The Rocky Mountaineer

We were so lucky to be chosen by Starlight Children's Foundation to be one of the 15 families to go on this once of a lifetime trip on the Rocky Mountaineer. 

On Tuesday we flew from Vancouver to Calgary courtesy of the Air Canada Foundation.

This was a nice easy day. We checked into the hotel and the kids played in the pool. The next day, Wednesday morning, the adventure started! We met all the other families and the amazing Starlight staff, including Captain Starlight and L'il John, for breakfast and the kids got to make their own stuffed animals.

After breakfast, we got on a bus headed for Banff. In Banff, the kids were each given $50 gift cards to Ardene who are a sponsor and fundraiser for Starlight. The kids chose fidgets and gel markers. Next the kids were each given a $50 gift card to the Banff Sweet Shoppe which was pure chaos and so much fun for all the kids. The kids managed to spend $94 on candy, leaving $6 for a single piece of fudge for Chuck and I to share.

Next we got back on the busses and headed to the Banff Gondola which took us up the top of Sulphur Mountain where we walked across the Boardwalk and enjoyed some amazing views. The top of the mountain is just under 8000 feet of elevation and Eric did struggle a bit with the thinner air. 

We headed back to the hotel for dinner and we were so exhausted after the busy day, we just chilled in the room for a bit before an early bedtime. Early because we had to meet in the lobby at 6:45am MOUNTAIN TIME to catch the bus to the Rocky Mountaineer train. There was surprise rain in Banff that morning, but we got a phenomenal rainbow later in the morning that is one of my favourite images of the trip. 

The first day we took the train from Banff to Kamloops and were on the train about 16 hours before catching a bus to our hotel for the night. It was a very short night before we had to wake up and get back on the bus to head back to the train for the second and final leg of the trip from Banff to Vancouver. On Day 2 we were on the train about 10 hours. It is difficult to describe how amazing these 2 days on the train were. Obviously, the views were incredible and the pictures really don't do them justice. We saw a deer and a lot of eagles. Some people also saw an elk, but we missed it. We saw lakes, rivers, mountains, trees, desert, cliffs in different colours from oxidizing minerals, bridges and canyons. The seats on the train were super comfy; they had heated seats, lumbar support, recline and foot rest. The food was incredible, all made to order: eggs benny, steak, steelhead, handmade gnocchi and the most amazing grilled cheese and mac and cheese for the kids. The hosts on the Rocky Mountaineer were phenomenal. They were kind and accommodating, funny, energetic, and amazing story tellers. And of course there was all kinds of swag - Polariod cameras! - and activities from Starlight; the kids used their Polariod cameras to create scrapbooks, they played a get to know the other kids on the train bingo game, and Disney trivia, with prizes for everything of course. The most amazing part of the trip, though, was the other 14 families on the train. These are all families with critically ill children getting to be "normal" among other families that understand the day to day challenges of life with a critically ill child. Everyone, including the Rocky Mountaineer hosts, was crying as the train came into the station in Vancouver. Eric is such a social kid, so "go with the flow" and so incredibly strong and resilient, but he still needs this connection with kids who have experienced the same kinds of challenges he has. It isn't that the kids actually talk about their challenges, but Eric said how nice it was to have kids that he could relate to and could relate to him. 

Getting off the train, Eric perfectly captured the magic of the trip saying "so, what, we are just supposed to go on our with lives now?"

We absolutely loved every minute of the trip, but we were also exhausted when we got home. It's been wonderful having the long weekend to recover, especially since I came home with a cold, but luckily no one else has caught it. Most of us have been in ours pjs all weekend; though Eric had a busy Sunday with swimming, skating and a birthday party.