Bill Ward - All - Travel - Travel: 2005 - Seattle (2005)

May 30, 2005: Oregon to San Jose

I woke up Monday morning as we were about to arrive in Chico, CA. Here are some notes I wrote as I was riding the train:

11:19 am

The train ride is great except for two things: partiers and sleeping. Last night the lounge car was a little too boisterous for my comfort, with intoxicated passengers carrying on and making too much noise. I went to bed around 1am, but at that point we were twisting our way around the canyons near Dunsmuir, rocking side to side in a manner entirely unlike that of rocking a baby, and losing altitude so my ears kept needing to be popped. I tossed and turned trying to get comfortable without waking up too many neighbors, and in the process I felt a pop in my left hip and it is now slightly painful to walk on. I need to see the chiro about that.

Currently we're sitting in Jack London Square, Oakland. We're about 2.5 hours late, but I'm not sure why. Perhaps most of the delay was at night, because we were only about an hour late in southern Oregon. I'm continuing on to San Jose where I plan to catch the Caltrain home.

When I woke up around 5am we were about to pull into Chico. I'm guessing that there was a PA announcement which may have awakened me without me being conscious of it. It was just at dawn, which is another thing that might have awakened me, as I was by an east-facing window. Either way, I took a few pictures of the dawn and saw some very picturesque farm scenery.

Now that we're back in the bay area, there's not a lot to comment about the scenery as it's already so familiar. Still, it's interesting to see it from a different perspective. For example the stretch between Davis and Martinez crossed the delta along a different route than the freeway, so we were surrounded on both sides by swamp^H^H^H^H^Hwetlands. Similarly, I'm looking forward to crossing the lower end of the bay, which takes a different route than the roads.

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May 29, 2005: Seattle to Oregon

Our train left Seattle on time at 10am and passed south through Washington and Oregon. Night fell as we were passing through the Cascades. Here are some notes I wrote as I was riding the train:

4:44 pm

Headin' back home. Left Seattle on-time at 10am. We had two tour guides on board from the National Park Service Rails and Trails program, who gave us a narrative about the things we were seeing in Washington State as we headed south.

We had no delays in Washington and arrived Portland about 20 minutes early, so I got a chance to get out and walk around. I looked around the train station and took several pictures. It's a classic historic train station that's been carefully preserved and restored. I wish I could have spent some time in Portland itself, maybe visit Powell's Books. Next time.

Leaving Portland, we crossed the Willammette River on the Steel Bridge, which is one of the ugliest but most interesting engineering structures I know of. We crossed on the bottom spam which is just about 20 feet above the water, if that. The bridge is designed so that that lowest deck can be raised another 20 feet or so, allowing most small craft to pass without interfering with road traffic above. Then, for taller ships, the whole thing can be raised still further.

Currently we're on a siding somewhere between Salem and Eugene. We pulled off the line onto a siding to let a freight train go by, which it just did, and then we will back up onto the main line to resume our trip to Eugene. This is the first delay of the trip, and it wasn't a long one - we may still get there just on time.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

May 28, 2005: In Seattle

Saturday afternoon, I went to my cousin Matt's wedding (which was the whole reason for this trip, after all). My mother had flown up for the wedding, and most of the other people were relatives and friends of the bride and groom who lived in the Seattle area. It was a lovely outdoor wedding and the weather coöperated. They had it at a beautiful old house in the Queen Anne area of Seattle. After the wedding itself the reception was held in the same location. Following the reception the "just married" car pulled up - a beautifum 1929 Bentley which would take them to the honeymoon suite at a luxury downtown hotel, prior to their trip to Mexico for their honeymoon.

After the wedding, I visited the Northwest Folklife festival and had dinner while watching a Swedish fiddle band Äkta Spelmän, and Perttu Paappanen, Finnish 2-Row Button Accordion Master, while people danced. I then heard there was a Contra dance in another building, so I went there and danced the night away until they closed at midnight. I didn't realize how I had missed Contra dancing. When we lived in Santa Cruz I used to go regularly, but my wife Holly didn't enjoy it as much so I stopped. I actually ran into two guys at the Contra dance whom I had known in Santa Cruz!

For those who may not know what Contra dance is, it's a form of dance similar to square dancing: the music is much the same, and there is a caller who tells you what steps to take. Most of the steps are the same, too. But the difference is that with Contra dancing you form long lines of couples and dance in groups of four people. After each time through the music, you "progress" so that you are dancing with a different couple. Also, unlike square dancing, the caller stops calling after a few times through the dance, and you just keep repeating the same figures, unlike square dancing where he can confuse things by introducing changes just when you think you have it down. Also, in Contra dancing you are always dancing with new people: half of the couples are "actives" and migrate away from the stage, while the other half move the other way. When you reach the end you sit out for one round and then go back in as the other type of couple. It's a good cardio workout and when everyone is moving perfectly in sync it's just a great feeling.

I had a great time! There was a lot of stuff that I missed - dance, music, arts, and food from around the world. Next year I want to go for the whole 3-day event, and Holly and I are already talking about taking the train up together for it. But this time we'll probably get a sleeper, or break the trip up into shorter legs so we can sleep in a hotel.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

May 27, 2005: Oregon to Seattle

We entered Oregon in the early morning. As delays accumulated throughout the day we fell further and further behind schedule, until we finally arrived in Seattle at 2am on the 28th, 5 hours behind schedule. I took a cab to my hotel, showered, and collapsed in bed.

Here are some notes I wrote as I was riding the train:

8:47 am

Level terrain now, lots of grass and croplands. Every few minutes the guy comes out of the dining car to summon someone from the waiting list. There's an older Korean couple sitting a few seats away, and the husband went downstairs with a Thermos and brought back hot water which he used to make some instant soup for breakfast. I should try that on the way home. Klamath Falls is the next stop.

11:47 am

At Klamath Falls, Oregon, two docents came on board to give us a narrative tour of the scenery from here to Eugene. They set up a small PA system in the lounge car, and read from scripts to give us all kinds of information about Klamath Falls, Klamath Lake, the Williamson River, and Crater Lake.

My extension cord has gotten a workout. A woman was filming with her camcorder but her battery died, so I let her use my extension cord so she wouldn't be tied to the area close to the power outlet. Now, I'm using it to recharge my laptop's battery. I really wish I had brought a power strip though, as there have been many people wanting to recharge their cell phones and other devices. There are a total of four power outlets in the lounge car, to my knowledge. Three are here on the observation level: two in a mini-kitchen and one next to the top of the stairs. There is a fourth downstairs by the entrance door. I haven't found any in the coach cars, but I've heard there are a couple there.

4:03 pm

Now we're running about four hours late. That means it'll be well after midnight when we get to Seattle. Some passengers are getting pretty pissed that they're missing their connections. The docent is running out of material and has resorted to quoting silly laws that are still on the books, like the one where it's illegal to "knock a snake's head off with your cane on a boardwalk."

I just made a reservation for dinner at 7:15 pm. I think I'll have the salmon. We're almost to Eugene, where we should have arrived 3.5 hours ago...

4:54 pm

We've been sitting here, a short distance from Eugene, for a half hour or so. Nobody knows why. I suspect the crew died. Not literally - that is railroad jargon. Train crews are limited to 12 hours on duty, and must be replaced no matter where the train is. I called the 800 number, and they said there had been an incident with a trespasser who may or may not have been struck by a train, and we'd be in Eugene at 5:45 (originally due at 12:45).

We finally got going again around 5:20. We might just make that prediction.

5:56

Leaving Eugene station. We did get there around 5:45 after all! Let's hope additional delays are minimal.

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May 26-27, 2005: North from Emeryville to Oregon

My train left Emeryville late at night so there wasn't a lot to see. I took a couple pictures of the train itself, though. The next morning, I woke up as dawn broke and the train was winding through a very narrow canyon near Dunsmuir in northern California. Here are some notes I wrote as I was riding the train:

May 26, 11:25 pm

Heading north somewhere between Emeryville and Martinez. Got on at Emeryville - train was about 20 minutes late. Briefly got a good view of the SF skyline before we turned east. Currently sitting in the lounge car with my laptop plugged in to the AC outlet by the snack vendor booth. There's an Indian guy who's going to Chico to visit someone, and he has his laptop too. He's watching "Desperate Housewives" which he downloaded off the Internet. It has Chinese subtitles but otherwise is the same as the broadcast.

Just pulled into the Martinez station, now 11:29 pm.

After finding my assigned seat, I put my luggage away (there's a large overhead shelf which easily fit my rollyboard and its associated daypack, once the latter was unzipped from the former). I then headed north along the train until i found the lounge car. The cars are two-level, but all the connections between cars are on the top level. When the train is swaying a lot it can be exciting to say the least, but there are lots of hand holds.

I was hoping to work on a new Web site while here, but I failed to plan for the fact that it requires certain Perl modules to be installed, like DBI to access the database. I'll have to fix that when I'm in Seattle in the hotel room, where there is supposedly WiFi. I also forgot to download some text from Project Gutenberg to read, so I will have to make do with the paper books I brought.

Anyway, I found only one power outlet here in the lounge car, and my new extension cord fit it nicely. However, the other guy wanted to use it too, so we're taking turns. I really should have got a multiplexer or power strip. Maybe I'll pick one up in Seattle.

May 27, 5:11 am

So my expert advice from Usenet was to get up at dawn and find a seat in the lounge car on the right hand side of the train. So far, I have not been steered wrong. It's not quite dawn and I have only slept about three hours, but I was awakened by the sensation of the train making a series of sharp curves right and left. I looked out the window and could see water!

No, we weren't in a flood. But just a few feet outside the windows was a raging torrent of a river, barely visible in the moonlight. Looking up I could see the silhouettes of trees and at the hilltops the just-past-full moon played peekaboo with us. So I decided to get up and head to the lounge car.

And so here I am. The sky is steadily lightening, and the river is slowly becoming more visible. A fellow traveler tells me it is probably the Shasta River and we are approaching the summit. I see no reason why this should not be the case as the rapids clearly flow from left to right as I look out my window on the right side of the train.

We just passed a freight train going the other way. We're heading slowly, at about 15-20 MPH, and the river seems to be narrowing as we climb higher. Just passed a post with the number 310 on it; perhaps later I can look up our location more precisely.

More later.

5:28 am

Just finished breakfast. Most days at home, Holly and I have breakfast in bed: hot oatmeal made from scratch, a bowl of fresh fruit, and Morningstar Farms fake bacon. Usually Holly gets up a half hour before me to prepare it, but sometimes I do it. Here on the train, though, that's not possible.

The other day I went shopping for some kind of alternative to fresh oatmeal and found a pretty close option: Barbara's Moist & Chewey Nature's Choice Granola Bars, Oats & Honey flavor. I had two bars of that for breakfast. And before I left home Holly gave me three small Tupperware bowls of fresh fruit; I had one of those, with strawberries, cantaloupe, and honeydew. It was a good breakfast, and the view is great, but you just can't beat breakfast in bed!

It's starting to get light enough now I can start taking photos. This lounge car isn't like the old fashioned dome cars, where you can see in all directions, but it does have glass windows that curve up to the ceiling so you can get a pretty good view up.

We're coming to a stop on a siding, it seems. I see a marker with 319 on it. I guess there's another freight coming through.

6:02 am

Waiting on a train, in more ways than one. We spent 20 minutes parked on a siding, waiting for another train to pass. When it finally did, it was the southbound Amtrak Coast Starlight, 5 hours behind schedule!

The guy next to me got out some trail mix and soy milk and is eating his breakfast. We're rolling again, supposedly almost to Dunsmuir. I took a couple of pics with my phone, and was able to upload one successfully but the other two didn't go through. I think we were right on the boundary between a Verizon cell tower and one from another network ("Extended Network").

We just spotted Mt. Shasta for the first time, for just a moment above the hilltops, and then we arrived at Dunsmuir. Dunsmuir has a freight yard where freight crews are changed. In the old days it was apparently a maintenance station for steam locomotives; we passed an intact turntable, but the accompanying roundhouse had long since been demolished.

7:45 am

Flirting with Mt. Shasta. We've seen Mt. Shasta from nearly every side now, as we continue our way toward the Oregon border. The numerous foothills alternatly obscure and reveal its majestic beauty. The sun is out, reflecting brilliantly off the snowy peaks. On the other side of the train is a vast plain with lots of small cinder cone volcanoes.

The lounge car is pretty full now, with the snack vendor downstairs doing a brisk business. The dining car next door is in the middle of its breakfast service.

I'm getting sleepy. I only got about three hours of sleep last night, and the night before I stayed up so late packing I was similarly sleep deprived. I think once we get into the more ordinary part of Oregon I may try to take a nap. I don't want to miss any scenery though.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.