Sunny Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Greetings from sunny Saskatoon!  I don’t entirely know what there is do to in Saskatoon, nor did we have much time to find out.  We stopped there on our train for about 45 minutes to resupply and allow for a little walking outside and fresh air.  I was pretty excited to set foot in a spot with such a strange name.  Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  I mean- it sounds made up. 

Anyhow, we’re chugging along on our path to Toronto at the moment, having left Saskatoon in the dust.  We are predictably behind schedule, as we assumed we would be.  The passenger trains have to yield to freight trains on these tracks, and when that happens, it slows us a little.  It’s okay, though, because we’re not on a super-tight schedule.  Our original arrival time on Thursday in Toronto was 9:30am, so even if they’re way off, we still have time to enjoy a little bit of that city before we head off to Niagara Falls the following morning.  

But while we’re headed away from Saskatoon, I wanted to talk about the old-world luxury of the train.  It really is something special to ride across a country like this.  I took an Amtrak ride once, and elegance was the farthest thing from my mind, but here, it almost seems that elegant is a word you may use.  

We have a room in a sleeper car, which is very nice.  On the way from Vancouver to Jasper, we had a room, as well, but this time around, we got the end room in a row of rooms.  They don’t tell you this, but it’s not hard to figure out when you see the end room- it’s a little bit bigger than the other ones.  

Part of what is included in the ticket price is someone to change the sheets and bring fresh towels, but the more impressive thing you get as a part of the package is the food.  They apparently have multiple professional chefs working for the train company, and different ones cook in different legs of the journey.  The food so far has been pretty remarkable.  Today’s lunch was shrimp and scallops over salad.  Typically, Cas and I get two different things and share half of each, but we both went for the same item this time.  It just sounded too good.  

Three meals a day in a fancy dining car makes this feel like so much more than just transportation.  This is a real experience.  I snapped a quick photo of the dining car just before lunch began, because I wanted to capture what I meant: 

We’re headed to our next spot along the path when we may be able to get out and walk around- Winnipeg.  I think the guy we asked said we would be arriving at around 1am, though, so we may sleep right through it.  No matter, we have dinner reservations, you know, and because we have a room, they said we could bring our own wine on board, provided we don’t leave the room with it.  Sounds like our night is all figured out.