I'm not sure whether I need to mention what day it is, but perhaps just to remind myself. It's only the second day on this self indulgent journey. I am only starting my day so don't know exactly what is going to transpire, although we do have a plan. At any rate we are following the path of the rail journey planner who has us visiting a city iconic tower, but really nothing else so we are going to seek out the city art gallery as well. It's not 8am yet and we have until 2:30pm to kill.
I know that if I mention where I am to someone my age, they are going to regale me with their last journey to Paris, Rome, Florida etc. I have heard so many people now talk about their travels as though they were some kind of accomplishment. The other side of that is travel because I earned the privilege. I feel like I'm kind of alone in my assessment of travel as unnecessary indulgence. There is no doubt that the way we are traveling now is a product of capitalism and I think, not much else. It appeals to an emptiness that people seem to feel in their everyday lives, scratches an itch as it were. This definitely is not luxury travel at this point. I'll have more to say about this later.
OK. It's day two and this is what I wrote by hand. We had a few drinks on the train last night and talked to a few people. There are not a lot of people here that have anything in common with us other than they are our fellow humans.
I still find this mode of travel to be a crashing bore and often lacking in comfort.
We have just been stopped for a freight train to pass, and now we are moving again. Our next stop is Edmonton. We were just in Jasper, which suffered a burn last summer. From what I understand, about half of the population there lost their homes.
David G. has talked himself into a roomette. Last night like us, he was in a berth. I can't imagine something like that happening to us. We wish him the best.
We have only gotten the guitars out once. We just played few songs to find out what things would sound like on a train. One of the passengers has asked us to ply tonight so we may sing a few songs. I'm never certain how things will work out in such a circumstance. There are few electric outlets to charge a bluetooth speaker, or a phone but I did charge my phone in Jasper at the train station.
There is no wifi on the train, which makes the entire journey into something of a throwback. Apparently the cares on this train were manufactured in 1955.
I slept through quite a bit of British Columbia last night. Now we are in Alberta in the Canadian Rockies. My bag was stuck under the bottom bunk. I slept in my clothes.
The word is official that we are not allowed to play on the train at all - at least when we are in Canada. They would let us play if we apply for a program that they have, and of course we would have to be Canadian to apply. If we were Canadian, and we passed their vetting they would give us free passage on the trains we were playing on. It was an interesting idea to bring guitars with us. I'm just glad that they are miniature instruments and easy to carry.
Personally a lot of the reason for bringing instruments was very simply to keep us playing and not lose our edge. We may be pretty rough when we get back from not playing for 2 weeks.
I'm a little depressed, partly from the alcohol I consumed on the first night but I also feel very alien. My ideas are not found to be acceptable in most common company although in many congregations my ideas would be commonplace.
The forests that we've been going through are much thinner than the forests on the coast. Of course we are in the Rocky Mountains so altitude, as well as precipitation have a lot to do with the appearance of the forest and plant life.
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