Of all the days, this was one of the craziest. In fact it was 25 hours long and filled with lots of details, some of which are here: We had gone to bed early knowing we would be crossing from Montana through Idaho to Spokane Washington at 2 am. There we detrained from our sleeper car #2730 and walked our luggage up several cars to our new home, car #0730, destined for Seattle. While we waited for our new berths to be made up, we all walked in the cool night air around the station, looking for the bakery or donut shop we smelled. Adelaide wanted to climb the stone sculptures near the station, and inadvertently caught the attention of one of the more colorful members of the homeless neighborhood. After declining his company, we returned to our new sleeper car to resume a few more hours of sleep. We traversed the longest train tunnel (8 miles) during breakfast and pulled into Seattle by about 10:45.
We checked our bags through to Portland (3.5 hours departing at 6:10 pm). The King Street station has apparently undergone some remodeling and looks terrific. We walked in search of donuts finally finding a "daily dozen" offering made-before-our-eyes mini donuts. There was a devoted crowd surrounding Pike's Place and the adjacent markets. We saw many shops - fresh blueberries, books, turkish taffy, and LOTS of flowers. There was also an alley with its walls covered in discarded chewing gum!!
We took the famous monorail to the space needle. There we got to pass through the Chihoulli exhibit while we were there. We finally got up the space needle and enjoyed the expansive views. Puget sound is really a unique location. While up high we were treated to some close fly-by of the Blue Angels who happened to be doing an air show just for us.
We sat outside at a local restaurant in the lovely temperate afternoon and feasted on all kinds of unhealthy snacks which tasted SO good to us. We all agreed that train fare is a stretch from 5 star dining. Our last rail travel was that evening on the Cascades line to Portland. We gamed and marveled at the view of Mt Rainier. Our hotel in Portland is conveniently located just a few minute walk from Union Station. A good thing because we all tumbled into bed after our full day.
Very comprehensive. Did you visit the Experience center (you went through it on the monorail)? And all them totem poles....
ReplyDeleteNope. We missed that. We were in town for such a short amount of time. I requested Chihuly. That was a gift to me from the fam. I think they took one for team mama, but I loved it. I'll send on some photos. Totems in many places especially near waterfront.
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