July 28- Radium to Nelson

When we woke up after a terrible night's sleep in Radium (Sophie fell off the bed twice- that girl moves a LOT!) we tried getting a hold of Thom to no avail. We decided to go out for breakfast and then head off, knowing we would meet up with them eventually. We met in Cranbrook, where we stopped at Payless to buy William some running shoes. Saoirse asked for about a dozen pairs, she loves shoes. I did get Liam 2 pairs, his back to school ones and a pair to mess about in while we were away. They were marked down from $50 to $5. A good deal I thought. And no PST. I forgot about the PST, which combined with the GST adds an extra 14% to most everything you buy. Except children's apparel apparently. We don't have PST in Alberta, so I forget how expensive things can get.

Sophie sleeping on the way to Cranbrook, it was a rough night.


Saoirse sticking her tongue out in concentration at an obviously vital part of Little Mermaid. Or Peter Pan. One of them anyway.



Thom wanted to stop at the Canadian Railway Museum. We did one of the 7 tours, the Trans-Canada Limited tour.


This quilt was made for Cranbrook's centennial in 2005. My picture isn't great, but up close that quilt was quite something...so much detail and history.


Walking to the train.


A poster advertising the Trans-Canada, the fastest train in North America in the 20s, going from Montreal to Vancouver.


Sophie hanging out in the day parlour car.


One of the restored beds in the first class sleeping compartment. Obviously, they didn't restore the blinds! The sink was really neat, they had separate taps for hot, cold, dental, and drinking water. By the 40s they were replaced with normal sinks.



During the Depression the trains were taken out of service and in the 40s were refitted. They painted over all the mahogny with this greenish paint. The museum has spent however many years restoring the train and searching for pieces. The picture after this one shows a restored wall. I did not include a picture of a sideboard in the diningroom, which I should have as the story behind it was interesting- it was found on a farm in Ontario being used as a chicken coop. If you did take a look at the tour link it is pictured in the left hand picture.




After Cranbrook, we made a few few more stops- once in Creston so my brother could buy some organic fruit and then at a beach whose name I can't remember Kook-something or other. Must look on the map in the morning. Sophie went nowhere near the water of course, she did however manage to open a can of pringles and eat a few before I caught her. This is the shirt I mentioned yesterday, the Cows play one Backyardigans.


Taylor in the water. I didn't realize how much in the shadow this pic is.


Thom and Liam.


After our beach stop, we drove to the ferry at Kootenay Bay. The Balfour ferry is the longest free ferry ride in the world at 35 minutes. We had a bit of a wait as we didn't get onto the small ferry so Liam and Taylor went down to the beach (I keep getting in trouble for using the word beach- William informs me that a beach is only a beach if it is at the ocean) with Saoirse. I discovered later that the water here was really warm as compared to the water in Nelson.


Sophie wore my sunglasses.


Our ferry, the Osprey 2000, coming in.


I love this picture of Taylor. Again, it's covered in shadow, I'll have to see if I can play around with that. But she looks so grown up. She is sitting on the top of my brother's truck. He was first in line and people stood in front of the cars to watch the view and some young guy was not watching the view, he kept turning and looking at Taylor. Yikes.


Mountains and water, mountains and water. I have tons of these!



All of them standing on the upper deck. Yes, my brother has tiger like stripes in his hair. He's a different soul, that boy. Wait until I tell you what he did for my mum, aunt and I. That's not until day 5 or so though. Stick around, you'll all be wanting a brother like him. Or you might want to kill him, which was my inital feeling.


Tomorrow: Day 1 in Nelson! Lucky youse again.