Waking up early in Seattle, I notice that even things that say they open at 7am may not. There are a couple breakfast places nearby that still aren't open at 7:20. I finally end up breakfasting at Wendy's just to get some food in me before I need to head out.
As I leave the hotel in my taxi, there's construction on Spring St. It's on the right-hand side, and we need to make a right turn. The woman flagging cars takes issue with something the taxi-driver has done and won't let us make a right turn, forcing us to go up a block and make three lefts to get to where we need. Why? No idea. Other cars got to turn right.
King St. Station looks pretty dingy to me. If this is a preview of what my travel on Amtrak is going to be like, I'm not looking forward to it. There are lots of signs talking about the redevelopment of the station, but they could start by washing down the station they've currently got. There's what looks like fifty years of grime on the walls.
Is it any wonder that Amtrak has trouble attracting customers? Their website makes it nearly impossible to find out what a trip is going to cost without actually booking the trip. If you show up at a station in person, you get greeted by this sort of atmosphere, complete with people wandering around who scare the straights. Ugh.
On top of that, when I go to the counter to check in, the guy working the counter doesn't really bother to read my ticket. I've got a sleeper, and he gives me a boarding pass for coach. When I entered the station, there was no line at all. By the time I figure out what the cryptic boarding pass means, the line is a half-dozen people long, so I have to wait to get him to make things right. At this point I'm thinking Amtrak deserves to go broke.
Once I get on the train, things improve. Louie, my porter is much better. This matches the experience I had on VIA, too. The on-train personnel (at least in first class) are competent, friendly, and want to help. The in-station personnel range from openly hostile to merely surly.
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| Mt. Rainier |
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The cars on the train are pretty dingy, too. Considering the Coast Starlite starts here in Seattle, they could have at least washed the train. The seat fabric has noticeable dirt on it in spots, and could use a good steam-cleaning, but at this point, I'd settle for just having windows I could see out of. The pictures of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge a few paragraphs down really show the dirt on the windows that I was trying to shoot pictures through.
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| Mt. Rainier |
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My berth is on the east (inland) side of the train. I guess I'll have to move to the sightseeing car, but since Mt. Rainier is inland, I get a couple pictures of that first.
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| Tacoma Courthouse |
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In Tacoma, we've got two people giving dueling announcements over the PA and you can't understand either of them. Maybe the on-train staff aren't that clueful after all. I can tell they're reading from the same script, but that's about it.
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| Tacoma Narrows Bridge |
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After lunch, things start going a little better. I've got some food in me, and have made conversation with a few otherpassengers, and I'm feeling like a happier camper.
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| Tacoma Narrows Bridge |
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While sitting in the parlor car, I get a good chunk of GPS information. Looks like we're already 45 minutes behind pulling into Vancouver, WA. For the most part "things that happen" on a train aren't good. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of slack in the schedules, and the tracks we're on seem to have a pretty low speed limit, so when something happens, we start getting pushed aside for freights again.
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| The Columbia River |
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| North Portland Harbor Columbia River |
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Coming into Portland, we cross a bunch of rivers. Looking at a map afterward, I see we've crossed the Columbia, a branch of the Columbia, and the Willamette (twice).
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| Willamette River |
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| Union Station Portland |
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After Portland, I settle into the bar car with a young guy named Justin and a gal from Port Townsend, WA (didn't catch her name). She's fairly attractive, and has an 18 year old son. I wonder if it's me or something about the train that finds me sitting and talking to gals with kids who are about the same age as my neighbors.
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| Willamette River |
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After dinner, we're joined by Wells, a 23 year old gal who's living in San Luis Obispo, and a french guy whose name I miss. Between Justin and the two new arrivals, they put away a fair amount of wine while I have a beer or two. Justin is still talking nearly non-stop, and after a while, I decide sticking around to talk to (and ogle) the cute gals isn't enough of a reward for having to listen to the nonstop chatter, so I head off to bed.
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