Back to my cocoon, also known as apartment 1212 at 15 Craigside.  Looking forward to doing essentially nothing until our next potentially monumental journey: We fly to Iceland to see some geo-cold sites, then board the Azamara Journey for 18-nights from Rekjavik to Greenland, ending up in Montreal.  Of course, there is one primary reason we will be on this cruise.  The next total solar eclipse.  Sun will stay dark for 2 minutes and 18 seconds on August 12. Will you see this event from where you live?  Google AI says: Upcoming Total Solar Eclipses: August 12, 2026: Greenland, Iceland, Spain. August 2, 2027: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia. July 22, 2028: Australia, New Zealand. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ] For those in the United States, the next total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous U.S. will be on August 22, 2044 . [ 1 ]   How old will you be in 18 years? Some reviews of the Azamara Journey. Google AI says: The Azamara Journey is hi...

My next couple of days will involve travel on the Rocky Mountaineer, which has no WiFi.  I will thus try to insert a daily mini-post, providing highlights, to be followed by full tour details when I get to Vancouver.  Thus, today, just a couple videos and photos of our stay in Banff.  We saw an assortment of wild animals yesterday.  Bighorn sheep at the top of the Banff Gondola. This current internet system takes forever to download a video to You Tube, but should eventually clear sometime today. A video of Emerald Lake. Our Cinco de Mayo lunch. Today we board the Rocky Mountaineer to Kamloops. -

The only meal we had in Jasper was in our room.  There was a market nearby, so we bought ingredients for nachos and chicken.  The wine was from the American Melody.  A fabulous Merlot from Paso Robles. So yesterday, we left Jasper for Lake Louise in a van with a guide and three others. s In particular, Jake, our guide from State Farm....nah, Alberta Blue Sky tours...talked about that  terrible wildfire of 2024. The ride continued, and scenery was awesome. We stopped by Athabasca Falls. A few miles further on was a smaller falls. I should mention something I've never seen before.  The pine cones for spruce trees are only at the very top of the tree.  Why?  Evolution has taught the tree to place future seeds up there to minimize animals eating the nuts.  Plus, if there is a forest fire, the outside protects the inner cones. More scenes. We stopped to film one of the Columbia glaciers. The highlight of this tour was the Athabasca Glacier. We were gre...