Choo choo

On Friday I made a slight detour to Northern Ontario - The North as it's referred to around here.
I wanted to go visit my cousin Katie and her little family, which I have never met, well other than Pete at their wedding. Anyways, I had plans of driving up with my uncle, but those sadly fell through :( Instead, my other uncle suggested I take the train up to see her! Great idea, I love riding trains instead of buses. This suggestion was even better because to get to North Bay by train, I need to take the Northlander. This is a train operated by Ontario Northland, but unfortunately, it is being CLOSED this weekend. There will no longer be train service there. Tragic. See the website for more information : http://www.developingthenorth.com/ - I am not sure why it is closing, I was told for political reasons, and so I didn't ask.

Anyways, the train left Toronto on Friday morning and we chugged northwards through the changing foliage  It was really quite pretty. As we got further north, the farm fields disappeared and lakes and rock started appearing. Actually looked somewhat like home. The train was really a great idea, much nicer than taking the dreaded bus! The chairs we really big and comfy, they reclined and also had feet rests - blew the seats that I had on the train from London out of the water!

Arrived in North Bay in late afternoon and made my way to Katie's place. Her kiddies are cuties! I spent the weekend there with her, it rained and they were all sick, so we didn't do much. But that was perfect. After all the rushing around I've been at, it was nice just to chill out.

I came back down to Toronto on Sunday. Standing at the train station is how I imagine it must have been like across Newfoundland when they took out the train there. I've seen the pictures of everyone lined up to get their photos taken with it when it stopped for the last time. Similar to that, the train station was full of people taking photos when it pulled up. The train up was empty, but getting on Sunday it was packed. Turns out it was a lot of people just riding one stop over, for one last ride. Taking tons of photos. All along the tracks throughout the trip, there were people standing, waving, taking photos.

As I stated before, I am glad I decided to take the train - I would not have gone if I was going to take the bus. Plus it was beautiful! Well up until Gravenhurst - which sounds like it should be from Harry Potter. Then the trees turned into farms and the trees stopped being red :(