Farnsniente

Our train became a bus for our trip to Kamloops, B.C.

When is a train not a train?

—

in
📍 Kamloops, B.C.

Photos

Trip index

Summary

Did I say “train adventure”? Due to wildfires closing the tracks our train day became a bus day and our white tablecloth lunch with wine became A&W Root Beer and Teen burgers. (If you know, you know). Very disappointing, but small in comparison to the impact on people living in the path of these fires. The drive was long but scenic despite the smoke. Spent the night as planned, in Kamloops, and had a very nice dinner at Brownstone Restaurant.

Details

Today we’re intentionally up at 6 a.m. We’ve been saying we need to do a Canadian Rockies train trip for years, but now we’re really doing it. Today we get on the train. We are to be down in the lobby at 7 a.m., checked out, to catch the bus to the train. Leave our luggage in the room. They’ll take care of that. Not a lot of time but I do check my email as I sip my coffee. 

Whoops! Update from the tour. It’s a “We regret to inform you…” note. Fires. For us there will be no train today. There are fires between here and our destination for the day, Kamloops. The train is already in Kamloops. It was headed here (to pick us up) but with the fires it had to stop and reverse back to Jasper. Instead, today, we’ll take a bus, er motor coach, to Kamloops. Well crap. Departure is now 9:30 am (rather than 7 am). We have an extra two and a half hours to kill.  

We have a leisurely breakfast. We pack, checkout, and turn our luggage over to the tour people. In the end the buses are (an additional) 45 minutes late departing. Not an auspicious start. Finally onboard we meet our bus crew: Carsten, Cora and our driver, Phan. They all feel our pain.  

It’s a nice enough bus, but there’s no tray table, no pouch, no WiFi, no power. Your basic bus. We would have had lunch, as a part of our tour, on the train. Carsten says we’ll be in Kamloops in time for lunch, save your lunch receipts. He does not say as much but the “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” is that the tour company will reimburse us. Later he realizes how late we got off, and remembers buses encounter traffic, which trains normally do not, so nope, we will not be in Kamloops in time for lunch. New plan? Who knows. They do have lots of water and salty snacks on board. 

Along the drive, periodically, Carsten comes on the PA system to tell us some interesting info. Apparently there is a migration of crows (I guess a murder) that migrates daily from Brentwood to downtown Vancouver. They arrive in the morning and return to Brentwood in the evening (to sleep). Supposedly when you see them arriving it’s like the movie “The Birds”. 

We also hear how the Hudson Bay Company told their fur trappers that it’d be swell if, as they’re out doing their jobs, they could hook up and marry the local girls (Indian girls). That would make future negotiations with the tribes easier. HR wasn’t around in those days, I guess.  

As we continue on we see the Cascade Mountain Range. It’s in Washington but we can see it from here. We see Mount Baker. 10,781 feet which holds the record for the most snow in one year. 

As we get close to lunch time we’re told we’ll be stopping at a gas station. Nearby will be a number of restaurants and we can take our pick: Jamba Juice, A&W Root Beer, Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza, and Dollar General. Enjoy your lunch. We get two teen burgers from A&W and Karen pops into the Dollar store to buy some nuts and snacks. She had mentioned buying wine and charging it to the tour company, but I couldn’t imagine what kind of wine Dollar General sells. Actually I can. Yuck. (She didn’t buy any wine). 

The city of “Hope” is where we stop for lunch. Sylvester Stallone’s movie First Blood was filmed here. On the way into town we see a big sign with the Hope city slogan: “Gateway to holiday land”

As we drive on we see a forest fire with lots of smoke. A helicopter swoops down and picks up water from the river to try to douse some of the flames. Once past it we figure we’re past the smoke. Oh, no, we’re in and out of the smoke all day. So many fires. 

We hear a story about some rich guy’s wife (Lady Agnes MacDonald) who rode in a box on top of the train to be able to experience all of the majesty of the trip. Because she was up there they were able to spot some debris on the tracks in time not to run into it (and derail the train down into a canyon). Crazy story. 

https://www.victoriansocietyofalberta.ca/2024/07/lady-agnes-macdonalds-adventure-july.html

In Kamloops the smoke is thick, really thick. We see little dots of white in the air. Ash. Going into our lungs. We check into our room. It’s fine, definitely nothing special. We walk through the smoke, with our masks on, to dinner. We’d made a reservation at a nice place. It was fine. We walk back to the room and eventually get out of the smoke to sleep. What a day. We hope for better luck tomorrow.

Photos

Once we know we’re taking a bus, and not the train, to Kamloops, all we can do is wait. While we wait we take advantage at a mirror at the hotel for a quickie couple’s selfie.
Finally on the bus, three plus hour after we should have been heading off for the train. And not a great bus, no power, tray tables, WiFi, and, and, and. I’m not bitter.
We do get to see Mount Baker down in Washington in the Cascades Range. Impressive. Our first snow.
On the bus, in heavy traffic, we’re reminded of one of the big advantages of the train: no traffic.
Where we had, er, purchased lunch: A&W Root Beer. We ate, like everyone, on the bus.
Our first fire (but not our last). We did see helicopters picking up water from the nearby river. Good luck, all.
We saw some impressive geology.
And we saw some forests that didn’t make it, that are going to have to start from scratch. Apparently this area has high temperatures every year and a bad fire burning everything down every few years. What a way to live.
As we’ve been on this trip we’ve been watching the air quality in the cities where we’re headed. In Kamloops, for sleeping tonight, it’s a high health risk. Not good. Don’t breathe?
We brought our own masks and they handed them out on the bus.
As if we’re not already on edge enough, out of nowhere everyone’s phone starts buzzing and blaring, yet another area being evacuated (not us).
We do get to have a fairly good dinner in Kamloops.
Kamloops had plans for a two day music festival. It’s going on here, and then sun is setting. Normally you couldn’t look directly into the sun (safely) but with all the smoke it’s just a bright smudge in the sky. Better luck tomorrow.