Zip!Trip Day 1

Earlier today, we took the bus to downtown PDX, grabbed lunch from a food cart, then good on the Max to go to Union Station to catch the Amtrak Empire Builder, which runs between the west coast and Chicago. You can read about the first leg of our trip here. 

I thought we were just waiting for regular coach seats on a train, maybe heading up to Seattle or to somewhere south of Portland, but D ushered me to the lounge to wait for a sleeper car.

How exciting!

While in the lounge, we met Sharon and Bill, a funny couple from TX, who were intrigued by our Zip Trip. At every stop, when we all got out to stretch our legs, she asked D what the whole vacation entailed. 

"Just whisper it in my ear," she begged.

By the time we stopped in Pasco, WA, I saw D telling them. not wanting to ruin a good surprise, I kept chatting with Michelle, a new mother on board, who is traveling from Medford, OR to visit her mom in Michigan and introduce mom to her new granddaughter.

D had said train travel is very social, and we have already met some very nice people with interesting stories of their own.

The train travels eastbound along the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge and our seats faced ALL the scenery.

The Gorge is breathtaking from the train. I prefer the views from the Washington side, anyway, so it was perfect. My pictures aren't great, as the day was hazy with rain.

I call that kind of weather "Chunky Fog."

Those pictures will be shared later, as they're on my good camera and I'm blogging from my phone and don't have access to those pictures yet.

The sleeping car is called a roomette. It's the smaller of the two sleepers on this train.. I've got the bottom bunk with a view (such as it is on a dark, cloudy night in the middle of farmland.) Dave has the top bunk, complete with a seatbelt net to keep him from falling out of bed when the train lurches. 

It's very novel and amusing to me, like a caravan of connected RVs on a rail.

As I write this we're at the station in Spokane tonight, at 1am, waiting for the train from Seattle to arrive so the two trains can be coupled. Then we need to be up at 6am for the next part of our Zip!