Oh, Canada

Perhaps you have noticed that The Grandstander has been away from his post for several weeks now.  That is due to the fact that from June 16 through June 26, I along with the sixteen other folks pictured above took part in an absolutely fabulous trip through western Canada, from Vancouver to Calgary.  

During that trip we traveled by airplane (of course), three days by train aboard the "Rocky Mountaineer", by tour bus, by city bus, by a horse drawn carriage, by boat, and by mountain gondolas.

We traveled from Vancouver to Whistler (where the 2010 Winter Olympics were staged) to Quesnel to Jasper to Banff to Lake Louise to Calgary.

We saw scenery that was indescribable.  Mountains that were formed, literally, hundreds of thousands of years ago, snow in June, pristine mountain lakes, rivers, and streams, and at least five spectacular waterfalls.

We stood atop and walked upon a glacier and drank pure glacier water.

We saw bears, moose, elk, big horn sheep, mule deer, and something called a marmot, all in their natural habitats.

We saw at least four weddings taking place.

But mainly and perhaps most memorably, time was spent together among seventeen different people, and getting to know them may well have been the most fun part of the trip.  

This trip was put together by Tom Diecks, President of Greater Pittsburgh Travel, and his wife Betty back in November.  Dan and Susan Bonk proposed that I join them in making this trip.  This was just about a month after Marilyn died, and, as they put it, it would be an opportunity for the three of us to have one more travel adventure.  Marilyn would be with us in spirit, and it would be one hell of a way to say good-bye to her by doing what the four of us loved doing so much so many times since 2017 - taking a trip together!  

Among the group, I knew Dan and Susan, of course, and I also know both Tom and Betty.  The Bonks knew some of the others as Robinson Township neighbors of theirs, but most of the others were strangers to us, but we bonded quickly with all of them.  You learn quickly that just about everyone has a story to tell.  Stories of interesting careers and hobbies, exotic and not-so-exotic travels, families, and just about all of those stories can be interesting to share.  People learned quickly that Marilyn had died last year, and many asked me to talk about her, which I did.  It felt good to talk about her to people who never knew her, and it was a great feeling to share with them what a wonderful person she was, how much she would have loved this trip, and how she would have enjoyed talking with them.   It was hard to do, but strange as it may sound, it was also easy to do at the same time.  I know, that doesn't seem to make any sense, but, as I have learned, it is one more example of two things being true at the same time.  I also shared with them the news of my new relationship with Linda and our plans to be married in 2023.  Everyone was so happy and supportive.

When the trip idea was first proposed back in November, I wasn't sure that I should do it, wasn't sure that I wanted to be traveling solo with a group of "coupled" folks.  That aspect of the trip was hard, and you become acutely aware of your singleness when you walk into restaurants with tables for two or four, or gondola rides that require four people.  I mentioned that there were seventeen of us in the group?  Guess which one was the odd man Number 17?    However, the kindness of others helps you to overcome such matters.  Still, lots of memories pop up that made this an emotionally hard trip for me.  It was also a physically demanding trip.  We did a lot of walking over sometimes difficult terrain at very high altitudes.  In the end, though, I am so, so glad that I made the trip.  Being with old friends, meeting new friends, seeing spectacular places, and making new memories made up for a lot.  Knowing what I know now, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Digital photography is both a blessing and curse.   You can snap picture after picture without worrying about a thirty-six photo limit on a roll of film.  You can delete the blurred and the bad ones in your hotel room at night.  In the end, though, you end up with hundreds of photos.  I loaded over 900 pictures from this trip onto my computer.  Then there are the cool videos that you can take with your phone.  You can't print them all, you sure as hell aren't going to bore subject your friends and relatives to looking at all of them, and can you even remember which gorgeous mountain or what spectacular waterfall you are looking at in any given photo?  However, they now become the documentation of your trip, the forever memories that you will take with you to your grave.

I have just selected a few photos at random from this trip to show here.  Perhaps you will enjoy them, but they become a documentation in The Grandstander of one terrific ten day period in my life.

The Terrible Towel flies North of the Border....

From Olympic Park in Whistler....

Lake Louise..

My new friend Pat Myers became my Go To photographer on the trip....

Takkakaw ("It is magnificent")  Falls.  At 1,200 feet, it is the third larger waterfall in North America and is spectacular to behold....

Gold, Silver, and Bronze atop Blackcomb Mountain, where the Olympic Alpine events were contested in 2010...

At this point on the gondola ride in Whistler, you are higher off the ground than you would be at the top of the Empire State Building......

Representin' atop the Columbia Ice Fields, Jasper National Park, Alberta....

The morning view from my hotel room at Chateau Lake Louise.  Are you kidding me?

Nice toque, eh?  I couldn't resist....

Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee....