yarrow
Engineer
i was at work the first part of the month wishing i was on a train and thought "what the heck, let's go to san francisco." got a good coach fare of $288 rt(spk-emy) for myself and two of our boys(yarrow and jj). don't feel sorry for my wife, she gets a rail journey next month.
anyway, the evening before the trip we were fooling around on the amtrak website and saw a roomette for $129 pdx-emy. yarrow and i jumped on it and told jj that as he is a man of the people that he would be happy in coach.
got on the eb at 2:45am and woke up along the columbia. beautiful basalt cliffs, native american fishing platforms, ice falls and waterfalls.
got into portland on time. yarrow and i put our stuff in the very nice metropolitan lounge, ferried a few snacks from the lounge out to jj in the main waiting area of portland's beautifully restored union station and then we walked up to powell's city of books.
we got back a couple hours before train time and we(except jj)were settling into the metro lounge when the cs pulled in an hour and a half early. no pacific parlour car, which was a disappointment. we boarded and julio, our sleeper attendant, told us to go eat luch in the diner, which we hadn't expected. very good lunch. jj also boarded early and had bread and cheese we brought with us.
we then learned about a up derailment in the mountains of southern oregon. we would be bussed from eugene to klamath falls. that was ok with us because maybe our new trainset would have a pacific parlour car.
soon after we were going it was time for wine and cheese in the diner. i got an extra plate and took some back to jj. he seemed to be enjoying himself and anyway i had to get back to our room.
in eugene we boarded our bus for a slippery trip(supposed to be 3 hours and it took 6 because of road conditions and accidents)across willamette pass.
got to klamath falls about 11:30pm. yarrow and i dumped our stuff in the roomette and were the first into the parlour car. very nice snacks were set out for us(i took a plate back to jj)but we were mesmerized by the beauty of the car and spent all time not sleeping or eating there.
got to emy a couple hours late which was fine with us as it gave us more time in the parlour car. a bus was waiting to take us to sf where we had a wonderful 5 days.
the trip back in coach was uneventful. wonderful views of mt. shasta when we awoke. boarded the bus in klamath falls. comfortable bus with plenty of room to stretch out as there were few people on it. our driver ,tom, was great as he kept up a runniing commentary of what we were seeing. also, since amtrak builds a lot of padding into the bus schedule, tom would stop wherever we wanted to take pictures or hike around a bit.
caught the eb at pasco and got to spokane about an hour late as we were delayed, as i understood the conductor to say, by a train in front of us which was doing a crew change.
anyway, a great trip for all. back to work on wednesday where i can start planning our next trip.
anyway, the evening before the trip we were fooling around on the amtrak website and saw a roomette for $129 pdx-emy. yarrow and i jumped on it and told jj that as he is a man of the people that he would be happy in coach.
got on the eb at 2:45am and woke up along the columbia. beautiful basalt cliffs, native american fishing platforms, ice falls and waterfalls.
got into portland on time. yarrow and i put our stuff in the very nice metropolitan lounge, ferried a few snacks from the lounge out to jj in the main waiting area of portland's beautifully restored union station and then we walked up to powell's city of books.
we got back a couple hours before train time and we(except jj)were settling into the metro lounge when the cs pulled in an hour and a half early. no pacific parlour car, which was a disappointment. we boarded and julio, our sleeper attendant, told us to go eat luch in the diner, which we hadn't expected. very good lunch. jj also boarded early and had bread and cheese we brought with us.
we then learned about a up derailment in the mountains of southern oregon. we would be bussed from eugene to klamath falls. that was ok with us because maybe our new trainset would have a pacific parlour car.
soon after we were going it was time for wine and cheese in the diner. i got an extra plate and took some back to jj. he seemed to be enjoying himself and anyway i had to get back to our room.
in eugene we boarded our bus for a slippery trip(supposed to be 3 hours and it took 6 because of road conditions and accidents)across willamette pass.
got to klamath falls about 11:30pm. yarrow and i dumped our stuff in the roomette and were the first into the parlour car. very nice snacks were set out for us(i took a plate back to jj)but we were mesmerized by the beauty of the car and spent all time not sleeping or eating there.
got to emy a couple hours late which was fine with us as it gave us more time in the parlour car. a bus was waiting to take us to sf where we had a wonderful 5 days.
the trip back in coach was uneventful. wonderful views of mt. shasta when we awoke. boarded the bus in klamath falls. comfortable bus with plenty of room to stretch out as there were few people on it. our driver ,tom, was great as he kept up a runniing commentary of what we were seeing. also, since amtrak builds a lot of padding into the bus schedule, tom would stop wherever we wanted to take pictures or hike around a bit.
caught the eb at pasco and got to spokane about an hour late as we were delayed, as i understood the conductor to say, by a train in front of us which was doing a crew change.
anyway, a great trip for all. back to work on wednesday where i can start planning our next trip.
