Taking Time to Smell the Roses...

and other explorations!

Yesterday was a visit to Powell's, the iconic full block bookstore here in Portland. It is a bibliophile's dream come true and we all left with treasures! Adelaide found a groovy vintage shop across the street and acquired even more gems. We traversed the city and stopped at Deadstock coffee roasters for late afternoon refreshment. They offer an iced drink of sweet tea and coffee. It is unusual, but strangely addicting. If we find ourselves back in that area during store hours, we would definitely repeat the experience. Dinner was on the patio (sidewalk) of Deschutes Brewery  Portland Public House. This place was hopping! They had a soup of the moment on the menu. John joked with the server and asked him a couple times what the soup was since the moment had passed. Isaac was not amused! It is hard to be a teen out with the parents sometimes!

We are staying at a Residence Inn and they have such an inviting space in their courtyard. I have been taking my breakfast out there in the mornings and it has been a relaxing and pleasant way to begin the day.  Today Adelaide and I tackled the TriMet public transportation. We bought a day pass which allowed us on both the downtown streetcars and the light rail. To my surprise, we never once had our ticket checked, nor did anyone else. We traveled to Washington Park where we spent a couple of hours at the International Rose Test Garden. The roses were simply spectacular. Some fragrant, some not. Some large and showy, and some small and dainty. The colors abounded. In the afternoon, I swapped children and Isaac and I made our way to Ground Kontrol, a good old fashioned video arcade! We partnered during an Alien inspired game and had great fun. We played a few Namco games, some Star Wars games, and pinball. I played a game similar to Pacman called Ladybug in which parts of the walls can be levered open and I got high score! Isaac thinks it is because no one ever plays it. Sigh. I think he is probably correct. Our day ended with takeout Chinese in the courtyard with an innovative game of Catan. The lack of mosquitos and mild temps make outdoor activities quite pleasurable.  

Aug. 4: A Day in Seattle

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.

Good Morning Washington State

After a 2 a.m. wake up and transfer of cars that will bring us to Seattle (track work put those bound to Portland in a bus...an event we wanted to forego), we still awoke early enough to take in the beautiful views as we traveled through the mountains. We went through the longest train tunnel in North America which is 8 miles long and took 15 minutes to traverse.

Yesterday we traveled through Glacier National Park. That area is just stunning! At East Glacier, we saw the restaurant we visited 10 years ago on our family vacation where the kids were thrilled to watch the trains go by. This time around, we were the ones on the train!

Death of the Telegraph

Today finds us making our way through North Dakota and Montana. Unlike our previous trip on the California Zephyr or even earlier on this trip on the Lakeshore Limited, here we are noticing that the telegraph posts and lines have been taken down. We can see individual posts sometimes laying in ditches, but more commonly, there are stacks of them somewhat removed from the tracks.

Throughout North Dakota we have all been struck by the wide open spaces of the prairies and rolling hills. Houses and farms seem miles from each other.  We saw many oil and gas sites, even some jets of burning gas. In some of the more populated areas, we also observed many old, rusting out cars.  Some were in private yards and some of the larger collections were in more industrial areas.  

Yesterday's travel took us through Wisconsin. It was surprising how much swampy land there is. The route followed the Mississippi for many miles so we afforded some nice views.

Union Station in Chicago

We arrived via Amtrak's Lakeshore Limited from NYC.  The Amtrak lounge seemed so luxurious... with fancy coffee and private showers.  We all go clean and refreshed and hopped outside for deep dish pizza.  Ready to board the Empire Builder in 1 hour... destined for Seattle in about 48 hours.

Lakeshore Limited

We traveled up the scenic Hudson River from NYC to Albany. At Albany we were able to stretch our legs in the rustic yet open station where we grabbed some snacks. It was heavenly having a sleeper this time on the Lakeshore Limited. We all agreed that we awoke when the train would stop during the night. I guess we all lulled to sleep by train motion!

John awoke at 4:45 at the Cleveland stop where he saw the stadium all lit up despite the time. But we began our day in Indiana in the midst of fields and farms. The wide open spaces are such a contrast to the Greater Boston area.  And no matter driving or training, Gary, Indiana's industrial area is always surprising as it seems so large and unexpected after the agrarian towns coming from the east.

NYC

After learning about track work AGAIN between Boston and Albany (this happened 2 years ago and we were bussed this leg--offered again this year and declined), we took the Northeast Regional to New York City, where we had a whirlwind 24 hours in the city.  Our hotel was a short walk from Penn Station. Good thing too because the skies opened as soon as we arrived in our room. The 32nd floor afforded an incredible view of the lightning. During a break in the rain, we went out and saw many highlights including Times Square, the former site of the Mercury Theater, Central Park, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Rockefeller Center. The next day we hopped on a tour bus to view the city above the fray. At Battery Park, we got a bum deal with some boat tickets that had us being transported way down on Water Street which would have put us in jeopardy of missing our train. So sadly Isaac did not get the close up of the Statue of Liberty. The good news is we caught our train!