many pocket parks in Victoria.
A dragon statue on a Chinatown street.
A street in the old section of Victoria.
A little Italian restaurant where we had gelato.
A pedestrian way overlooking the harbor.
The first bear sighting on the trip....
Walking along Douglas Street (which is also Route 1, the Trans-Canadian Highway) in Victoria with the temperature in the 70s and snow-covered mountains in the distance.
Our second bear sighting.
Heading back to the Delta terminal as the opposite-way ferry passes by.
Gig Harbor from our room, “The Crow's Nest,” in the Waterfront Inn.
Lunch at Anthony's overlooking the harbor. The menu had only two non-fish items; Jack had one of them. Sally had chowder.
On the dock with the inn in the background. Our room was ground floor left. You can see it was not busy season.
The 62-foot sailing vessel in the background was available for hire.
The geezer checks out some of the local wine.
Our digs.
That white in the sky at the extreme left over the trees is not more clouds, but the 14,000-plus foot peak of Mount Rainier. Most of the time it's hidden by clouds, but we were able to see it several times.
A good part of Gig Harbor has a nice new boardwalk.
The fishermen's statue in Gig Harbor, recalling an industry that once dominated the village and is still part of it. (An annual Blessing of the Fleet still takes place.) The plaque at the lower right lists the names of Gig Harbor fishermen “lost at sea.”
Just FYI
Downtown Gig Harbor. The yellow building houses Spiro's, which had some pretty good Italian food at very reasonable prices.
For Susan and Dan: The local Methodist church has an interesting design.
We took a four mile walk that included a stop at the Gig Harbor farmers market.
A farmers market shopper: Notice the cute Chihuahua
Front yards in Gig Harbor were often gardens like this.
A view of our inn from across the harbor and through the masts.
A couple of sunset scenes: That's Mount Rainier poking through in pink.
Evening again.
The Valley River Inn, overlooking the Willamette River and the bikeway, called the Riverwalk.
A view from the riverwalk of the Willamette River.
Sally and some six-foot-plus wildflowers we've yet to identify.
They might be a poisonous hemlock.
This is one of several sizable bridges across the Willamette that are for bicycles and pedestrians only.
Sally shoots the Owen Rose Garden along the Riverwalk.
A family enjoys the gardens.
Thousands of beautiful roses....
Some of amazing color....
That's our inn directly across the river from the rose gardens.
Geese feeders
Sally meets a pair of dachshunds also enjoying the Riverwalk.
The view from another pedestrian bridge.
Our room...
...and the view from its deck.
A geezer on the deck.
The next day, we headed off from Eugene for Sonoma, more than 500 miles away. The Ponzinis had recommended a route that was slower, but much prettier than I-5, and so early in the morning we set out southeast on Route 58 and then 97 down into northern California. This is a scene along 58 as we headed up into the mountains southeast of Eugene, reaching a pass that was 5,200 feet above sea level.
Off in the distance is Crater Lake.
But much more spectacular as we reached northern California on 97 was Mount Shasta, another extinct volcano.
It's hard not to take a lot of pictures of something like Shasta on a day like that.
The geezer shoots the mountain as his bride shoots him.
Former Westchester County residents whom we met at a quiet overlook shot this picture. He worked for Pepsico years ago.
The flatlands around Shasta were almost as beautiful, full of wildflowers and sage.
Buttes, like the one in the background hiding Shasta, popped up here and there.
Our Hertz Focus: You'd hate to break down out here....
Miles and miles of straight flat highway, plus fine mountain roads, were part of the 58-97 ride from Eugene into northern California.
A last view of Shasta, which was visible for some 50 miles of traveling.
The prices in northern California weren't that much higher than in Ridgefield, around $4.70, but the folks in Sonoma at least had a sense of humor about it.
The plaza square in downtown Sonoma, dominated by the city hall.
A close-up of the city hall.
In downtown Sonoma.
The village of Sonoma has many pedestrian “malls.”
The park surrounding the town hall.
An unusual set of banned activities in said park....
The anniversary couple, dining outdoors at an Italian restaurant, are photographed by a honeymooning couple from Wisconsin.
The mission in Sonoma. The building had been destroyed by earthquake, so this is a fake remake. But it is full of interesting artifacts and information.
The chapel of the mission, which was the northernmost mission along the famous El Camino Real.
The chapel altar.
Behind the mission and a grove of cactus.
Ouch again!
Much of the country around Sonoma was golden with dried grass. A few days after we left, fires were burning in many areas of dry northern California that we had passed through.
“Lachryma Montis,” the estate of former Mexican Commandante General Mariano Vallejo, who arrived in Sonoma with the Mexican Army when it was part of Mexico and became a leader in the new state of California when it was part of the U.S. A man of many interests, he wrote a five-volume history of California, was mayor of Sonoma and a state senator, headed the California Horticultural Board, and fathered a load of children, many of whom were active in the arts. His home, center of a 500-acre estate, is now a state historical site.
What's a visit to Sonoma without a wine tour. We picked the Benziger winery north of town because a member of the Benziger family lives in Ridgefield and is a major benefactor of the town. Our guide (maybe a Benziger himself) explains the operation of the vineyard, which is “biodynamic,” the highest form of organic farming.
Our tour “bus.”
The Benziger vineyards flow along the hillside of the Sonoma valley, with each type of grape benefiting differently from its placement on slope and in sun.
Benziger makes use of insectories as part of its biodynamic operation, which "goes beyond the elimination of all chemical inputs. It incorporates the environment in and around the vineyard and works with nature to apply the knowledge of life forces to bring about balance and healing in the soil," says Benziger.
A path through an insectory.
Insectory and vineyards.
The Benziger winery is outdoors, with well-insulated tanks to hold the juice freshly squeezed right there.
Just in case you want to know what the inside of a wine vat looks like, you could.
The entrance to “the cave.”
Our guide explains the different kinds of oak barrels in which the wine is aged and flavored. These all came from coopers in France. They have a limited life-span, about five refills.
The cave contained many tunnels full of barrels of aging wine.
One way to see the wine country (but not by us)
Sonoma in the evening.
We were able to visit several San Francisco parks on our way from Sonoma to our airport accommodations. This is the windmill at Golden Gate Park.
The Cliff House at Sutro Heighs Park, viewed from down the beach at Golden Gate Park, with Seal Rocks at the left.
The Cliff House is a restaurant at the very westernmost point of San Francisco. It bills itself, “Where San Francisco Begins.”
A small portion of a large mural in the old pavillion, now a visitor center, at Golden Gate Park features a woman at the beach wearing a “newspaper hat.”
Lincoln Park, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the entrance to San Francisco Bay.
The old Sutro Baths at Point Lobos in Lincoln Park.
The bridge from Lincoln Park.
The Palace of the Legion of Honor, one of San Francisco's art museums, in Lincoln Park.
The Golden Gate Bridge from a trail through Presidio National Historic Park.
Wildflowers, a geezer, and a bridge.
The bay and Alcatraz in the distance.
Alcatraz again.
A Presidio trail.
More bridge scenery, from Lincoln Park.
Our ride home -- on a very comfortable Boeing 757 that arrived nearly an hour ahead of schedule....
