Across the prairies and waiting for freight trains

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Woke up in Unity, Saskatchewan - mountain time zone, surrounded by prairies with white wheat fields bordered by yellow/orange leaved poplar trees. The tracks south of Unity are lined with silos, grain elevators. Train is now six hours behind schedule. We had stopped often during the night to let freight trains pass; evidently many freight trains have moved north to our tracks due to flooding in the south. Mid-morning we are slowly climbing in elevation, beginning to see more cattle, a few oil pumps, hills, clouds with light rain, more stops for freight trains.

Brunch in Alberta, still stopping for freight trains, then speeding down the tracks. Hard to drink coffee at times. Rode all morning through prairie with some hills, rivers, getting to Edmonton a little after 2:00 pm. The capital of Edmonton with a population of 800,000 with oil refineries along with the wheat and agriculture. The railroad station is on the outskirts of town but we were able to get outside for a few minutes to walk along the tracks. Lots and lots of freight trains. We were supposed to get into Jasper around 1:30 pm but finally made it just before midnight. Bus was at the station to take us and our luggage to the hotel and to bed.

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