Our train adventure begins!

We slept in on Monday, but unfortunately weren't able to get a late check out at the hotel. By the time we were showered and packed, it was 12 pm and time to check out. How did we sleep away the entire morning?!

Bloody Mary at Local 360

After we stored our bags at the front desk and arranged for a car to take us to the train station in the afternoon, we headed out to savor our last few hours in Seattle. We walked around downtown, visited the market (again!), and got a gift for our in-laws to thank them for watching our sweet little pug while we have been on the trip. Then we realized that we hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day, and pulled up Yelp to try to find a lunch place. Have I mentioned how much I love this app?!

We found Local 360, and I was able to make us a reservation for lunch. We walked the few blocks over there from the market, and we knew it was a good sign when there was a chalkboard at the entrance with the same quote that Tim used for his sign at the Wickenden Pub when he finished his beer card. Which reminds me, when we get home, we need to go see if our names are finally up on the wall.

In any case, Tim had a delicious bloody mary and I had a blueberry Tom Collins. Both were heavenly. This restaurant was packed, and it had a great rustic decor and very chill vibe. I had chicken and waffles for lunch, and they were better than the ones I had in Harlem that were named after Al Sharpton at Amy Ruth's. We finished off lunch with a pair of very strong cappuccinos, and then meandered our way back to the hotel.

King Street Station Interior

I had arranged for a town car to take us to the train station, which was wonderful, because it was definitely too far to walk with all of our stuff. We arrived at King Street Station about an hour before departure. This station is currently under renovation, but the newly reopened ticketing and baggage areas were beautiful. If the rest of the station looks like that when they are done, then the renovation will be well worth the small and cramped seating/waiting area that exists at the station right now. We got our tickets, and then boarded our sleeper about 20 minutes before departure.

Our sleeping car attendant greeted us warmly at the door to the train and checked our names off the list. Soon after departure, he came to the door of our bedroom to give us some champagne and to explain how everything works on the train. Shortly after we departed Seattle - on time - we rolled to a stop. I turned on my train scanner so that I could overhear the conductors, engineers and dispatchers chatting with one another. It turns out that there was a suspicious package on the tracks, although the conductor told the passengers that there were "trespassers" on the tracks and that we were also waiting for marine traffic at the Ballard Locks. In any case, we were held up for about an hour before continuing our way.

Rib Dinner

We headed to dinner at 6 pm with beautiful views of Puget Sound out the window of the dining car. We both had the rib special for dinner, accompanied by the standard amtrak roll, amtrak salad of iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes, and of course the powdered mashed potatoes.  The one thing I noticed is that the roll is indeed the same roll that they are currently serving on acela, which changed at some point over the winter from the previous roll. I liked the old roll better! We had dinner with a nice couple from Seattle who were heading to visit family in North Dakota. We talked about the boom that has occurred in this area due to mining and fracking.

Lounging in bedroom B of car 0831

We headed back to our bedroom after dinner and opened up our bottle of rum. Eventually we got sleepy and found our car attendant to put down the beds. He happily obliged and found us a bottle opener so we could drink a bottle of hard cider before retiring for the evening. Tim lasted about 15 minutes in the upper bunk before climbing into the bottom bunk with me. It is a good thing we have the bigger bedroom! We were actually both quite comfortable in the bottom bed, and we nodded off to sleep until we got to Spokane just after midnight.

In Spokane, the Seattle section (#8) and the Portland section (#28) combine to form one long train that continues on to Chicago together. We woke up in SPK as it got rather hot - they have to turn off the power to the cars to connect them all together, so the a/c got turned off. We also both noticed that our neighbor in bedroom C had his scanner on - and it was loudly squawking. It was actually really annoying and loud, even with earplugs in.

Once the power came back on, the noise from the vents and other train rattling tuned out our neighbor's scanner, and Tim and I both fell back asleep.

Sunday in Seattle

Sunday we woke up early to head back to Seattle. The day was cloudy and rainy again, so we didn't make it down to Dungeness Spit. Oh well, I will have to put it on my list for our next visit to the area.

We decided to take the northern ferry back to Seattle, so we drove East to Kingston. This route was a little faster, and we made it just in time for the 10:25 AM ferry. 20 minutes later we were back on land on the Eastern side of Puget Sound. We dropped off my parents at my sister's house, and headed into Seattle for our downtown adventure.

We stayed at the Alexis Hotel, which is a Kimpton, one of my favorite hotel chains. We arrived about 12 pm, and our room wasn't ready yet, so we stored our bags, dropped off the rental car, and set off in search of some Seattle beer and food.

Living Room, Alexis Hotel Room

Dining Room, Alexis Hotel Room

With the help of Yelp and google we stumbled upon the Taphouse. This place was amazing! They had over 100 beers on tap - yup - on tap, not in bottles. We both decided to start off with a beer sampler. I got the Northwest Sampler and Tim tried the local seasonal sampler. Then we switched to pints. Keeping up with the theme of the trip, I had the Snoqualmie Steam Train Porter. It was delicious! Tim had a cream ale and an ESB. With our bellies full and feeling slightly tipsy, we returned to the Hotel after walking through Pike Place Market.

It was past 3 pm (the designated check in time) when we arrived back at the hotel, so when we our room still wasn't ready, the very nice front desk attendant said she would give us an upgrade. Imagine our delight when we strolled into our ginormous suite with a living room, dining room and separate bedroom.  The room was huge - and possibly bigger than our condo in Salem! It was past 3 pm (the designated check in time) when we arrived back at the hotel, so when we our room still wasn't ready, the very nice front desk attendant said she would give us an upgrade. Imagine our delight when we strolled into our ginormous suite with a living room, dining room and separate bedroom.  The room was huge - and possibly bigger than our condo in Salem!

After a nice nap, we woke up feeling hungry and a little antsy. Tim discovered he had left his credit card at the Taphouse, so we walked back over there and then headed over to Serious Pie, a Tom Douglas restaurant. It is supposed to be some of the best pizza in Seattle, but there was a long wait for a table so we got a pizza to go.

On the way back to our hotel with the pizza, we had 3 different people ask us if they could have our leftovers. That was interesting. I would have been happy to give the food away if it was in fact leftovers, but I was feeling pretty hungry at this point! We enjoyed our pizza back in the room while watching the Hunger Games. The pizza was very good, but I do think I preferred Pagliacci's, which we had at my sister's house last week.

All in all, it was a great Seattle day.

Hurricane Ridge

Olympic Range of Mountains, Olympic National Park

The day dawned bright and sunny, so we decided to head to Hurricane Ridge, which we heard was a highlight at Olympic National Park. The drive up to Hurricane Ridge is a 17 mile ascent up the mountain. My ears popped the entire way, and when we arrived at the top, I could tell that the air was thinner. There was a gorgeous view from the top of many snow covered peaks. I believe you can see Mt Misery and Mt Deception from this vantage point. Those are such interesting names, and I keep wondering how and why they got them.

Visitor Center

We headed into the visitor center where a very nice ranger gave us the low-down on the hikes we could do from up here. There were several very short paved trails (less than one mile) from the parking lot, but we were advised that one of them was still completely covered in ice. We opted to drive about another mile down the road and do the Hurricane Hill hike. This is a 1.6 mile (each way) hike up to the top of a ridge. At the top are great mountain views.

Deer in Parking Lot at Hurricane Ridge

Before we headed down to the Hurricane Hill trail-head, we noticed a deer wandering around the parking lot. It reminded me of the elk who roam around Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone. One of the deer even jumped almost in front of a car when working our way back down the mountain on the way out! Tim decided that this was the closest he had been to a deer. I guess I need to take him back to Prudence Island to hang with some deer. :)

We had some sandwiches to fuel us before the hike, and then we hit the trail. The trail meandered through some woods, and there was some snow across the trail. The ranger told us that the 700 foot elevation change was mostly at the end, but either she was lying or we were greatly affected by the thin air - or we are just totally out of shape. :)

Hurricane Hill Trail

The hike along the ridge was great, and then we huffed and puffed our way straight up to a switchback. We saw a marmot! Unfortunately I was not able to get a picture, but it was really cute. And a little sign said that the marmots are endangered. It was a little brown mammal that came out from a burrow in the ground in an alpine meadow. The wildflowers were beautiful and we saw patches of snow all across the landscape.

In the picture of us at the top at the trail, you can see the trail we hiked up on the right side as a sort of track right in the trees. It was quite steep for much of the trail, but we felt a great sense of accomplishment at the top.

We got back to our rental house in Sequim just in time for a nap, and then headed to the Alderwood Bistro for dinner. My father had read about it online and said that it had great reviews and had wanted to go there for the entire time we were out there, so with my sister and the baby going back to Seattle for the evening, we decided to head out to dinner. The Alderwood Bistro has a great wood fired oven and they do pizzas and entrees over the flames. Plus everything is local and delicious!

For dinner we had local prawns and salad to start with a local IPA and a local stout. Everything was so good! For the entrees we had meatloaf, cedar planked salmon, local dungeness crab and steak. We topped if off with an "upside down cheesecake" that was served in a coffee mug with salted apple cider caramel. It was heavenly! And then my mom got an ice wine which she graciously shared with us.

We had an early dinner, so we returned to the house to enjoy some of the cider we had picked up yesterday at Finn River and Eagle Mount and to take advantage of the hot tub at the rental house. All in all, we had a lovely day and the weather cooperated.  I highly recommend Alderwood Bistro to anyone who happens to find themselves in Sequim. We dined in the outdoor garden, surrounded by rosebushes and ornamental artichokes.

Tomorrow we head back to Seattle. Tim has never been to Seattle, so he is super excited. Anyone have any suggestions for stuff to do? We should have a full 24 hours in Seattle before we leave on the train.

Rainy Day on the Olympic Peninsula

Plans are meant to be broken, right?

Sometime in the middle of the night, everyone in the house woke up to thunder and lightning. When we finally rolled out of bed to start our day, the house was covered in fog and we couldn't see anything out the windows. It seemed like a day to do rainy day stuff, so we scrapped our original plans and decided to head to Port Townsend for a hard cider tasting tour.

NW Cider Association

Our first top was Finn River Cider & Winery. What a fun little place! They had 3 artisan type ciders that tasted like champagne, and were made in the same manner of champagne, and then 4 ciders that were more like Magner's or Angry Orchard. They also had two dessert wines. Who knew that there were this many types of cider? My favorite variety was a black currant and lavender cider, which is a special that they just made. Apparently Sequim is also a hotbed of lavender cultivation. We bought six bottles of cider and got an awesome little tote bag specifically made for a six pack. Score!

After Finn River we headed over to Eagle Mountain, less than five miles away. Unfortunately they were out of their ginger cider, but we did try their standard hard cider, a semi-sweet, a raspberry, pear, and then also four red wines there. Their "perry" cider was the best so we bought one of those. We started to think we might need more alcohol for our train trip (we are spending 70+ hours on board), so on the way back to town we stopped at the Native American gas station & store for some booze and cigars. They also had fireworks and a casino!

After lunch, we kept hoping that the rain would let up so we could go to Dungeness spit or perhaps Hurricane Ridge, but the rain, thunder and lightning kept on coming. So far we have had over 12 hours of thunder storms. The lightning is amazing - we can see specific lightning strikes out the window right now.

My sister felt cooped up in all the house all day, so we trundled to downtown Sequim for some dinner. Let's just said we had slim pickings available for us in terms of choices with a fussy 9 week old baby, so we ended up at a random Mexican restaurant. I can't tell what is going on here with the building - is this an old grain elevator of sorts?  In any case, let's just say my mole enchiladas were underwhelming and I was pining for some Mijos taco truck.

Grain elevator, cell phone tower, or mexican restaurant?

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the sun comes out tomorrow, as it is our last full day on the Olympic Peninsula.

Only three days until we board the train!

Seattle to Sequim

We flew out to Seattle on Tuesday morning to spend some time with my sister and meet my niece. What a cutie she is! Here is a picture of the two of us together.  Our flight was a little scary as we almost missed our connection in Cleveland, but we made it out in one piece. After that flight, we are super excited to take the train home!

My niece

We spent the day with my sister and niece, enjoying the lovely weather in Seattle. Wednesday morning we woke up early to have coffee and pastries at Honore Bakery. We met a friend of mine, and after a delicious ham and cheese croissant, an orange scone and some nice iced americanos, we trundled off to the grocery store to get some provisions for our trip to the Olympic Peninsula. 

Our trip to the Olympic Peninsula started with a ferry ride from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island. The ferry ride was about half an hour and the cars were loaded on by some staff that barely seemed interested in what they were doing. Tim and I got a cute picture of the Seattle skyline behind us as we pulled out of town. 

Seattle from the Ferry to Bainbridge Island

We could also see Mount Ranier to the right of the city as we pulled away. It was a little hazy and foggy, but we could see the snow covered peak. It has been such a treat to see snow covered mountains, which are not a common sight in Rhode Island.

Bainbridge has a very cute little main street, and we had lunch at the Hitchcock deli. The sandwiches were very good, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who passes through Bainbridge. We had dessert at Mora Ice Cream. 

We then continued on our way to Sequim. On the way we drove over the longest floating bridge across salt water in the world. In the 1970s part of it sank, and it took two years to rebuild it. We then continued through Port Townsend before arriving in Sequim and our rental house. From the porch on our rental house, we can see the Juan de Fuca strait and the snow capped Mt. Baker. We have also been able to see lots of deer running through the meadow in front of the porch.

Thursday we slept in, and then headed into Port Angeles. This is the biggest city in the Olympic Peninsula and was also part of the Twilight story. In fact, there are all these brochures in our rental house about going on a "Twilight tour." We are about 75 miles from Forks, where the story all takes place. After a quick drive through Port Angeles we headed into the Olympic National Park. The park is very big and takes up most of the Peninsula. It is the only place in the world with temperate rain forests, too!

Tim and I decided to do an 8 mile hike. It is a 4 mile, each way hike called the Spruce Railroad Trail. I picked it because of the name - if it has to do with a train, it must be good, right?!

Crescent Lake, Olympic National Park

The trail went along the northern edge of Lake Crescent, which was formed by glaciers. The water was bright blue and crystal clear, and the entire lake was framed by hills and mountains. It was so beautiful!

About 1.5 miles into the hike, we came upon this wooden and metal bridge. There were families jumping into the lake off the bridge. There was also a great little swimming hole on the side of the bridge. We found someone kind enough to take a picture of the two of us enjoying our hike. 

Enjoying our hike!

We continued to the end of the trail, and then turned around and made our way back to the trail head. Our 8 mile hike took about 2.5-3 hours and we had a great time.

We got nice and sweaty on our hike, and we wanted to do nothing more than jump in the beautiful crystal clear water of the lake. We hopped back in the rental car and headed over to East Beach, which was just a few miles down the road. A quick change in the car into our bathing suits, and we were enjoying the lake. We were hot, but the water was FREEZING! After just a few minutes we were nicely cooled down, and headed back to the car and back to the house to have dinner with the family.

Tomorrow we are planning on maybe heading to Hurricane Ridge, or perhaps down to the Dungeness Beach. The great thing about this peninsula is that we are right where the mountains meet the ocean, so there is a choice to see everything that one might want to see. We hope to also maybe head to Victoria, on Vancouver Island, on Saturday, or maybe do a hard cider tasting tour.

On Monday we will begin our second cross country train adventure - can't wait!

2153: Acela Express First Class

So Thursday night as we were packing, someone (not me) started complaining about going to Boston before going back down to Philly. We hadn't yet printed our tickets out, so I checked out amtrak.com to see how much it would cost to switch to an earlier train. For those of you that don't know, right now there are no change fees when taking amtrak. If you change trains, the only amount that you pay is the fare differential. If you switch to a cheaper train, you get a refund, and if you take a more expensive train, you pay the difference.

I noticed that if we took the 2153, departing PVD at 6:45 am, that there would be no additional charge so off I went to the train station to swap out our tickets. In less than five minutes I was walking out of the station with two first class tickets for the 2153. Note that I kept my tickets as departing from BOS, even though we planned to board in PVD. This is so that we could receive the 750 points for the BOS - PHL segment (select city pairs). If I was just ticketed from PVD - PHL I would have saved $8 per person but I would have only received 2 points per dollar spent (so about 350 points each). It is well worth the $8 surcharge to get the city pair bonus.

Someone (not me!) insisted that we get up very early because the parking lot at the train station can fill up. By 5:45 am we left our house and were parked and at the train station in about 10 minutes. We waited in PVD until the train pulled up a few minutes early and boarded the FC car at the back of the train.

Strawberry Pancakes & Cereal and Bagel

The car was pretty empty and we were thrilled to be able to grab one of the tables with single seats facing each other on the left hand (east facing) side of the train. This is the side with the best views heading south. We had two very friendly attendants and we had our breakfast and coffee in about 10 minutes.

I had the strawberry pancakes with vegetarian sausage and T had the the cereal and bagel. We both got coffee and some melon with our breakfast.  We had an uneventful and peaceful ride down the coast, and before I knew it, we were pulling into NYP. The train cleared out and only us and one other person remained in the car.

The car filled up in NYP, and it looked like all of the single seats and many of the groups of two were filled as we continued south towards PHL. T got a bloody mary, and since it was now 10 AM, I joined him. The attendants came by offering a second round of food service, but they were still doing breakfast. I opted for just a bagel with cream cheese and so did T. They were great. The bloody's kept coming, and I ended up holding off since we weren't too far from our destination.

Bloody Mary - round 1!

The last hour went the quickest. I was nearing the end of my latest book (Dances with Dragons, book 5 in the Game of Thrones saga!) and couldn't tear myself away from it. Before I knew it, I saw the Philadelphia skyline to the left and then we were heading past the Schukyl River and the art museum and into the station. We detrained, and this was the first time in a few years that T had been to 30th Street Station. He marveled at the station and the big Solari board and then we headed out to the taxi line.

Later today T will be taking his first trip on SEPTA as we will take the Market Frankford line to the rehearsal dinner and wedding that we are attending. Our trip southbound was so comfortable and convenient. While at a barbecue last weekend I met a new woman who seemed surprised that I would take the train to Philadelphia instead of fly. The train comes out ahead when traveling from Providence to New York or Philly every time because it is just so convenient. The station is so close to our house, the parking is easy and inexpensive, and the acela is quick and comfortable. I can board the train without taking off my shoes and I enjoy the friendly staff.

Triple Points Run to Philly

I just got off the phone with amtrak to confirm my upgrade for my trip on Friday. My husband and I will be heading to Philadelphia for a wedding. Armed with my 48 hour upgrade coupons that my husband received in his Select+ packet this year, I called 1800-USA-RAIL 48 hours before the trip. The call was completed and my first class seats were obtained in less than 5 minutes on the phone, and I even received an email confirmation of the switch.

Friday morning we will get up early and take the 66 into Boston. Then we'll hang out in the Club Acela for about an hour before boarding our train to Philadelphia. The reason for this madness is a) it will ensure we can grab one of our favorite tables for two and b) its triple points this week!  National Train Day is this Saturday, and in honor of it, amtrak is offering triple points this entire week. With this trip on Friday I will receive 750 points (BOS - PHL select city pair) x 3 = 2250 + S bonus (187) + 300 (PVD - BOS) + S bonus (25) = 2,762 points. Not bad for a fun day of riding trains!

While I am super excited for this wedding, I am slightly bummed to be missing out on the train day festivities. Unfortunately I won't have time to head over to 30th Street Station to view the private varnish, sleepers and other train car displays. However, if you love trains, check out www.nationaltrainday.com  to see if there is an event in your area this Saturday, May 12, 2012.