Coast to Coast

Don’t you love Forrest Gump quotes? “For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.”

We got this far, Toronto, we might as well keep going. So that’s what we did….all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The morning arriving into Toronto, we woke up to the color red mixed in with the yellows. Who could have imagined the abundance the Lord is giving us on this trip.

On this adventure Jay decided to make a list of all the diversity in professions on one train. Here is the list: University professor of philosophy, (who has cancer and treating it naturally by using a naturopathic, Dr Shallenberger in Carson City, NV. God-incidence again) Teacher, Professor of genetics (a cowriter of a paper currently being published with the FDA on spinabifida)
Canadian government analyst, landscape architect in Germany, manager of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Germany, electrical enginer, art and philopher teacher, assurance analyst, owner of a waste management company, Dr office receptionist, international cyber security specialist with the DOD (Thank You!!!) who is taking his dad, a retired train traffic controller, on his 80th birthday trip, a train engineer, phosphate mine quality control manager, and a title company and farm loans executive, and the mayor of Montreal’s borough, Lasalle. She is running again in the next election.

That is a diverse group. 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 talks about diversity, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many”. We need all these vocations to make up our life on earth. I love how we have lived on these trains together enjoying God’s creation and the many people we met.

It seems like one couple stands out on each of our adventures and we become friends. We exchanged information to continue the friendship after travels.

Dennis and Josie from the providence of British Columbia. She is a nurse and he maintained saw mills up and down the west coast and is a retired Navy submariner. Dennis has 17 grandchildren and knows all their names and birthdates. Impressive! (Sometimes we struggle with five). Josie is also a quilter, and taught quilting classes. Again, Impressive! She told Jay she would be sending material. I don’t have enough, only one closet full. Her favorite quilts to make are from scraps, which is what is sitting on my quilting table at home. Oh how she will be a huge help for me. Dennis and Josie are somewhat newlyweds, beginning their second year of marriage.

Another couple we met, Mo and Bianca. Mo is from Somalia and is now a coffee expert living in Winnipeg, who doesn’t drink coffee. Bianca is the connoisseur. Mo exports coffee from Ethiopia and has a coffee roasting company called Negash Coffee. His business is getting quite a bit of press around Canada. Here’s what we learned, dark roast has the least amount of caffeine. It’s like they roast the caffeine out of the beans. They have invited us to come back to Winnipeg and help roast some coffee.

We had 24 hours in Toronto. Spur of the moment decision to rent a car and drive to…

Niagara Falls. When you are this close, how do you not go. “Since we’ve gone this far.”

The Falls at night are lit up in red, blue, and green, which really looks yellowish in the picture, interesting.

We found several falls on this train trip. Niagara is beautiful, however I think my favorite are the ones you see the craggy rocks around the falling waters. That’s how I picture falls in the garden of eden.

All of them are beautiful in their own unique way. That’s how God made them.

The next day we took the train to Montreal to rent a car to drive to Quebec City where our hotel reservations for the next two nights were. Our train arrived in Montreal twenty minutes late, 5:20. The rental car places close at 5:00 on Wednesdays. We were not aware of this. So….

Here we stand in line for the next train to Quebec City. We made it! It’s good to be flexible. So glad we didn’t miss that hotel reservation. Our room was well designed with many futuristic features for the next remodel at the Harris house.

This is how you controlled the toilet. The seat was warm and the lid automatically opened when you approached. Yes, it says massage on the controller. We’re not sure how that works. It was too scary to push that button.

Quebec City is full of history. Rosie, we needed you. Everyone speaks French. It’s Canadian French which is a bit different from European French.

College tuitions in Quebec are $3,000 Canadian dollars per year is what a guide shared. Rosie, think about it.

One day is not enough, however you do what you can with the time you have. We walked 16,000 steps and then….

Yep!, used the Big Bus hop on/hop off to get a great synopsis of how rich the history is in this area of our world. Here are a few pictures of this great city.

The walls from the lower section near the banks of the St Lawrence up the promontory are about 100 meters high. In 1648 until present they call these walls “Cape Diamond”. It originated from the french explorer, Jacques Cartier, who in 1541 discovered diamonds and gold in the walls which turned out to be quartz and iron pyrite. This could be why I might like Tiffany’s better than Cartier.

The panoramic views were described by Charles Dickens as “The Gabralter of America” when he visited in 1842.

The parks are beautiful in Quebec City. One used to be an airport where Charles Lindeberg landed in 1928, flying in blizzard conditions, bringing antiviral pneumonia serum to the city in attempt to save one of his aviator friends, Floyd Bennett, who was desperately ill. Unfortunately, not in time. His friend died soon after Charles arrived.

Another park near the train station celebrates poetry . Each chair holds a different poem.

The roofs of the brownstone housing all over the city are diverse.

One thing each train station has in common is a clock.

The providence of Quebec is at the height of fall colors – reds and yellows amongst the green. A spectacular show! Our spur of the moment train rides between Montreal and Quebec City have been outstanding. We are so glad we missed the car rental and rode the train.

Coming into the metropolitan Montreal kind of reminds us of San Francisco a bit -the busyness, the construction, the smells. One thing San Francisco does not have is locks.

Our last train ride takes us overnight to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This protest began a block from our hotel, so we rented a car and found our way to the country towns of Halifax.

Liverpool, Nova Scotia and Mohone Bay were towns you think of when you invison Nova Scotia. They are towns in the district of Lunenburg, the Christmas tree capital of the world. Our train porter suggested this area. She told us about an artist at a garden center. He made statues from concrete and placed them throughout a beautiful nature trail.

Mahone Bay’s homes are salt box houses and are all different colors, pinks, purples, blues, yellows, etc. This was my favorite combo of color. (Teal it up for Ovarian cancer!)

Peggy’s Cove is the home of one of the most photographed lighthouses.

This guy was playing the horn the Swiss use to call the cows home. He said sometimes his wife would come home too.

And lobsters (before and after).

Diversity – the mixture of old and new, diversity of ways to travel, waterfalls, people, animals and terrain – Canada has it all. We experienced so much traveling coast to coast, however there is so much more to discover.

We can’t end this blog without sharing our sorrow for the sudden loss of our dear friend’s fifteen year old grandson. The past several days we have been in diligent prayer day and night for this sweet young boy. Our deepest sympathy to the Mitchell /Greenfield family.

There is no way to make sense of a loss such as this one except God is in control and knows what He is doing. For us who know the Lord, we know we will see him again.

Our prayers are not for nothing. We know they are heard and are stored in golden bowls that we will see one day. But for now, Psalm 56:8 tells us, “You keep track of all (our) sorrows. You have collected all (our) tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book”.

We are uniquely created for special roles for the time we have here. All the beauty around the world, our seasons as well as the animals we see in the wild, all God’s creation. All made by His touch. All together we are Christ’s body. May we use each of our special gifts He has given us to glorify God through Jesus, the one who died for our sins, the sacrifice, once and for all.

The sun is setting on this time in Canada.

Canada, we’ll be back!

Next Stop……

Blessings, Jay and Kelly