Bree self portrait
Canadian Train Trip, Day 1: Seattle to Vancouver. This year all three girls have different spring breaks. Last month Angela took Anya on a college tour for her spring break. Now it’s Liya’s turn. Last year she expressed interest in going on a train trip like the family trip we took from Seattle to San Francisco a few years ago, so Jan’s arranged to take Liya on another train trip. He’s heard good things about VIA Rail Canada’s “Canadian” route, which runs between Toronto and Vancouver, so that’s the trip Jan and Liya will do. They’ll take Amtrak to Vancouver, take the train across much of Canada, then fly back.
Lyn comes to our house early in the morning to drive Jan and Liya downtown to King Street Station, and the three have breakfast together at the 13 Coins diner. After breakfast, Jan and Liya board the Amtrak train to Vancouver. The train travels north along Puget Sound, so they get views of bald eagles, coots, and other seabirds.
In Vancouver, they have burritos for lunch at Tacofino in Yaletown, then head to their downtown hotel to check in. It’s a short walk from the hotel to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where they see an impressionist exhibit. There’s also an exhibit of a sculptor named Mowry Baden. Most of it isn’t the sort of art either Jan or Liya like, but they’re surprised to discover that Baden (with his son Colin) is the sculptor behind the bizarre “Wall of Death” sculpture underneath Seattle’s University Bridge. Jan and Bree pass that sculpture every day on their drive to Bree’s school.
They have an Italian dinner at Lupo. Liya is adventurous and goes for the salmon, but it’s a little fishy for her taste.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 2: Vancouver. Jan and Liya have yummy croissants for breakfast at a cafe named Faubourg, then walk south across downtown. They take an Aquabus (but not one of the tiny cute ones) across False Creek to Granville Island. The island’s shops are still waking up, but some of the stores are open. When they walk into a stationery store called Paper-ya, Liya suddenly remembers coming to this same store some 5 or 6 years ago.
They have lunch at the Teahouse in Stanley Park; the food is fine but the service is really slow. Afterwards they walk along the shore to Siwash Rock. Along the way, they see something swimming in the water. A seal? When it comes closer, it turns out to be an adorable sea otter.
Back downtown, they shop for train snacks at a Japanese convenience store, then have dinner at Old Xian’s Food: zhajiangmen, spicy pork biang biang noodles, and garlicky cucumbers with an odd anchovy taste. Dessert is at Meet Fresh, a Taiwanese dessert shop. Liya gets a bowl of red bean soup with mochi balls, which is good, but the bowl is far too large. Jan is very happy with his tiny ball of mochi with peanut butter filling.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 3: Vancouver to Alberta. Jan and Liya have more yummy croissants for breakfast, this time at Thierry patisserie. They borrow bikes from the hotel and bike around Stanley Park. It’s a nice day, but cold, and their hands freeze.
They board the VIA Rail Canada train at noon, and are shown to Cabin E in a sleeper car called Thomson Manor. The cabin is in “chair mode”: two padded chairs are set up, with the beds tucked away. This small room will be their home for the next four days.
After exploring all the way forward to the baggage car just behind the engine, they head all the way through some regular coaches, a number of sleeper cars, 3 observation cars, the dining car, and finally to the nicer observation car at the very back. They spend the afternoon reading in that rear car and in their cabin.
The train makes its way along the Fraser river, passing near towns like Hope that we’ve driven through by car. There’s an interesting spot on the Fraser called Hell’s Gate: a tiny collection of homes perched on a cliff above the river. It looks like the only ways in or out of the hamlet is an old bridge or a fancy cable car built for tourists.
For meals, people are grouped into tables of four. Jan and Liya sit with a Canadian/Thai woman named Cindy and a Dutch woman whose name they don’t quite catch. Maybe Catherine? She complains about tourists in Amsterdam quite a bit.
After dinner, they watch a train movie Jan had downloaded: Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes”. It was made in 1938, and some of it holds up, but much of it is too campy to take seriously. Jan and Liya laugh at the action sequences, which are both silly and, at the same time, probably more realistic than modern movies. Liya observes that, when someone gets shot in the movie, they fall down and stay down.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 4: Alberta to Saskatchewan. Jan and Liya have breakfast with a young couple from Phoenix on vacation. The husband does all the talking. When Jan tries to engage the wife, Hannah, her husband keeps answering for her.
The train stops at the small town of Jasper in Jasper National Park. This is one of the only long-ish stops on the trip, so Jan and Liya are ready to go with a plan to walk about 1 3/4 miles to the Athabasca River, and across the river to Lake Bienverde. It’s cold out when they start, but the quick pace and the climbing sun warm things up. To make sure they get back in time, they have to jog a bit. It’s a nice enough walk: no wildlife to be seen, but the steep snow-covered mountains are spectacular. They manage to finish the roundtrip in an hour, giving Jan just enough time to grab a latte from the station’s tiny cafe.
They have lunch with Cindy (same woman from last night) and Cheryl, a large woman who spends the entire trip looking a little grouchy. During lunch, the train comes down out of the mountains and into foothills.
Dinner is with the same Cheryl and a nice man named Tony. Tony is retired now, but when he was a young man, he worked summers as a waiter on Canadian Pacific trains. At the time, the train was cheaper than flying, so there were 6 full trains leaving in both directions every day. (Now there are two trains leaving in both directions a week.) Many of the cars are still in service from Tony’s time — he says he probably worked in the dining car we’re eating in.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 5: Saskatchewan to Manitoba. Jan raises the cabin’s window shade to reveal a completely flat, white landscape. It may be spring in Seattle, but in the middle of Canada, it’s still winter.
There’s a brief stop at Melville, so Jan and Liya get off the train to walk up and down the cement sidewalk that serves as the train platform. At the end of the platform, there’s a tiny wooden station with a “MELVILLE” sign on it.
Jan and Liya eat both breakfast and brunch on the later side, so they get a table to themselves. In the afternoon, a pair of musicians that perform under the name “Moon Fruit” give a performance in the rear observation car. They sing songs in both English and French.
Dinner companions are a man named Chris and an older woman from Winnipeg. As the train pulls into Winnipeg, she points out a long white inflated building: “Inside that is a miniature golf course.” “How do you know that?” asks Chris. “I’ve been there!”, says the woman.
The Winnipeg train station is in the middle of the city, and there’s a long 3-hour stop, so Jan and Liya go into the city in search of dessert. They have Japanese-style dessert crepes at Kawaii Crepe, followed by hot drinks at Starbucks. It’s very windy and cold outside.
When Jan and Liya get back to the train station, they find that the train company has closed access to the platform while they load up the train. The train staff had mentioned this would happen, but had given the wrong time for when this would happen. So despite having made it back by the indicated time, Jan and Liya are shut out, along with some other disgruntled passengers. The station staff eventually relents and gets clearance for everyone to be able to return to the train. Happily, the cabin has been made up in bed mode, so Jan and Liya can go right to sleep.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 6: Ontario. Yesterday’s landscape was flat, snowy plains. Today’s landscape is snowy woods with lakes. Jan and Liya have a late lunch with an older Canadian couple, Bevin and Val. They live a tiny town in northern Alberta.
The train stops for a while in a small snowbound town called Horsepayne (pop. 980). Jan and Liya walk to two different little markets to pick up more train snacks.
At dinner they eat with two young people: Amy, a woman with a parent from one of the Canadian First Nations tribes (Oji-Cree?), and a South Korean man who introduces himself as “John”. Amy is fun to talk with; John’s English is not very strong, so he says almost nothing. As far as we can tell, John is spending the entire train journey playing a Korean first-person fantasy/fighting game on his laptop in one of the lounge cars.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 6: Toronto. Today’s landscape is woods, rocks, and a zillion lakes. Here spring is just arriving, and the lakes have melted out.
Jan and Liya have breakfast with a couple from Houston named Bob and Linda. After breakfast, we return to our cabin and find that a steward has put away the beds and returned the cabin from bed mode to chair mode. Liya exclaims: “Chair mode is my second favorite mode!”
“Train people are content to stare out the window for hours, like indoor cats.” — Holly Andres
The train reaches Toronto a little early, just around noon. The complete journey from Vancouver has taken almost exactly 4 days.
The weather in Toronto today feels like the first day of spring: it’s warm and sunny, and everyone’s happy. We have pizza for lunch near the station, then head to our hotel in the Yorktown district to check in. After a mid-afternoon snack at Höm cafe, we go to the Royal Museum of Ontario. There’s a big exhibit featuring treasures from the Indian kingdom of Jodhpur. Visitors can interact with some of the exhibits, including a comfortable bench swing.
Dinner is Japanese food at Kasa Moto, which isn’t bad, but not particularly authentic. After dinner we have fun using the hotel’s pool.
Canadian Train Trip, Day 7: Back to Seattle. After breakfast, Jan’s arranged a final spring break treat for Liya: a massage appointment at the hotel’s spa. Liya loves massages, and is a happy and relaxed camper afterwards.
We have a buffet lunch at Little India, which is just okay, followed by a visit to the Toronto aquarium, which is also just okay. The weather has turned cold and rainy, so the best part of the afternoon is a long stop at cozy Goldstruck Coffee. From there we make our way by train to the Toronto Airport for the flight home. Jan observes: “We’ve basically rolled here all the way from our house in Seattle.”
Backpacking trip to Owyhee Canyonlands, Day 1. Last week was Liya’s spring break; now it’s Bree’s turn. Jan’s taking Bree backpacking for 4 days in the Owyhee Canyonlands of eastern Oregon.
The Owyhee is a vast region of high desert canyons. It looks a little like Arizona or Utah, but is fairly unknown. It’s hard to get to, has few roads, offers no services, is essentially unmanaged, and receives only a tiny number of visitors each year.
The trip starts with a flight to Boise, Idaho, which is the nearest airport to that part of Oregon. Jan rents a SUV with 4x4 drive (the desert roads can become impassable if spring rains turn them to mud), and then we drive to Boise’s REI to pick up camping fuel (which you can’t take on a plane). We eat a quick lunch at a restaurant and use the restaurant’s restrooms to fill up water bottles and a big water jug (tonight’s campground has no fresh water).
Finally, we’re ready for the 2½ hour drive to Leslie Gulch Campground. The last hour of the drive is short but on dirt roads through cattle country. We cross many cattle grates.
We stop at the Juniper Gulch trailhead to make a short afternoon hike up to the top of Juniper Gulch, an area known for its stone hoodoos (pinnacles). The spring daytime temperature in the desert is pleasant, and the scenery is beautiful.
We finally arrive at Leslie Gulch Campground in the late afternoon. Since it’s the middle of the workweek, the campground is nearly empty. We get a nice spot with a view of some nearby hills and rock towers. Since the SUV is so big, we decide we’ll just sleep in the back of it, saving the trouble of setting up the tent. Since a previous site occupant has left wood by the firepit, we start a fire and roast marshmallows for dessert.
Backpacking trip to Owyhee Canyonlands, Day 2. For the next three days, Jan and Bree will hike the area south of Leslie Gulch. There’s one big problem, however: the spring rain and thaw have raised the level of the lake high enough that the the trail just south of Leslie Gulch is under water. It’s possible to hike above the lake for most of that stretch — but there’s one place where a huge rock wall juts out into the lake, blocking any passage.
There’s a very long 11–12 mile detour we can take, but that’s a long way to go in a single day, and it’s unclear how much water there will be along that detour route. Jan decides that we’ll hike over a tall ridge that separates Leslie Gulch from the neighboring valley of Spring Creek to the south.
This plan seems fine at the start. It’s a beautiful day for a hike. Bree is excited to finally be trying out the new blue backpack (which matches Jan’s) she got for Christmas. And we make our way up the approach to the main ridge, we see a large herd of deer.
The slope of the main ridge is extremely steep, and the soil is loose, making for slow going. There are also tumbleweeds and other brambles everywhere. It takes a full 3 hours to finally reach the top of the ridge, where we stop for a well-deserved lunch. At least the views from the top are amazing.
After lunch, we’re happy to begin descending to Spring Creek. But even the descent has its challenges. We eventually reach the bottom of a gully, which has its share of rocks and tumbleweeds to negotiate. Somewhat ominously, the gully narrows and becomes both rockier and steeper. We’re still fairly high above the valley floor, and while we can keep making progress downward, Jan becomes concerned we could trap ourselves: we might come to a point where we could go down but not easily get back up. If we then find ourselves blocked by a big drop-off, we’d be trapped.
To avoid that fate, we hike up the extremely steep slope up the side of the gully, and finally reach the top of a huge sandy hill. Now the descent involves a lot of sliding: Bree’s a little unsettled by this, but it’s safe enough, and we finally make it down to Spring Creek without incident.
Now we can follow the lush valley floor through some cow pastures back to Lake Owyhee. We come across several groups of cows in the way, but the cows are all spooked and run out of the way. We finally reach the lake around 4:00. We’ve only covered a short distance as the crow flies, but it’s taken 6 hours of fairly hard hiking, so we decide to make camp at the point where Spring Creek runs into the lake. It’s a pleasant, grassy area lined with trees, and the creek provides a better source for water than the muddy lake.
Since the hike over the ridge was so difficult, Jan’s curious as to whether it’s possible to return to Leslie Gulch along the lakeside. The trail had looked blocked from the Leslie Gulch side, but maybe it’s possible to go through? He scouts up the trail after dinner and confirms that the lakeside trail is in fact impassable. It’s blocked by a rock wall.
There are lots of birds in the area, and after the sun goes down, bats come out. There’s a nearly full moon. It’s beautiful, but now that the sun’s gone, the desert quickly gets very cold. It’s a long, cold night.
Backpacking trip to Owyhee Canyonlands, Day 3. Since yesterday’s hike took so long, we need to amend our plan for the rest of the trip. Instead of camping further south, we’ll spend another night here in the same spot by Spring Creek. That will leave us in a better position to get back home the following day (or, if necessary, the day after that) by taking the long detour route back to Leslie Gulch. Neither Jan nor Bree want to repeat yesterday’s beautiful but taxing hike over the tall ridge.
So today’s plan is just to day-hike to Echo Rock Hot Springs, just over 3 miles south along the side of Lake Owyhee. There are no official trails in the Owyhee Canyonlands, but the informal trail to the hot springs is generally easy to follow. In some wide open areas of brush, the trail breaks up and so Jan and Bree just walk cross country. But whenever the landscape funnels hikers into a narrower area, the trail appears again. In some places, the trail goes above some lakeside cliffs. Jan has no love for heights, and can all too easily imagine a simple stumble leading to an accident, so he’s happy when we’re past the cliffs.
Like everything else in the Owyhee, the hot springs aren’t marked or signed anywhere. Jan’s happy his GPS can find the general area where the hot spring is supposed to be, and after about 10 minutes of searching the brushy, rocky area, we finally locate the hot springs.
The hot springs are nothing fancy: just a rocky pool in the ground that someone’s taken the trouble to line with concrete. There’s a pipe that brings in water from a small creek that runs above the pool. The stream looks normal, but is actually quite hot. The water temperature is actually perfect: neither so hot that it’s unbearable, nor so tepid that it’s uninteresting. Jan and Bree fill the pool with hot water, and then enjoy a soak.
We spend a few hours at the hot spring: eating lunch, reading books, playing cards, and doing some laundry. It’s a relaxing afternoon. At two different times we see a small flock of 5–6 huge white birds with black wings fly by. (We’ll find out later that these are American White Pelicans.)
The walk back to camp is easy, but the afternoon’s hot and dry. We stop at a small, cold stream along the way to cool off and refill our water bottles. Back at the campsite, Jan prepares a backpacking dinner he’s never tried before: a dehydrated Pasta Bolognese that turns out to be stunningly good.
We turn in at sunset so that we get an early start the next day. We’re a little daunted by the fact that we’ll need to cover a lot of distance over the next day, maybe two, to get back to the campground. It looks like the first half of the trip will be along Spring Creek, so at least we’ll have access to water for that distance. But after we leave the creek, there will probably be no water until we get reach the campground at Leslie Gulch.
We turn off our headlamps to go to sleep. A few minutes later, we hear someone calling, “Hey, there! Hello?” We haven’t seen anyone for the past two days, so we’re surprised anyone is nearby. Jan gets out of the tent.
A woman named Devon and her boyfriend are walking along. They say they’re on the way to the hot springs, and are wondering how much further they have to go. Jan has to tell them that the hot springs are 3 miles away. They’re disappointed — they’d been misinformed about the distance to the hot springs.
But Jan and Bree are more curious about where this couple has come from. They’re carrying essentially no gear. Devon just has a water bottle clipped to her belt, and her boyfriend is carrying only a small tote bag with some jackets in it. They say they’ve just walked over from Leslie Gulch Campground. “How?!?” Jan asks. “Oh, we took the high trail that cuts across the steep slope between here and Leslie Gulch. The trail has one really sketchy part that you’ll hit after about 10 minutes, but it’s just a sliding slope, not a cliff where you’d fall off. The rest of the trail isn’t too bad.” In fact, the couple says they found it easy enough that they’re now going to head back over the high trail in the dark. They show us where to climb up the ridge a bit to find the start of the high trail.
With that encouragement, we decide that tomorrow we’ll just return to the campground via that high trail. That gives us some relief, and also means we don’t need to leave as early in the morning. It’s also warmer tonight, so we read outside for a bit longer as the moon comes up over Spring Creek canyon.
Backpacking trip to Owyhee Canyonlands, Day 4. We have a relaxed breakfast, then pack up to tackle the “not so bad” high trail across the west face of the ridge back to the Leslie Gulch campground.
We start by following the instructions we received from the couple about where to pick up the trail. The trail is, in fact, easy to follow. After 10 minutes, we do indeed come to a slightly washed-out section, but it’s not bad at all. Yay!
Then, a few minutes later, we come to a really washed out section. This is a fairly large portion of trail that’s completely washed away to reveal slippery rock with no good footholds or handholds. A slip at this point would result in a long, long slide down the slope. [Looking at satellite photos later, the slope appears to end at the top of a small cliff, so a slide down would have been even worse than it looked.]
Jan and Bree decide to climb up the loose slope and cross above the washed-out portion. This is fairly difficult, as the loose, sandy soil makes for very poor footing even when using hiking poles or crawling on all fours. There are occasionally some larger, darker rocks that look like good footholds or handouts — but when we try relying on those rocks, some of them pull right out of the soil.
After a harrowing cross over the washout, we slide down on our butts to return to the trail. That was no fun, but at least we’re now past what should be the worst part.
Unfortunately for Jan, the remainder of the trail includes three or four sections where the trail follows the top of a cliff for a little while. While the trail itself is more or less safe in those areas, it’s hard to ignore the fact that a small stumble in such an area could result in a really bad fall. The worst cliff crossing is a narrow inclined ramp that not only goes up somewhat steeply, but the trail there is sloped a little bit toward the cliff below.
After 1½ hours on this high trail, Jan and Bree finally make it past the worst portions, and have a clear, easy trail for the last 20 minutes across brushy meadows back to the campground and our car. We enjoy a final trailside lunch at a covered picnic table, then make the long drive on the dirt roads out of the Owyhee and back to Boise. We reward ourselves with a steak frites dinner at the Petite 4 restaurant, then watch “Lego Movie 2” at a local theater.
Boise to Seattle. Before flying home to Seattle in the early afternoon, Jan and Bree take a pleasant walk along a nice greenbelt next to the Boise River. With the spring thaw, the river is running very high and fast.
After a few days of work meetings in Toronto, Jan heads to Boston for a quick visit with Anya. She was coming up to Boston for a tour of MIT, so the two were able to meet up on Friday evening. Anya has a debate tournament on Sunday, so they just have Saturday together.
They spend the morning wandering around the Museum of Fine Arts. It turns out to be the museum’s busiest weekend of the year — it’s their annual Art in Bloom weekend, where gardening clubs from around the country come and exhibit flower arrangements to accompany specific artworks or galleries. Jan and Anya enjoy one painting in particular: “Museum Epiphany III” by Warren Prosperi. It’s a photorealistic painting of the very gallery in which the painting hangs. In the painting, a parent seems to be explaining something about an artwork to a child — so Jan takes a photo of himself explaining something to Anya.
Anya is planning to take a 6:25 pm train back to Choate, the last train that will get her there in time for the debate tournament. They have an early dinner not far from the station, but after dinner the ride service they call never shows up. They call a different service, and the car is late. By the time Anya and Jan are running into South Station, they can hear a public announcement: “This is the last call for [Anya’s train]. Now departing on Track 8.” They haven’t had time to get a ticket, but run out to the track in hopes they can get Anya on the train anyway. While Jan struggles on his phone with the Amtrak ticketing site, the train engineer tells Anya to hop on — and the train immediately pulls away. Jan finally gets a ticket code and texts it to Anya so she can stay on the train. Whew.
Jan’s friend Marc invites Jan and a mutual friend, David, to join him on 3-day sailing trip in Puget Sound. They drive in the morning to the marina in Bellingham. After a safety briefing, they go out to the boat, “Meritage”, and complete a rather lengthy checkout process. Jan’s designated as the boat’s “Navigation and Safety Officer” for the trip, and does his best to sound like he knows what he’s doing. The three men are finally cleared to go.
The boat is a Dufour Grand Large 382 and, at 38 feet long, is pretty roomy. Each of us get a small room to themselves, and there’s a galley, head, and lounge/dining area. Since we’re all trying to get used to the boat, we decide to just motor for the first day, heading southwest out of Bellingham to the San Juan Islands. It’s a pretty nice day to be on the water: a little cool, but sunny. Jan has fun driving the boat for a while through the Cone Islands, a small group of tiny islands north of Cypress Island.
We moor the boat off Pelican Beach on Cypress Island. We go ashore for a short walk, then come back to the boat. David prepares a nice hot dinner, which we eat on the back deck.
Mojo