West Coast Swing, Day 3

Seattle was far too fun a city to do everything in less than two days, but it was all we had.  I squeezed a run along the waterfront and a quick workout at the Y before packing everything up (including a growing pile of souvenirs) and heading out.  We hit a breakfast buffet spot to grab food to eat and food to go, and then walked through Pioneer Square to the Amtrak station to catch our train.

The scenery in the Washington and Oregon part of the journey was beautiful, including lots of very foresty areas.  We milked every second out of our short layover in Portland to rush to Powell’s to buy books as well as to grab dinner and snacks for the rest of the day. 

The sleep wasn’t so great.  I had made a deal with the kids that if we opted out of a sleeper car ($1200) for regular tickets (less than $75 each!), I’d give them each $200 spending cash for the trip.  They wisely took the money.  But the trade-off was not having a private, horizontal, and warm place to sleep for the night.  Instead, we had to contend with seats that didn’t quite recline all the way flat, in a seating car whose A/C was blowing way too hard.  Well, such are trade-offs.  We survived, the only overnight snag being that a change in crew and federal laws regarding rest amounts for conductors meant we were stalled in Klamath Falls for two hours. 

It may be a late night into our final destination as a result.  Well, such are the vagaries of train travel.  Nevertheless, it is a relaxing and visually arresting way to travel.