Day 3

We woke up sort of, since we never did really go to sleep just stayed
in that travel sleep not quite asleep but aware of your surroundings,
at 7am Mountain Time with a Station stop and the announcement for
breakfast. It is -27F outside right now -33C or just under. The
scenery is farmland and hills spotted with the odd tree here and
there. We have seen 4 pheasants as we go by. It is much like the
Alberta scenery. We are now passing Bainville which has a bunch of
pump jacks scattered in the field and a cemetery. The sun is now
cresting the hills and spreading a warm glow on everything despite the
cold.

We went for breakfast in the Dining car. They called our names and
since our car is at the front of the train and the dining car is near
the back it took a long time to get there. They even did a second
calling for our names, we were only one car away at that point. Jon
had the Continental Breakfast with oatmeal and a biscuit and I had the
french toast. We sat with another young couple going to Detroit to
visit his parents.

Just out of Minot the operating crew ran out of hours. They are only
allowed to be working for 12 hours and not a mintue more, so as i
update this note we are waiting for the "dog catch" crew (Engineers
and Conductors) to arrive. I guess that's what happens when your train
is 14-15 hours late. We figure we'll be into Chicago around 7am on the
22nd and then we (us and Amtrak's Customer Relations desk in Union
Station) need to figure out what to do from there.

We are haning out in our room watching the scenery and playing games.
We would go to the Sightseer Lounge, but one of them is being used for
extra Coach passengers and the other one is really cold. I guess there
are advantages to being close to the engine when it is so cold
outside. When we walk through the cars on the way to the Dining Car
the temperature seems to drop the farther away from the engine we are.

We have seen more pheasants and grouse along the sides of the tracks.
The scenery still looks like prairie, but there are a few more trees
now, most likely planted by the original farmers.

The crew is now changed out and we are stopped in Minot to pick up
passengers and unthaw heating systems and water systems. Jon is hoping
that they'll get the showers running.
If you get this that means the freight train has passed and I'll get
the signal back from the houses across the street.

Day 2: Evening

We sat in the waiting room at the Shelby, MT train station. There were movies on, but due to the large amount of people waiting for the train going West it was too noisy to hear it, so I bought a word search magazine and Jon and I worked on it until out butts were too sore to sit on and we walked around the small station, played games and talked to the other people in the station. Quite a few freight trains were getting through before the Westbound train got in. Jon ran out and took pictures of most of them. The westbound train came in at 7:30pm, only about two hours late. We wish ours was only that late. Everyone in the station was really nice. After the westbound train boarded there were only 5 of us left in the waiting room until around 10:30 when more people started arriving. We ended up eating our leftover pizza at around 9pm. The station manager let us use the microwave to heat up the pizza and wings. At the time I write this we are still waiting. By the way the windchill is -37F outside which is about -38C, -40 is when it equals out. If the train does show up at 1:05 as they are now predicting we will get into Chicago at around midnight on the 22nd of December and then we still have to make our way to Canada. We will miss our connection in Chicago to Rodchester or Buffalo, and the following train is solidly booked, so we're not sure what we're doing once we get there. We may take a train to Detroit and take a Taxi across the border to Windsor, ON and take the VIA into Toronto from there rent a car to get to Haliburton. That's just a guess. We really don't know at this point and are calmly taking it as it comes. It's all part of the adventure.

Day 2 Afternoon

Afternoon of Day 2:
We are currently sitting in the Shelby, Montana USA Train station waiting for our train which is over 11 hours late to arrive. Murray stayed with us for most of the day and we took a quick trip to Havre, MT to do some railfanning. We went to the Amtrak station to see how late the train was. We found out that tomorrow's trains were cancelled. We then went to the railway museum and looked around for a little while before going to K-mart and Wal-mart Superstore.
We decided to have a late lunch at Pizza Hut in Shelby since we didn't know when our next meal would be. We now have pizza and wings leftover for our dinner/snack tonight. Either that or we share with the others in the station.
Stay tuned for our next chapter of our adventure..

Day 2 Morning

We stayed in the Comfort Inn at Shelby
We woke up to more freezing temperatures. We know the train is going to be late, we just don't know by how much. Today is going to be an adventure! Now we're off for breakfast.

Christmas Trip 2008 Day 1

We left Calgary at 5:05pm on Friday December 19th in Murray's truck. Due to the bad weather we didn't go through the city, but took hwy 24 South to Lethbridge. The roads were fairly good with a few icy sections.
We headed south to the border at Coutes and then to Shelby. We arrived in Shelby at 10pm. The border guard at Coutes was really nice. He is a rail fan too. We invited him to Calgary for the Supertrain show that we
are involved in.

New Kids on the Block

My sister, Julia and I went to the New Kids concert on November 19th, 2008. It had been 19 years since we first saw them in Toronto at the Maple Leaf Gardens. I was 14 and my sister was 12.

The stage looked similar to the one they used the first time, but it's had a few modifications. We had slightly better seats this time as we were behind the stage the first time. Also the first time there were so many screaming girls that you couldn't hear the show. This time was a little better, but it was still lots of screaming women.

Lady Gaga and Natasha Beddingfield opened the show. I didn't care for Lady Gaga's show as she only directed it to the people directly in front of her and not to the rest of the crowd. Natasha Beddingfield put on a great show and she directed it to everyone. She sounds as good live as she does on her recordings. I had a great time at the show and enjoyed it more than I expected to.

Bloomin Inn November 2008

For the November Long weekend Suzanne, Melissa and Michaelea went away for a scrapbooking retreat at the Bloomin Inn, in Pincher Creek, AB.