[homoe]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

I took the Amtrak Starlight down to visit a friend who came up for a training in her state agencies' office and while waiting for the train to arrive from Seattle, I sat in the train station lobby next to a rather large group of Amish people from Indiana. They were going to be on the same train, going down to Klamath for this leg of their journey, but they had just come from seeing Banff National Park (in the Calgary/Edmonton area of Alberta, Canada). The group of Amish were composed of six sisters (with their husbands) and their mother and father. They were on their 'trip of a life time,' that all of them saved toward over the past year. They have a family owned business, back in Indiana, so it took a lot of time and preparation to be off for three weeks. The very last car of the Starlight (coastal Amtrak) train was reserved for them - it was a turn of the century car from the late 1880s, early 1900s. They traveled to Banff first, then they're at the Redwoods in Crescent City today and then, they travel down further to the grove of Redwoods in Yosemite, CA.... to finish their summer vacation before returning to Indiana.

Anyway, I've always wanted to take an extended vacation to go see both Jasper National Park and Banff National Park.

Mary took me to Banff when I first moved out here in 2002. It was amazing considering I'm not really an outdoorsy type!