How big #2

Hey, so that didn’t work. Blame the internet, not me. Will try and recall what I wrote, though my general update has since been superseded by the news that my trains not coming and I’m stranded in Jasper.

So, I had written about the two – long (and delayed) – days I already spent on the train. A list of general impressions are: British Columbia is vast, vast, vast; wide, overflowing rivers with eddies and flurries carrying trees and logs; snowy mountain ranges; tiny, remote communities; wildflowers galore like dandelions, wild rose, columbines, thimble berry, orchid; acres of willowy marsh with ribbony twists of black water full of lilys and beaver dams. And bears! Black bears chewing grass, walking past, waving. One honey brown Cinnamon Bear. A coyote frozen and watching ( though I swear it was a wolf). And a huge area of blackened forest devastated by pine beetle with a solitary black bear standing up tall.

Things that generally might delay a Canadian passenger train:
Freight trains 150+ carriages long. They rule the rail.
A bear warming its butt on the tracks.
Creeping over ridiculously skinny single track  bridges.
Moose.
Train drivers chatting to people in remote one shack outposts called Doreen. The outpost, not the person.
A gentle incline.

So, I am here longer than I thought and off to change my flight, book a room in Vancouver and buy a clean T-shirt.