Maglev
Conductor
It had been over forty years since I rode the Coast Starlight northbound from Los Angeles, and I remembered it as being very beautiful along the coast around Santa Barbara. So for this year's trip to Hawaii, we routed through Los Angeles on our return so we could ride the train to Seattle.
We flew on a Kenmore Airlines Cessna Caravan from Orcas Island to Seattle. It was dark as we approached the city, but I was able to see a Sounder commuter train with its headlight and coach lights reflecting in the water of Puget Sound. We spent the night at the Edgewater Hotel on Elliott Bay. Dinner at their restaurant was fantastic, and the next morning the kind taxi driver from the night before drove us to SeaTac. We flew Delta Airlines on a Boeing 757 to Honolulu, with good service in first class (and the food was okay).
The weather for our week in Hawaii was perfect, with rain only on the last day (when I was feeling a little "under the weather"). One highlight was going to a Heiau, or temple ruins, above Waimea Bay. There was nobody else there when we arrived, and we were able to just sit on the grass and have a picnic including fresh ahi poke. After we finished our lunch, a shower greeted us with a rainbow and we packed up just as other people arrived. The first was a local woman in a SUV, who drove up then sat there in her car on her cell phone with her engine idling.
This was also the first time in forty years I have flown American Airlines, and it seemed fine compared to Delta or United. The service was friendly and the seats in first class on an Airbus 321 were fine for a five-hour flight. But the dinner entree we selected ("pepper beef") was not good.
Our cab driver from LAX to the Westin Bonaventure was fine, but our driver the next day to Union Station was not. First, he got in an argument with another cab driver, yelling out the window and blocking traffic. Then he opened the windows again just as we were passing an intersection populated with mentally unstable types ranting. And he did not set the meter. This made my wife feel very uncomfortable. Another experience my wife was not expecting (but I was) was the grilling by the Metropolitan Lounge attendant about the amount of luggage we were taking on the train (two carryons and two personal items per person). This set the tone for a less-than-perfect Amtrak experience.
But we had beautiful weather, a friendly and efficient crew, and our Bedroom was on the ocean side with the couch facing forward. I try to avoid spending my vacation looking through a camera or always waiting for the perfect picture, so I had determined that the one thing I wanted to photograph was the coastal running in southern California. I'll share three of those photos here. The food and conversation in the dining car was fine, but the LSA used a system I have not seen before for reservations. She took names and did not give out reservation slips. She announced that she would call people by name, but didn't always do that: sometimes she only announced the seating time, so if you didn't remember when your reservation was (because you don't have a slip), you were left wondering.
The night on the train was marred with an experience that may forever deter my wife from train travel. It was my fault, and I share details with you here so that others may avoid the same accident. Before I climbed into the upper berth, I folded up the chair seat to give us more floor space. Well, in the dark, my wife went to lean on the chair and instead fell with her shoulder hitting the very sharp corner of the table support where there is a cup holder. We had plenty of ice in our cooler for a cold compress, and she was lucky to not hit her face or head. But I felt responsible for not pointing out that I had modified the room.
As we were entering Eugene more or less on time, just at the switch onto the station siding our train came to an abrupt halt. We sat still for about twenty minutes, then continued on the mainline past the station and past the other end of the siding, where we stopped then reversed into the station on the siding. This gave us about a forty minute delay total, and we were about a half hour late into Seattle.
We had a fine room at the Embassy Suites right across from King Street Station, and slept in the next morning. We enjoyed a late breakfast at the hotel's 24-7 fine-dining restaurant, "13 Coins," which for proximity and quality ups the ante for King Street Station as a world-class transportation center.
We then had another bad cab experience to Boeing Field for our flight to Orcas. The driver literally forced my wife into her seat--she does not like her space violated, and has a lot of injuries at the best of times--shoving on the shoulder she hurt on the train. He then did something strange with the meter, charging us $2.60 fare and $18.00 tip when it should have been the other way around. It was a nice flight to Orcas, however, and we were soon back at home in front of the fire with our cats.
We flew on a Kenmore Airlines Cessna Caravan from Orcas Island to Seattle. It was dark as we approached the city, but I was able to see a Sounder commuter train with its headlight and coach lights reflecting in the water of Puget Sound. We spent the night at the Edgewater Hotel on Elliott Bay. Dinner at their restaurant was fantastic, and the next morning the kind taxi driver from the night before drove us to SeaTac. We flew Delta Airlines on a Boeing 757 to Honolulu, with good service in first class (and the food was okay).
The weather for our week in Hawaii was perfect, with rain only on the last day (when I was feeling a little "under the weather"). One highlight was going to a Heiau, or temple ruins, above Waimea Bay. There was nobody else there when we arrived, and we were able to just sit on the grass and have a picnic including fresh ahi poke. After we finished our lunch, a shower greeted us with a rainbow and we packed up just as other people arrived. The first was a local woman in a SUV, who drove up then sat there in her car on her cell phone with her engine idling.
This was also the first time in forty years I have flown American Airlines, and it seemed fine compared to Delta or United. The service was friendly and the seats in first class on an Airbus 321 were fine for a five-hour flight. But the dinner entree we selected ("pepper beef") was not good.
Our cab driver from LAX to the Westin Bonaventure was fine, but our driver the next day to Union Station was not. First, he got in an argument with another cab driver, yelling out the window and blocking traffic. Then he opened the windows again just as we were passing an intersection populated with mentally unstable types ranting. And he did not set the meter. This made my wife feel very uncomfortable. Another experience my wife was not expecting (but I was) was the grilling by the Metropolitan Lounge attendant about the amount of luggage we were taking on the train (two carryons and two personal items per person). This set the tone for a less-than-perfect Amtrak experience.
But we had beautiful weather, a friendly and efficient crew, and our Bedroom was on the ocean side with the couch facing forward. I try to avoid spending my vacation looking through a camera or always waiting for the perfect picture, so I had determined that the one thing I wanted to photograph was the coastal running in southern California. I'll share three of those photos here. The food and conversation in the dining car was fine, but the LSA used a system I have not seen before for reservations. She took names and did not give out reservation slips. She announced that she would call people by name, but didn't always do that: sometimes she only announced the seating time, so if you didn't remember when your reservation was (because you don't have a slip), you were left wondering.
The night on the train was marred with an experience that may forever deter my wife from train travel. It was my fault, and I share details with you here so that others may avoid the same accident. Before I climbed into the upper berth, I folded up the chair seat to give us more floor space. Well, in the dark, my wife went to lean on the chair and instead fell with her shoulder hitting the very sharp corner of the table support where there is a cup holder. We had plenty of ice in our cooler for a cold compress, and she was lucky to not hit her face or head. But I felt responsible for not pointing out that I had modified the room.
As we were entering Eugene more or less on time, just at the switch onto the station siding our train came to an abrupt halt. We sat still for about twenty minutes, then continued on the mainline past the station and past the other end of the siding, where we stopped then reversed into the station on the siding. This gave us about a forty minute delay total, and we were about a half hour late into Seattle.
We had a fine room at the Embassy Suites right across from King Street Station, and slept in the next morning. We enjoyed a late breakfast at the hotel's 24-7 fine-dining restaurant, "13 Coins," which for proximity and quality ups the ante for King Street Station as a world-class transportation center.
We then had another bad cab experience to Boeing Field for our flight to Orcas. The driver literally forced my wife into her seat--she does not like her space violated, and has a lot of injuries at the best of times--shoving on the shoulder she hurt on the train. He then did something strange with the meter, charging us $2.60 fare and $18.00 tip when it should have been the other way around. It was a nice flight to Orcas, however, and we were soon back at home in front of the fire with our cats.
