I yesterday summarized the two cruise segments of our recent 50-day trip, and half those days were in Canada, mostly on VIA Rail Canada and Rocky Mountaineer trains, both with no WiFi.  Somehow, I think I only missed a couple of days of posts.  And some amazing good news.  The SJourney train trip we are taking from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi at the end of the year does have WiFi. Interestingly enough, during this current travel period, my original blog site, which had been averaging 500 visits/day for the first 15 years, jumped to 25,000/day.  For reasons I can't explain, this surge began from the American Melody cruise, Memphis to New Orleans, and continued on through Canada. This Canadian train trip changed my mind about trains. Turns out that the only time I slept overnight on a train was on VIA Rail Canada, a four-day ride in December of 2017 from Vancouver to Toronto . Passengers were peeved because we arrive half a day late.  Why? What happened about a year...

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...