Trip Report: May 3 - 18, 2001
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
Through the Pacific Northwest and Canada
by Amtrak, BC Rail and VIA Rail Canada
May 3, 2001: Klamath Falls to Seattle.
Although our bags are packed for our 15-day rail odyssey, it isn't until one o'clock AM that we finish getting tickets and tour documents ready to mail to our many clients who would be traveling this month. We call Amtrak before turning out the lights to see if train #14, the northbound Coast Starlight, will be arriving in Klamath Falls on time. We are pleased to hear that it is running one hour and 20 minutes late out of Davis, California. This will allow us a little more sleep.
Later, we call again and learn that #14 is now two hours and 20 minutes behind schedule. Great! We can reset the alarm for 7 AM and get another hour of sleep. The sun rises on a clear, brilliant morning. We drop off our mail and FedEx and check our bags at the station. The train pulls in at 10:15 AM a much more convenient hour than its scheduled 8 AM arrival! (Fortunately we are not making a "connection" in Portland with the Empire Builder, for these passengers will be transferred to a bus in Eugene to play catch-up a fairly common occurrence.) As we board the 1430 sleeper car, Tom, our car attendant, takes charge of our luggage and then contacts the dining car by intercom to request breakfast seating for us.
We are treated royally by the dining car staff as we pull out of town and skirt the shore of Upper Klamath Lake, the snow-capped peaks of Mt McLoughlin and Shasta catching the morning sun. Although we ordered a "light" fruit plate, it is delivered with granola, yogurt, a selection of herbal teas, and a bagel with cream cheese and jelly. As one of our clients wrote to us recently, "When I board the Coast Starlight, I feel like a rich man!"
By 11:30 AM we are in Chemult, and I reflect upon the necessity of the one-and-a-half to two hour drive on Highway 97, along with scores of heavy trucks, to reach our first rest stop there when we are traveling by car. But aboard the Starlight we enjoy an excellent breakfast and settle down in our deluxe room to read the morning newspaper that we pick up in the Pacific Parlour Car.
The northbound ride on this train is the most scenic, and although we experience it several times a year it is always enticing, with the different climate, light conditions and seasons giving it great variety.
Departing Chemult, we quickly climb from the juniper high-desert landscape into the pine-forested Cascades. Lake Odell, at the summit, is in an Alpine setting with jagged Diamond Peak overlooking it and a six-inch snowpack on the ground.
Tom puts our name on the dining car waiting-list and we nap while winding our way down from mile-high Cascade Summit. We are called at 1:40 PM and enjoy our favorite Poached Salmon Nicoise as we pass through a rain forest with lush ferns; then along the Willamette River with blossoming trees and wildflowers on its banks. Finally we reach Eugene and the agricultural Willamette Valley, where we can take a short walk on the platform and the smokers can have a short puff.
Now that we are along the I-5 corridor through the Willamette Valley we have access to our Sprint PCS digital cell phone signal, so it's time to go to back to work and pick up e-mail and make bookings on our computer reservation system (CRS). Before taking this trip we had experimented with obtaining access to digital services with our analog cell phone. If this had worked, we would then be able, theoretically, to access our e-mail from nearly everywhere instead of only around large towns and cities with digital cell towers. However, although Motorola builds a 56 K Global Modem for laptops, we were only able to get it to connect at 4.8 K, and only to our CRS, due to its being operated by an "obsolete" DOS based software. Even Motorola did not know what provider of internet access might support analog cell phones. Certainly our Juno provider does not because enormous bandwidth is required to download all the junk mail and advertisements which come along with legitimate messages. I am in the market for a good e-mail program that does not inundate its users with ads and junk mail, but don't know where to turn. If any of our readers know, I would be happy to hear from you.
There have been rumors of service cutbacks on the Coast Starlight. The first we noticed on our recent trip to San Francisco was the elimination of the mints on your sleeping car pillow. Due to numerous complaints, these were restored shortly afterwards. Today's cutback is the elimination of the fresh fruit plate in the Pacific Parlour Car and the delivery of a newspaper to your compartment. Now a tray of apples and oranges are displayed in the Parlour Car along with a bundle of 20 newspapers to be picked up by sleeping car passengers on a first come, first served basis. This saves about 30 cents per compartment per trip. Also missing on this trip is the stack of interesting magazines in the Parlour Car and in the coffee-bar area of the sleepers.
Travel Tip: Bring your own reading material along, as well as some loose change, in case you have to jump off at a smoking stop to purchase a newspaper from a kiosk. Eating an apple or orange is not as elegant as picking at a fresh fruit plate with a fork, so you may want to take yours to your room, so there is no chance of spraying your fellow passengers with flying fruit juice.
We choose not to partake of the wine tasting today, due to our having already had three meals, and because we are holding 6 PM dinner reservations, the only time slot available. But we do visit the Parlour Car, one of most well-run that we have enjoyed. The attendant is very attentive, has his wine and liquors displayed on the counter, and turns on his personal collection of hit songs from the forties for cocktail hour. The single-malt Scotch and single-cask bourbon were irresistible.
All three sleepers are full today, which is not at all unusual for the Coast Starlight, and the dining car is running about 15 minutes behind. Although the dining car crew is required to rush sometimes, Coast Starlight passengers are never rushed out to make way for the next sitting. We answer the call for 6 PM reservations, which we hear on the Parlour Car PA system, and are fortunately seated with the same interesting Bay Area couple that we met for lunch. They are winding down from their high-pressure Silicon Valley jobs, and feel the Starlight is the best possible way to begin relaxing on their vacation trip to Victoria.
As usual on the Starlight, the trip seems to be over all too soon, even though it takes about 12 hours from Klamath Falls to Seattle. Due to schedule padding we are able to make up some time and arrive in Seattle only about one-and-a-half hours behind schedule. We observe, while disembarking, the new platform roofs and the elevator to the overhead footbridge to the Kingdome, whoops, Safeco Field. We could look into the stands from our train window as we rolled by. This recently completed ballpark is roofed over but open on the sides so that the fans can remain fairly dry, during the occasional showers that occur in Seattle, but not have to give up their view of the city skyline and Elliott Bay. There is a Mariners game in the top of the ninth, and we find a cab at the usual efficient taxi line outside King Street Station before the game ends, and we are whisked to the Westin Hotel and our heavenly bed. (The radio in our taxi gives the news, the Mariners beat the Red Sox, 10 to 3.)
Travel Tip: Passengers going on to Vancouver, BC, have an option of transferring to a Thruway bus waiting outside King Street Station. However, you must claim your checked baggage and carry it out to the bus yourself. (It is about a four hour-drive to Vancouver, so this particular bus will not arrive until after 2 o'clock in the morning not an unusual event as the Coast Starlight frequently arrives late.) We never do this ourselves, and do not recommend it, as it is possible to check into your hotel in Vancouver at 3 AM or later, thus missing most of a night's sleep and perhaps being asked to check out a 11 AM or noon. In fact, to make this trip more relaxing and enjoyable, we left a day earlier than we needed to in order to spend two nights at the Westin, as checking in late and getting up early for the 7:45 AM Mt. Baker International to Canada, which we have done many times, is not conducive to a relaxing vacation. There are many interesting activities in Seattle which makes a stopover there a plus.
Travel Tip: Checked baggage to Vancouver can no longer go through Seattle without your claiming your bags there and rechecking them. Rather than waiting at the carousel to claim your bags to recheck them upon arrival, it is easier to let the bags go into storage in the baggage room. Claim them and recheck them on the morning that you leave Seattle by going directly to the baggage room. This way you will never have to manhandle your checked bags nor wait around for them to be off-loaded and transferred to the carousel.
Coming Saturday, we will be boarding the Mt. Baker International for Vancouver, BC, and will give a full report.
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