I woke up on Thursday, January 19 with the full consciousness that this was going to be my last full day on the train. I really wanted to be present in each moment. I remember laughing at myself because I acted like I had been on the train for a week (or weeks) when it had only been since Tuesday and I’d only had one full day on the train. But I also felt like I had finally gotten the routine down.

3AM: wake up slowly to darkness. Open shade to see if there is anything I can see. Too dark. Close shade. Do stretches. Read.

4AM: do left hand page in journal. Left hand page includes listing three things I’m thankful for, my vision for the day, the three most important things (to help with goals), and schedule review. However, since there is really no schedule (HURRAY!) that remains empty.

5:30 AM: Shower prep

6AM: Shower and dress

6:30 AM: Breakfast

That really was the schedule plan in my mind, but I didn’t journal at 4. I actually read for two and a half hours! Really. I can’t remember the last time before this vacation including other times off where I just read for over two hours straight for pleasure with no guilt.

But really, it was because of this

I have frequently been in places where I have had only one bar of cellular service, but in the last 30 years I have not been in a place where there was absolutely no service. I had told people that I would be in places with no service before I left, and some people looked at me with skepticism, thinking I was just saying that because I didn’t want people to contact me during my vacation. I took that screenshot of my phone above as proof.

It was so freeing. My boss had asked me before I left if I was a person who could really turn off and really take vacation. And I believed that I was. However, I still check email at least once a day when I’m on vacation. I remember attending meetings via phone from London and from South Korea.

But this was different. There was something so entirely peaceful and calming having no service. There was absolutely no guilt or worry. It was so restfully quiet.

By 5:30 AM, I am putting together my shower bag, using one of the shower kit bags and including my clothes for the day, toiletries, one of the towels, and a washcloth. When I first boarded the train in Vancouver, and I had my onboarding from the porter there, he warned me that there would be times in the morning and evening when lots of people want to shower. I never want to be caught having to repeatedly walk down the corridor with my things only to find the shower occupied. It’s not something you can tell from any distance. It’s not like the lights for the bathroom on an airplane that let you know if the bathroom is vacant before you leave your seat.

I want to be the first person in the shower at 6 not only to avoid a line, but also so I can go to breakfast promptly at 6:30. Such a dream to be able to show up and have hot breakfast at 6:30 AM. Why would I ever want to leave the train?

Thursday breakfast: Chef’s omelette is ham, cheese, and scallions. I always have the toast.

I ate breakfast with Doug and Bob, another train guy with great stories, which he thought weren’t as interesting as talking train facts. I tried once again to convince Doug to write a book because before Bob came, he told me when I asked what his dad did in the military that his father was a counter Soviet Intelligence officer! Also, that he lived in DC with his family from 1961-1964 while his dad worked for the US military and was in 9th grade when Kennedy was shot. He still remembers being in class when it happened. And he still tried to convince me that he didn’t have much of a story to tell. Pfft.

Very soon after breakfast, we came to another stop where we could get off: Sioux Lookout.

I’m enjoying including the links to these towns because I only get to see the train station/stop, but I also find it funny how almost none of the pictures on the sites are from the winter in these towns, but in the summer. So please remember to click on the links to get more information about the towns and other locations.

This was one of the stops where we had to go to the end of the train to get off. I didn’t take any pictures in economy because I was trying to be quiet and quick since there were people still sleeping.

On Wednesday we were able to go through both Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but the provinve of Ontario is so big, so it took us all of Thursday to cross it, and we still weren’t in Toronto. Most of the this area is part of the Canadian Shield, an ancient rock formation developed from tetonic plate movement that covers over 5 million kilometers in North America.

You can tell that the landscape is different from the prairies. There is still some open space, but not as much. A lot more trees and variety of trees seen from here.

Because I eat breakfast at 6:30, I always choose the early seating for lunch (12:30) and for dinner (5:30), but today was a little bit of a problem. I remembered this from the Vancouver to Jasper train trip. We changed time while on the train, so even thought lunch was still at 12:30, it felt like it was at 11:30.

I had lunch with uni guy, whom I teased because he had swore to me the night before he was going to make it to breakfast (espeically since we all raved about it), but once again he missed it. He wakes up and gets off the train every time it stops–even it’s for five minutes, so I doubt he was getting good sleep. I wake up, too, when the train stops, but I just roll over and go back to sleep.

I forgot to take a picture of the menu, but the other options were a tuna melt and a couscous salad. The soup was tomato bisque, but I was still full from breakfast, so I asked for grapefruit juice instead. Juice is the alternate option to soup at lunch.

I had ice cream for dessert, but I forgot to take a picture of this, too. I was in a food coma. Uni guy and I had a whole conversation about the food on the train being so good and how much we were eating. We could have had a brownie with that ice cream again, but I just couldn’t do it. I was so sleepy that I had this vision of falling asleep on the way back to my cabin and blocking the entire corridor.

Another thing I learned was that they are only allowed to cook the hamburgers well done. I wll need to look up whether that is a train policy or a general Canadian thing.

I went up to the dome car because I knew that if I went directly back to my cabin, I would fall asleep, and I didn’t want to sleep for half of my last day.

I didn’t have service, so I don’t know what towns we went through, but it was a sunny day, so everything seemed to glisten.

One of the other cool things about being in the dome car is when another train comes. You can see it from far away and watch as it gets closer.

We went through such pretty country that afternoon. My phone told me some of the towns, but I later realized that lots of the pictures I took was in an area called Aroland, which turns out is an Anishnawbe First Nation location.

I finally, completed my journal entry for the day. Then, around 5 PM, we arrived in Hornepayne.

Before we could get off this time, though, one of the porters needed to scrape and sweep the snow off the area between cars. There was quite a bit here. It hadn’t snowed much while we were on the train, but the wind really blew snow up into the compartment.

We got to stop here for longer than usual because a number of the engine crew switched here. It’s about halfway between Winnipeg and Toronto.

We boarded right at the first seating for dinner.

After dinner, I went back to my room and immediately put on my pajamas and got into bed. Surprisingly, I didn’t fall asleep right away. I had some cell service, so I sent some pictures to friends and texted my mother.

I did get back into bed, reading until I fell asleep. Another very satisfying day on train.