Photos

I've finally posted some photos from our trip. Photos from the days they were taken appear on their respective blog posts. You can also see some mobile photos I took with my cell phone here and here.

March 14

We woke up this morning somewhere in Ohio not far from Buffalo. Then it was just a little bit longer to Syracuse, where we made it in one piece (and immediately bought coffee).

Now we’re hanging out in Syracuse for the night with Robin, who has Internet, so I can finally update this blog. I’ll post pictures soon!

March 13

Today we pulled into Chicago around 4:00 and walked the long walk back into the station. We shoved our bags into a locker (since we were no longer fancy sleeping car patrons with free baggage storage), found where our boarding gate would be, and headed back out into the city of Chicago. We walked down Jackson Street all the way to the lake, then turned around to find the red line El so we could go to Wrigley and eat in Wrigleyville since our train didn’t leave until 10:00. Turns out this wasn’t as simple a task as we had planned. We saw elevated train tracks and so logically followed them to find our El train. No dice. We found every other color train line but red. After walking around for about an hour we finally found a map in Walgreens—which showed us that the stations we were looking for were where we had already looked. It was a little frustrating. Finally we saw the entrance to the red line ELEVATED train . . . underground.

We got on the SUBWAY to Addison, got off, took a picture of the Wrigley sign, walked around Wrigleyville at bit, then hopped back on the red line back to the city. We didn’t want to risk dinner in Wrigleyville since we wanted to be back at the station by 8:00, so I can’t make any Wrigleyville dining recommendations, but it was a cool area with a lot of options. And bleacher seating on the rooftops. Once again we forgot to take camera pictures, but you can see my mobile photo here.

Then it was back to Union Station and back to coach. When traveling coach as a couple or group I highly recommend getting to the waiting area early (like two hours early) and then getting in the waiting line as soon as it starts. We did it last night and we not only got seats together we got to choose which seats. The train left at 10:00 and we were standing in line at 9:00. Ridiculous but worth it.

We watched four or five episodes of the West Wing and then went to sleep.


Mississippi River.

March 12

So when you set your alarm clock for 7:00 a.m. in Pacific Time and switch to Mountain Time overnight, it will go off at 8:00 a.m. Not to worry; I woke up at 7:00 naturally this morning. Sleeping until 8:00 would not have been a big whoop, but we wanted to see Glacier National Park in the morning this time, which we did, while eating breakfast. We sat with an Amtrak employee who we believe was a quality assurance or customer service person. Not sure. Either way, she was nice. She likes grits and lives in Seattle and has a little dog who doesn’t like the snow. Seattle had a hard winter, as did Portland we hear.

Between breakfast and lunch I got a lot of work done. We got out to walk in Shelby, Montana, mostly to say we had been in Shelby, Montana. This is where our breakfast mate was getting off and hoping her shoes were appropriate. We went to lunch late and so ended up eating without company. So we had to talk to each other. Yes, our day today is a bit focused on meals, but it is what gets us away from our room (and reading). Luckily it’s seven cars away, which makes us walk and get off our butts. They let me have the macaroni and cheese off of the kids menu for lunch. It came with potato chips. It was awesome.

At 3:00 today we had another wine and cheese tasting. It was the same wine and cheese as offered on the way west, but still great nonetheless. (Minnesota cheese and Washington wine.) However, during this particular tasting, trivia was played for which we could win bottles of wine. Tim and I each won one. Luckily we shared a bottle at dinner tonight, and are now working on the other. At the wine tasting we sat with a community organizer originally from Ithaca (!) and a man who lives in Washington going to North Dakota to visit his parents, his mother suffering from dementia; he and his five brothers were taking turns visiting. At dinner we sat with a woman from New Zealand. She lives in Oregon now with her American husband. She’s meeting him in Chicago. She likes Oregon. She had some of our shiraz.

We’re now in Central Time again, and will be until Chicago. I’m looking forward to seeing Wrigley, but not really looking forward to sitting in coach again. Hopefully we can sit together.

Montana farm.




Montana mountains.

Sunset on the snow.




Sunset on the tracks.

March 11

Today began early, before the sun came up, to catch our little bus to Corvallis. We were actually joined by another person at 5:45 a.m. this morning, which surprised me. The Greyhound from Corvallis to Portland was packed, as Greyhounds always seem to be no matter where they are going. No one talked loudly on the phone or had BO or too much perfume—or watched movies or listened to their headphones too loud—so we got some reading done and even napped a little.

We got into Portland at about 10:00 a.m., and our train didn’t board until 4:00 p.m., so we had a lot of time to spend in the city. It was a clear, sunny day, probably midforties. We walked up to the rose garden, about two and half miles from the train station and mostly uphill. The roses weren’t in bloom of course, but the walk up the hill was worth it for the view of the city and Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Hood in the distance. Then we ate lunch at the Portland City Grill on the 30th floor, where we also had a great view of Portland. Sit in the lounge. We realized when we got back to the train station that even though we had our camera with us, we did not take any pictures of Portland. I took photos with my cell phone, though, which you can see here.

Now it’s dark in Washington, just past twilight, and we’re riding along the Columbia River. The green of the trees here in the northwest is the green trees should be everywhere. I love that we’re surrounded by evergreens. Cloudy weather is so much easier to handle when the trees aren’t gray and bare. We’re waiting to see if any stars come out.




Columbia River.




Washington evergreens.





Washington mountain.





Good moon rising.

March 10

This morning we woke up around 7:30, which 10:30 East Cost time, and after collecting muffins and bagels from the hotel lobby took a walk along the beach. It was a little windy but not too cold. We walked through historic Nye beach then onto Highway 101 to find a laundromat and place to buy an ethernet cable to get Internet at our hotel, which did not have wireless as we thought. It's not the hotel's fault; we interpreted "free Internet" to mean wireless. I needed to upload some edited files that were due before we returned, and since we learned that there really isn't any wireless available on the Empire Builder train route or readily in the Newport area we needed to buy the cable. The Pencil Pusher local office supply store was not open so we walked on to Staples. Across the street was the laundromat we sought.

We walked back to hotel, showered, gathered our dirty clothes, and headed out to the laundromat. We both worked a bit while we washed clothes for our return trip (and to get the wine out of my jeans that I spilled on the train in Montana). With us at the laundromat was an older couple with matching decorative fleece jackets. I posted the picture on Facebook.

At about 1:30 we headed across the Yaquina Bay bridge to Rogue Brewery. We took the tour, did a tasting, ate the awesome cheese soup and Kobe bacon cheeseburger, and made even more friends. It was aloha Tuesday. This was Brewery on the Bay, and it was a brewery on the bay. It was right next to the marina. Since tours didn't start until 3:00, and we got to the bay around 2:00, we took a walk around the marina to see if any boats had dirty names. We did not find any. It was a pleasurable experience nonetheless.

Once we got back from Rogue we went back to the beach and watched the sunset on the ocean. We found a sweet, fat log and popped a squat for the God show. We also saw some big red starfish in a tidal pool. We took pictures.

So we're packed up and ready to catch the shuttle bus to Corvallis at 5:45 a.m. We'll get into Portland about 9:30ish. Then we have time to wander until 4:45, when our train leaves. Portland has a metropolitan lounge for sleeper car passengers so we will be utilizing it for sure. We may have wireless at the Portland train station, but I'm not going to rely on it, so if I don't update this blog daily it's not because I forgot about you.

We really liked the Oregon coast and Newport and are a little sad to leave. The temprement of the coast fits our nature well. I'm glad we know this.

Check out my Twitter page for more up-to-date updates: http://twitter.com/tarabarnes

(Update March 28: Looking back, this was by far my favorite day. Only so many of our days are truly great days, and this was one of them. It even ended with pizza.)


Business across the street from our hotel.




Rogue Brewery tour.



Tara made a coaster that is now hanging up at the Rogue Brewery. Can you guess which one it is?



Tara watching the God show. And there was a dog running around.



Little Tara. Big ocean.



Oregon coast.



Big starfish in the water.



Big starfish on a rock.



Birds at sunset.



Seagull.



Sunset on the Pacific.

March 9

Our train managed to come in to Portland ahead of schedule, even with Daylight Savings Time. Good job conductor. So we got off at Union Station around 10:00, walked next door to the Greyhound station, bought tickets for the 12:20 bus to Newport, and then wandered Portland. We went into the Pearl District and ate cake and had coffee and chai tea at the Pearl Bakery. We changed bus at Corvallis, Oregon, where Oregon State University is located, and the train that took us to Newport was not a full Greyhound bus—it was shuttle bus. The scenery was just what I expected: dark green, hills, gray skies. I liked it. The weather moved quickly; it would pour rain, then be clear, then sleet, then snow, then clear up, all of this within an hour. It was overcast when we arrived in Newport but not raining. It didn’t rain today, really. Just a nice mist. We brought our umbrellas walking but didn’t use them.

We got to the hotel, showered and changed clothes, and then headed to the Rogue Brewery Public House. Such a good decision. Besides having good beer the food was great and the people were fun to be around. Suprisingly, it was more of a local bar than anything else, so we fit in. It was right near the docks.

By the way, even though I’m on the left coast, I know Terrell Owens is a Buffalo Bill now. Bring it on.

Sunrise on the rail yard.


Rock formation at Washington (State) train stop.

Washington mountains.

Oregon evergreens.

Pacific view from our (cheap) hotel room.

March 8

It’s 10:15 Central now (including Daylight Savings) in Minot, North Dakota. It’s going to Mountain Time soon, a time zone I have heard about only in stories and some television listings. Mountain time will be a brand new experience for us.

Last night at dinner we met a writer from New York City named Tim and a teacher/outreach worker from rural Kentucky (no, not near Henderson Settlement but similar) whose name I can’t remember. She had burgundy hair and glasses and is going to move to Scotland. We had a good conversation about punctuation and the English language. No, I didn’t start the conversation.

I got a little claustrophobic last night in our roomette sleeping on the top bunk. It was warm and the door and curtains were closed and the top has no window. I opened the door a crack and it staved off a freak out. It was comfortable and I slept, it just seemed really small in the middle of the night. Still better than coach, although on this train it looks like most people in coach got two seats to themselves and are sleeping across them.

Joel our attendant brought us complementary wine last night, which turned into two complementary wine bottles and sparkling apple juice. They are cute little travel wines, cabernet sauvignon, about the amount to fill a big red-wine glass. They are kind of awesome.

The lady we take hip hop dance class with (pop and lock, yo) is going to set up a U.S. map on one of her walls at the studio and put postcards in the states for the little kids to learn a little geography while they are dancing. We’ve got off at every stop to try to buy a postcard but the only place we’ve managed to get one is Chicago. However, in North Dakota we got a bunch of brochures, which are at least better than nothing. We’ll keep trying. Is has made us get off the train in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, so we’ve officially been in those states as well, not just driven through them.

It’s all snow here, and flat with scatterings of thin trees. When you see a hill it’s a true hill, bulbous and surrounded by prairie. It’s foggy now. I hope it dissipates a little before we reach the Rockies. We’ll see. (Which has become my favorite saying in the past few days.)

At 3:00 today we had a complementary wine and cheese tasting. Minnesota cheese and Washington State wine. Wisconsin, Minnesota cheese was really good. Not as good as New York of course, but what is? Good job Minnesota. Washington shiraz/syrah was good, made from grapes near the Columbia River where Lewis and Clark paddled and where we’ll be scooting by on our train. Buttes and mesas are weird, by the way.

Assessing the validity of “Home, Home on the Range.”
The lyrics (as best I can remember them):
Home, home on the range,
where the deer and the antelope play,
where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Or does it start, “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam”?

1. We have seen deer.
2. We have seen antelope.
3. We have not heard a discouraging word.
4. However, the skies have been cloudy all day.
5. Nor have we seen buffalo, but we saw a rock formation that looked like one.

North Dakota hay field.

North Dakota sky.

Buffalo-shaped rock in Montana.

Montana truck.

Montana farm.

Big sky.

Montana field.

Montana town.

March 7

Well, riding coach was an interesting experience. The Syracuse Amtrak station was full of Syracuse University students going wherever they were going, and our train car was full of a group of them, the group who dropped and broke their vodka bottle on the way to board the train. They weren’t too bad though, considering my expectations were based on the liquor. It was clear that one of the college girls liked one of the boys because she was laughing very loudly at things he said that were not funny. It was slightly amusing, and they were for the most part respectful, ending their typicalness at around 1:00 a.m. The perils of coach. However, we were lucky enough to sit behind a woman who loved Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston and listened to them all night long loudly on her headphones. I could sing along. And her daughter had a DVD player, and no headphones. This seven-year-old girl watched The Hills Have Eyes at 1:00 a.m. on the loudest setting possible. Needless to say I wasn’t happy when I woke up to slashes and screams at 2:00 a.m. Luckily I finally got my earplugs to work right and slept when the train was moving. Everyone else was using headphones on the train and were respectful. This woman and her daughter were not, and this was probably the most frustrating. Did it not occur to them that this would bother people? I use to assume that people knew they were wrong and just didn’t care, but I’m beginning to realize some people just don’t get it. I’m guessing Whitney lover and movie lover fell into the latter category. Luckily, I did sleep. Coach really wasn’t that bad, and would have been practically delightful if we had ended up in different seats. I am glad we got seats next to each other, so I suppose it balanced out.

We got off the train at Union Station, threw our bags in a locker, and went out to eat. We found Lou Mitchell’s diner, and if the rest of this trip is a disaster we’ll always have Lou’s. Breakfast was great. All meals include an orange and prune—perfect with diner food—and a little cup of vanilla soft serve at the end. The food in between was good too. I recommend it if you are ever in Chicago. It’s on Jackson Street a block or so from the station. Go on your birthday if possible; they’ll give you a huge slab of chocolate cake. You’ll see the flashing lights on the sign. Then we walked around a bit after it stopped pouring. We walked around the Sears Tower but didn’t go up it because it’s overcast. Maybe we’ll squeeze it in Friday after Wrigley. We bought a fancy postcard in the Sears Tower gift shop for our dance teacher Shari who is collecting them.

Right now we are sitting in a fancy lounge at Chicago’s Union Station, a lounge reserved for sleeper car riders. It’s nice. I feel elite. Again, balance. Well, maybe “elite” isn’t the right word because my pleasure at being in this lounge isn’t based on the fact that other people aren’t in this lounge. It’s the sweet leather chair I’m sitting in and free coffee and snacks, and the news on the television. I wish we had came here first because you can store your luggage here for free, with a redcap watching it! Now we know. We aren’t accustomed to expecting extra service and perks. In here they escort us to the train as well; it isn’t a cluster$#%& to board the train. I’m so excited for this leg of the trip! We board in an hour.


Some of what you can see when you travel through America's backyard. This is a business/bizniz vehicle in Indiana.


When walking in the vicinity of Union Station in Chicago you see a lot of people coming and going. We saw this lady arriving in full tie dye.


Lou Mitchell's exterior.


View of Chicago as we leave the city on the Empire Builder.

Internet!

So we thought our hotel had wifi, but it didn't. So we walked to Staples to get an ethernet cable so we could hook up to the Internet. Now, finally, I can update the blog! So, the following entries I wrote on the days labeled, but couldn't post until now. Enjoy.

Wrigley it is

Robert Ford convinced me. From Union Station it's a six or seven block walk to the red line train, which will take us to Wrigley Field (Addison). We have a four-hour layover Saturday the 6th, and six hour layover Friday the 13th - all subject to change of course. We will go to Wrigley on one of these days. Maybe I'll save it for the way back as something to look forward to . . . .

Rain

Shocking forecast for the Pacific Northwest I know, but rain is back in the forecast for our Newport days. High 40s. Maybe it will change again? Regardless, we have decided to purchase two little travel umbrellas, especially since rain is forecast for Chicago and Portland for our layovers there (but not for the way back - fingers crossed). We'll still be taking pictures.

Amtrak provides "walking tour" maps for some cities on their Web site. Luckily for us, both Chicago and Portland are two of those cities. Chicago for me immediately conjures images of Wrigley Field, but I may have to resist a visit I think because (1) it's not within walking distance of Union Station and (2) tours of Wrigley don't start until April. I want a tour. Maybe even go to a game there before I die. We will likely hit up Grant Park and the Sears Tower in Chicago instead. Portland I don't know that much about, so we'll probably just wing it there. We'll of course let you know!

Sunshine

As of today, the weather forecast for Newport, Oregon, for the days we will be there is sunny and 50s. I'll take it!

Update: Diane Sansone, co-owner of the Ale House, said her husband always has a good time when he calls Rogue Brewery for orders. The word "high" may have been used as a description. We will of course report back.

Spring forward

Daylight Savings Time occurs this year on Sunday March 8. We'll be in the western half of the country traveling west when we "spring forward." Luckily, our cell phones should automatically change the time for us. I'm not sure if this affects our scheduled arrival times or if Amtrak has already worked this out, but I guess we'll find out. This really affects only what bus we take out of Portland to get to Newport.

We need to catch a bus at 5:45 a.m. in Newport on the 11th to make it back to Portland in time to catch our train, and we've been telling ourselves that it's not a big deal because it's an east coast 8:45, but now it's an east coast 7:45. I have a feeling it's still going to feel like 5:45. Luckily, I can sleep on a bus.

Accomodations

For about five minutes in the trip-planning stage Tim and I thought of doing coach seats for the entire trip. It would have been significantly cheaper; however, it would mean no showers, no food, and no privacy. The no privacy issue wasn't really that big of a deal, but the no showers (for me anyway) and no food were bigger deals. We would have had to buy food or try to bring on enough food to last for seven days, a harder task since we've decided to do carry-on only luggage.

So from Syracuse to Chicago, a thirteen-hour overnight trip, we'll be sitting in reserved coach seats. No big whoop for one night, and we'll be saving a little money this way. But from Chicago to Portland, a two-night trip, we splurged on a Superliner Roomette. THIS is the really exciting part. With the roomette are beds (of course), a picture window, electrical outlets (not guaranteed in coach), water, newspaper, shower stuff, climate control, and, best of all, meals. We'll get to eat all meals in the dining car, which I hear is kind of awesome. Also, with the roomette, we can bring our own wine and beer, now a key factor since we found out Rogue Brewery is Newport. The return trip is the same: roomette from Portland to Chicago, coach from Chicago to Syracuse.

Some trains also offer onboard entertainment. I hope we have one of those trains because I bet onboard entertainment is amazing.

Twitter

Depending on the availability of wireless Internet on the train and at stops, I may not be able to post every day. Don't worry; to satisfy your need to know what we're doing, you can follow us on Twitter. From there I can send updates using my cell phone. I know you were worried.

What's This?

In a carpe diem moment last month, Tim and I decided to take a train trip to Oregon over his spring break. We'll be leaving from Syracuse on Friday March 9th and returning on Saturday March 14th. The first leg is from Syracuse to Chicago. Then it's Chicago to Portland. The states we will travel through: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon. We'll then hop on a bus from Portland, Oregon, to Newport, Oregon, on the coast. This also happens to be where Rogue Brewery is located, which I did not discover until after I had decided on Newport as a final destination because it's near a place where we can rock climb right by the ocean. Needless to say this made me even happier about my decision.

Besides throwing ourselves a wedding, this trip may be the least frugal decision we've ever made. Thankfully, our tax return can pay for most of the trip. I know you can argue that this money could have been "better" spent, but unless your argument is a trip to Paris or Buffalo Bills season tickets, I win. (And even then I may have you beat.)

We're really excited about this. So in the next nine days, if you catch me smiling for seemingly no reason, this is why. That, or I'm thinking about this.