Where in the world is Sas?: Vancouver to Toronto by train pt2

So after a very sleepless night I woke up to the Rockies. It was really hard to get to sleep with the train rocking and the bunk is slightly curved so when I'd sleep on my side it made me rock quite a bit. Not as bad as the next night when the train hit the plains and sped up in the middle of the night. The rocking got a bit more violent then and there were a couple times I thought I was going to fall out of the bunk!

Breakfast was awesome! I headed to the dining car where they seat you with different people for each meal so I met some really interesting people on the trip. I was one of the youngest people in first class (I can't remember if I mentioned it but I managed to score a 50% off ticket for the first class sleeper cabin. I was entertaining going with economy where you just get a seat kinda like being on a bus but I'm SO glad I didn't because it would have been hell. The economy people weren't allowed in the 1st class side of the train and we had two skycars (the clear domed roof viewing cars) plus the restaurant with chef prepared meals. All towels, shampoo and soap were provided each day too. VERY interesting experience having a shower on the train that's for sure. It's a tiny little box and you basically get buffeted around the box while getting a sprinkling of water - I imagine that's what it's like to be some clothes in a washing machine really. Anyway I had a nice breakie with a funny couple who I was sat with again at lunch, Tyka and... Keith, Kevin? Can't remember his name but her family was originally from Finland. Also seated with us was a guy who worked for the railroad and was on his way to Jasper for work. They get discounted rates on first which is a pretty good perk.

Most of the train ride was centered around meals. They had 1st and 2nd sittings (well they had a third up until Jasper when a lot of people got off the train) and you'd usually get your pick of sittings and ticket during breakfast. So basically the days consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, going back to the seat and watching the scenery and maybe having a snooze, lunch, watching the scenery and having a snooze then dinner :) It was awesome! Also went back to the sky car where a lot of people would hang out and there was coffee, tea and hot choc with bikkies, fruit and snacks back there too so you never went hungry. They had musicians who would play twice a day and they were pretty good. There were also movies in the back sky car but I didn't catch any of them. Also no phone reception or internet so it was nice to be disconnected for a couple of days.

Anyway let me whack in some scenery photos for you before I ramble on a bit more in the next post. I'm surprised at how good some of them turned out considering that they were taking from a whizzing train. You can skip on to the next post if you don't want to be bored by the scenery. Click the pics to enlarge.