Our flight last night on Air Canada Rouge was uneventful.  Business class was wonderful.  Very roomy seats, decent enough food, and free flowing cocktails and wine.  We arrived on time at 12:15 AM and breezed through an empty immigration and customs area.  The bags were on the carousel before we got there.  Oddly enough, as of today Air Canada has changed the schedule for our flight and now it arrives at 8:00 PM.  That would have been better!  We were at the hotel and checked in by 1:10 AM.

Wednesday morning broke sunny and nice – temps in the upper 60’s.  Way better than AZ’s 105.  Marriott had upgraded us to Club Class, so we enjoyed breakfast in the club on the 46th floor, one flight up from our room on 45.  We had a good walk around downtown Toronto.  First stop was the St Lawrence Market where we had a delightful private tour of the market with  Bruce Bell, a noted Toronto historian.  After that we walked down to the distillery district, now a upscale neighborhood of shops, artisan workshops, and restaurants.  We had lunch at the Mill Street Brewery – mussels and frites for us both.  Excellent Landmark Ale.  Then it was a long walk back to the hotel for a well earned nap after our early morning arrival.

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This afternoon we will go to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to catch an Air Canada flight to Toronto.

The flight doesn’t arrive until midnight, so the first post from the road will be sometime on Wednesday from our hotel in Toronto, the Marriott Delta.

The itinerary goes like this:

Thursday night at 10:00 PM we board VIA Rail’s Canadian for a four-night three-day train trip across Canada, scheduled to arrive in Vancouver Monday morning.  (Since passenger trains have to give way to the freights who own the tracks, the Canadian could be many hours late arriving.)  There is no wi-fi on the train, so any posts while traveling will be from stations along the way that might have wi-fi available.

In Vancouver we will spend two night at the Marriott Residence Inn and do a bit of exploring.  We have visited Vancouver before.

Then we fly on to Portland, OR and drive down to Depoe Bay where we will spend eight nights in the same condo at the Village at North Pointe that we have rented three times previously.

Finally, we fly home to Phoenix on September 21st.