Listen Intently

No, you’ll not find a morning TV show with a bunch of talking heads all talking at the same time here.  Right title, wrong Internet.  I ventured outside the hostel this morning and caught a bus to Discovery Park, a large city park in northern Seattle.  Awesome views and a nice hiking trail were promised.  And delivered.

Discovery Park was and is Fort Lawton, but much of the Army Reserve base has been turned over to the city and turned into a recreation area.  Reminded me a lot of Fort Harrison outside Indianapolis.  With steeper hills.  And a better view.  Sorry, Indy.  You ain’t got an ocean.  I walked the loop trail and down from the bluffs to the beach and lighthouse.  Fabulous.  The bluffs provided magnificent views, both from the top and when down below on the beach.  A local pointed out where there are usually eagles, but we zoomed in with the camera lens and were disappointed not to see any.

I hiked back up through a narrow trail called the “Hidden Valley Trail” and to the other entrance of the park in order to catch another bus back to town.  I’ve known for a long time that I am just not a city person.  I enjoyed this morning, away from the hustle and bustle of city life, far more than all of the moments I spent in New Orleans & LA.  All for simple $3 round-trip bus fare.  Not bad, not bad.

I still had quite a bit of time before I needed to be at the King Street Station for the Empire Builder, so I lunched at the Pike Place Market, and picked up some dried fruit to snack on while on the trails in Glacier.  I really wanted to pick up some of the fresh fruit, but didn’t.

Here I am now, sitting in the King Street Station.  This place really needs some help.  It’s a grand railroad station, but was ruined in the 1960′s with some “renovations” that added pseudo-walls and false ceilings (there are glorious 42′ ceilings about my head covered by an absolutely awful hanging ceiling.  There are plans for restoration, but the cart that is here explaining them is exactly the same as it was when we were here two years ago.  I did read recently that money may have been found to actually start the restoration.  Let’s hope so.  This place, as it is now, is really pretty disgraceful.

I’m on and off line.  The commuter “Sounder” rail has Wifi, so whenever one comes into the station, I can get online!  Just found out though that the Empire is delayed, will be sitting here for another hour.  Oh well.  Onto Glacier…eventually.  All Aboard!

Thank you to all for your comments, it is fantastic to know that you are there!  So far, this truly has been a great experience, and I am now eagerly anticipating spending several days in Glacier National Park.  I do anticipate that there will be minimal to no WiFi, so updates may come a little slower as they will depend on when I get into town.

I’ve enjoyed a nice night’s sleep in Seattle and am trying to figure out what to do with my luggage so that I can do some exploring around town before heading down to the train station for the 4:45 PM departure of the Empire Builder to Glacier Park.  For the first time in quite a while, I’m feeling a chill in the air (it’s been nearly 90 outside throughout my entire trip so far).  At 8:00 AM in Seattle, it’s in the mid-50′s with a high of 70 expected–a perfect day.  Compared to the south, where I’ve been for the past week, it’s so very nice to be away from the 90′s.

I think that I am off to ride the bus to Discovery Park and do some walking around.  Or perhaps simply across the street to the Pike Place Market.  There is one thing about train travel – you eat a lot and don’t move around much.  So it’s not the way to trim down.  I am excited to get out and about and get moving!

I’m posting some new photos from the Coast Starlight.  There are some shots of the coastline and many from further north in Oregon and Washington.  There are some shots of the mudslide zone in the Cascades, you can perhaps get some perspective as to how big & steep the slide zone was.

The trip north from LA has been a blur.  I am closing in on Portland, OR, and it feels like I just left LA.  I slept much of yesterday, trying to get my body back up to par from the previous night’s escapade.   I was delighted to find that my cubicle, er, roomette, was on the ocean side of the train.  For a period of time in the Southern California, the train runs right next to the beach.  I mean, right next to the beach.  You could often step right off the train and into the Pacific Ocean.  Also, we saw several dolphins swimming along the coastline, and lots of people enjoying the sand and surf.

This train has a sleeping car only lounge called the “Pacific Parlour.”  I have really enjoyed having this car along for this journey.  The Parlour car, an original ATSF Hi-Level car built in the 60′s or so, has been delightfully restored and has some excellent cushioned chairs as well as meal service.  It’s been nice to have a calm relaxing meal in the Parlour rather than in the hustle and bustle of the normal dining car.

Before I knew it, we were passing through San Jose in the late evening, and I don’t remember anything past Oakland.  I awoke with the sun at 5:30ish right near Mt. Shasta in northern California.  I’m now in “familiar” territory.  I’ve ridden this part of the journey on the Amtrekkin’ trip in November, 2006.  Back then, the Coast Starlight was running about 3 hours late, and at dawn we were traveling around Lake Shasta.  Not to be seen this time, we were long past this lake this morning.

Before too long, we started climbing the Cascades, passing an area where a massive mud-slide closed the UP railroad for nearly 4 months back in January.  I had read much about it, as I was sure hoping that the repairs would be done before I left on my trip.  I didn’t appreciate the steepness of the terrain until passing through.  The train passes up and back down some significant mountain valleys and then into Eugene, OR, along Lookout Point Lake and a branch of the Willamette River.

The Sunset Limited and the Coast Starlight have been full-in fact, this Coast Starlight is completely sold out.  I think that it is great for Amtrak, but I have to admit that I really enjoyed the space available back in November, 2006, as it was a lot easier to move around and spread out.  The full coaches, I am sure, don’t allow for much R&R.  Thank goodness for sleeping cars!

On the Sunset, I had the wonderful chance to meet a professional photographer who was traveling with her son to LA and then onto Japan.  They live in rural Texas, away from most things, but were traveling to LA to meet up with family and then travel to Japan to be with their grandmother, who was performing over there.  While she was in LA, she was going to meet up with Diane Keaton, as she had just finished a coffee-table book on Southwestern architecture for her.  She did most of the photography for the work.  It was fascinating!  Her son discovered my GPS and laptop, and we spent a lot of time watching the maps go by and looking at how far we had to go.

I have also enjoyed the people of Amtrak on this trip.  I can say that I have met some wonderfully hard-working and dedicated employees that have really made it easier and much more fun to be on board.  On the Sunset, the lead service attendant (dining car manager), Keisha, did a fabulous job working dinner out of New Orleans all by herself, and handled a full train and other delays with a no-nonsense smile.  This is probably the hardest job to do on an Amtrak train, and she was doing it to the best level.  And I even found out that it was her first trip!  Way to go, Keisha!  On the Starlight, my car attendant Louie has kept everyone laughing, and the Parlour car attendant, Nanette, has made the experience delightful.  Thanks to all!

I am in Seattle now.  Two more days and I will be in Glacier National Park!

Well, I had hoped last night to sit down and write about some of the neat people that I’ve met in the past few days, and other items in general.  However, my hotel is right next to this little Mexican area of town and they had a nice street fair going.  I popped into a decent looking eatery (lots of others eating, there too), and had a couple of tacos.  Well, I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say that it wasn’t a pleasant night as something threw the digestive system into a fit.  I crashed and tried to sleep, got some but not enough.  I’m doing better this morning, but moving a little slow.

So, I’m departing momentarily to return to Union Station and board the Coast Starlight for the trip up the coast and on to Seattle.  Hope all is well.  All Aboard!

Greetings from somewhere in the middle of Texas!  (Actually, by the time I was able to get online to post this, I’m in LA.  I tried at a few station stops to get WiFi working long enough to post, but wasn’t successful).  In case you didn’t already know, this is one damn big state.  The Amtrak Sunset Limited is scheduled to eat up over 22 hours crossing the state of Texas.  And some of you think driving down I-75 through Georgia and Florida is bad.

It’s late afternoon on the Sunset Line, the Union Pacific single track main line from Lake Charles, LA, through to California.  We’re running just a few hours behind.  Four and a half, to be precise.  Now this is the Amtrak that we know and love.

We left New Orleans right on time, at 11:55 AM, Central Time.  Got right up and over the Huey P. Long Bridge (over the Mississippi), and then entered an area of BNSF track that is “dark territory.”  Use the force, Luke.  No, no, sorry, it’s an area of mainline that is not wired back to the dispatcher, so the dispatcher has to “fly blind”-using the reports of the conductors to mark where all of the trains are.  I don’t know about you, but I envision a scale model sitting on a table in the dispatcher’s office with little Monopoly train engines pushed around by a long stick.  Seriously.  Well, not about the Monopoly part.

Then it was into Texas and our meet up with the Texas Eagle in San Antonio.  The Sunset Limited picks up two cars from the Chicago-San Antonio Eagle and takes them through to LA.  We arrived at 4:00 AM, picked up two cars, and parked in the station, awaiting our departure time of 5:40 AM.  “Cool,” I remember thinking, laying there half-asleep, “two hours of sleep in a non-moving train; by the time I wake up, we’ll be well on our way.”

I guess that I am wrong from time to time.  I awoke and looked out the window to see exactly the same scene I saw when I last went to sleep.  Hmm, must be about 5:30.  Nope.  Try 6:30.  Perhaps we miraculously shifted time zones without moving?  Wrong again.  Turns out, the Texas Eagle was running so far behind, they turned it around in Fort Worth.  The poor through passengers were “bustituted” (an Amtrak slang term) to San Antonio.  We had to wait for them, and finally made it out of town at 8:15 AM.

Wow, these posts are longer when I am writing from my little moving cubicle.  I’ve got the GPS connected to the computer – it’s kinda’ fun to watch the real world go by alongside the virtual one.  By far, the real world is better, by the way.

Speaking of by the way, for those of you who think I’m crazy, how about a 27-day round-the-USA train vacation?  There are 19 Kiwi’s on board, nearly finished with their tour.  They flew into San Francisco and have traveled Amtrak through Denver, Chicago, New York City, Washington, New Orleans, and now into LA for their flight to New Zealand.  It’s been fun chatting with them and getting their take on American rail travel.  For the most part, they’ve been impressed.  I was glad to hear that they made it through Iowa before the flooding shut down the California Zephyr, and, as one said, after twenty-some odd days, they’re all still talking with each other.  Not bad.  I guess my 16-day journey isn’t quite so off the wall after all.