Seeing America By Rail- Day 5

[corknut]

We're starting to head back east now; this day covers northern California through part of Washington state.



When I woke up we were definitely out of the warm California weather-- it was foggy out and you could see snow in some places.





Oregon was really snowy-- just like home (almost)!





We passed through a portion of my favorite mountains of the trip-- the Cascades! the pictures don't do them justice at all! They seemed taller and more impressive than even anything we'd seen in the Rockies.







The Coast Starlight had two types of lounge cars-- the regular lounge cars, and a parlour car for sleeper passengers only that had more comfortable seats and a bar. As you can see, it also had stars along its ceiling.



Coming down out of the mountains now, still traversing Oregon.











This is one of the sleeper car hallways. It's one of the ones with the bigger bedrooms-- the hallways with the little roomettes have rooms on each side.



The Superliners also have little staircases every so often, so you can go to the upper levels. I've had an upper level room on every Superliner I've been on so far, and I love it. I've gotten pretty good at hauling my suitcase up and down these things, even though they're really short and narrow.



I got off the Coast Starlight in Portland, where I had a pretty short layover. I spent my time looking at the gift shop, talking to station employees, and accidentally hanging around in the wrong lounge (luckily I found the right one before my train was called).



Portland Union Station is really pretty on the inside, though this is a not-so-good shot of it.



The outside was under heavy construction so I didn't get a good picture of that, but here's a tiny piece of the roof, taken from my roomette on the Empire Builder while waiting to pull out.





We crossed into Washington very soon after leaving Portland. The scenery was gorgeous.



















A lot of stuff here looked really Irish, too.









I LOVED all these rocky, grassy hills we passed by. If I had been in a car, I would have wanted to get out and run/climb around on them.

































































Then night came.

Comments

from Mom

[(Anonymous)]

The northern Pacific coast is indeed gorgeous!

[banerry.livejournal.com]

Someday I'll go back and really run around in the fields. :P

[(Anonymous)]

Even better than running around is backpacking there in the Cascades. Now you know why, when I was out at Univ. of Washington/Seattle, I became an enthusiastic hiker. Portland is fun, too, but not as nice as the Seattle area and north to Vancouver. I vowed I would go out there summers after I finished my M.A., and I have actually done so a few times. But the other 3 seasons are RAINY precisely because of the Cascades....the clouds rise to get over the mtns., humidity makes rain, and voila! Rain (and snow on the peaks). You did not mention the desert on the other side of the Cascades -- around Spokane, which you can drive to in about 3 hours from Seattle (tho' I never did so!) Or did your train go back south and start east through Oregon or northern CA? Aunt Cyndy

[banerry.livejournal.com]

We started east through Washington; I don't think we ever hit anything more than the very southernmost part of the Cascades while in Oregon. We might have gone through some desert while in the Spokane area, but I wasn't awake for that part; sorry!