Days 93-96 (August 3-6): From Churchill to Pittsburgh in Six Easy Steps

A) Flight from Churchill to Winnipeg on Calm Air Airways. Yup, I had never heard of them either.

B) 38-hour or so stay in Winnipeg.

Downtown Winnipeg, on a week-end, is worse than dead, so I mostly stayed in my room, blogging and trip planning. I went out on the Sunday afternoon and ended up drinking at an Elephant & Castle: that is pretty much all you need to know about the desolation that is downtown Winnipeg on a week-end.

C) Train from Winnipeg to Toronto.

I boarded at 10 on the Sunday night and expected to arrive in Toronto at 9:15 AM on the Tuesday morning. We were roughly 45 minutes late.

This was the part of the overland cross-country trip to which I was not looking forward, going through Western Ontario, with no real option to shorten the leg. I was expecting to stare at a lot of trees and a few boulders. I was not entirely wrong; while the train (during waking hours at least) basically goes through one gigantic forest, there are many streams, rivers and lakes to break the monotony and to add a bit of worthwhile scenery.  (We did see a moose!  One moose. That was it for wildlife, other than the ubiquitous beaver lodges. Pesky, industrious beavers.)  The view does not really change until the second morning as fields and agriculture have at some point in the night replaced trees as the dominant feature.

Given this was a two-night trip and that Via was having a sale, I booked a cabin for the trip, a first for me. A Via cabin (for one) is 6' by 3', includes a wide seat, a sink and... a toilet (with a surprisingly comfortable bed that pulls down over the length of the cabin).  So, basically Via charged me $450 or so to rent me a washroom for 2 days (and meals and snacks, which were included).  I realised right away why, in previous trips, people who had rented a cabin were mostly hanging out in the observation or dining cars for most of their trips. I did the same; it is either that or sit in your cabin and stare at a toilet. Now, to be fair, there is a cushioned cover on top of the toilet, so that, if one was so inclined, one could stretch one's legs, but one's legs would still be resting on a FUCKEN TOILET, wouldn't they?  OK, despite that, one could get comfortable and slip out of one's shoes, if one wanted to tread on the floor of what is essentially a FUCKEN WASHROOM. As for eating in one's cabin, well, that would mean eating next to a FUC... (you know how it ends).  So the observation car it is for the bulk of the trip, which in a strange way, means that people sitting in a coach seat (if there is no doubling up) almost have more privacy than people with cabins...

That perhaps may go a long way to explaining why there are no pictures or descriptions of cabins on the Via website.

D) $60 cab ride from Toronto's Union Station to Pearson Airport.

E) Flight to Pittsburgh via La Guardia.

That is correct: I flew from Toronto to Pittsburgh through New York City (including a two-hour layover). Why, you ask?  Because Air Canada wanted to charge me $750 for a 75-minute direct flight, which is thievery of a high order. So I flew to LaGuardia on Westjet, waited around (i.e., drank) for two hours, then flew Delta to Pittsburgh.

F) Shuttle from airport to West End Pittsburgh B&B, which took almost an hour, for a number of reasons, mainly because the Pittsburgh airport is seemingly in a different time zone than Pittsburgh itself.