One day Lorraine (my mother) and I are driving around on errands when
she says: “You know what I have always wanted to do? I have
always wanted to see the top of the United States.” She waves a
hand in a wide sweep to indicate the scope of what she has in mind as
if she is starting in Washington and ending in Maine.
I ruminate on the idea and decide that it might be possible if we take
the train rather than drive and stay in motels. I google Amtrak
and check on their routes. When it looks like at least part of
Lorraine’s dream trip might just be possible, I dig further to see what
they have for people with physical limitations. Lorraine uses a wheeled
walker and has a difficult keeping her balance. It seems they
have accessible rooms for people with limitations, and provisions for a
traveling companion in the same room. I immediately think of
Alice (one of my sisters) and call her to ask. She is at work,
but doesn’t even hesitate. This is something she wants to do.
When I talk the idea over with Lorraine she is delighted. She
likes train travel and particularly likes the idea that Alice will come
along to help. She is relieved that her room will have its own
private bathroom.
She asks if we can see Boston while we are going. I said I
thought that might be too tiring for her, and I was pretty sure it
would be for me if I were to be the mule for the project. I also
tell her that Alice only has two weeks for vacation. That
satisfies her.
Using a road atlas, I show her a route that goes from Sacramento to
Seattle, Washington, then through, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota,
Minnesota, Wisconsin and into Illinois to visit with Art (one of my
brothers) & June (his wife) in Chicago. We return from
Chicago to Sacramento. The trip takes nine days and won’t cost an
arm and a leg.
Conflicting schedules and availability of the accessible rooms on the
trains delay the trip for several months. Finally, the tickets
are purchased and preparations begin. The trip is to begin on
Monday, September 15th, returning to Sacramento on Wednesday, September
24th.
We will take the Coast Starlight train to Seattle. We will stay
overnight in a motel and try to see Joel (a nephew in the Army) and his
new wife Danielle while we are there. He is stationed at Fort
Lewis, about an hour out of Seattle. The next afternoon, we will board
the Empire Builder to Chicago. After a weekend visit with Arty,
June and family, we will return on the California Zephyr. Lorraine will
have an accessible bedroom on all three trains. Meals are
included in the price and will be brought to Lorraine’s room since the
dining rooms are all upstairs and she is unable to climb stairs.
I am the mule for the trip. I will be in a “roomette” using
communal facilities and eating in the dining room. I will visit
Lorraine and Alice often. Alice and I will stay in contact with
our mobile phones when possible.
Sacramento
We are supposed to depart at midnight on Monday the 15th, but the train
is late and we don’t leave until about 1:30 AM. Lorraine knows we
were going to be late, but as the time of our scheduled departure
passes, she begins to complain loudly.
When the train arrives, two Amtrak staff give contradictory
instructions about where our sleeper car is located. We retrace
our steps a couple of times before we find car 1432. I look at
the step that Lorraine is going to have to make to get from the
platform into the car and tell the attendant that she will need
assistance. He looks at me and says “Well, what do you want me to
do – pick her up?” That is pretty much what he and I had to do in
order to get her on the train. Later I learn that they have a
ramp in each car to provide the assistance that Lorraine needed.
To be fair, Lorraine said that the attendant, Brian, was very helpful
for the remainder of the trip. With a little prompting he uses
the ramp when we detrain in Seattle.
The Great Central Valley
The moon is bright as we alternately race and creep along. When
the track is straight and level we speed along at about 80, but when
crossing a rickety old bridge or bumpy track we slow to 10 or even
less. I know how fast we are going because I have my laptop on
with my handheld GPS plugged in for an antenna. I am following
the progress on a topographical map that shows speed and bearing among
other things. Yes, I am a nerd. I believe in the old saw
that data are our friends. Besides, I like gadgets!
The moon is bright enough to cast shadows. I can see the
silhouettes of orchards, vineyards and cultivated fields for mile after
mile. I am amazed at how many lights are on in the modest homes
in these little farming communities at 1:30 and 2:00 in the morning.
Shasta
Sunrise happens somewhere north of Redding. The horizon is aglow
with pinks and purples. Even the hardened lava foam (which I know
to be a dull brownish grey) is suffused with color. Alice gets a
good view of the giant volcano that is Mount Shasta. My window is
facing toward the high desert landscape to the north.
Klamath Falls, Oregon
There isn’t much to see in Klamath Falls, but Klamath Lake is alive
with birds. The margins of the lake are covered in reeds with
twisting channels which I can follow easily from my vantage point on
the second story of the sleeper car. Ducks, geese, cormorants,
blue herons and snowy egrets take flight in small flocks as the noisy
locomotive approaches. Flocks of ducks run across the water
flapping urgently and rise in unison as if they are a single organism.
Over the Cascades
We turn west at Chemult, Oregon and cross the Cascades on our way to
Eugene. Or maybe it more accurate to say we penetrate the
Cascades. There are several tunnels as we slowly wind our way
over and through the mountains. I think the conductor said
there were 23 tunnels.
The forest in this part of the Cascades is surprisingly diverse, with
cedar, fir, spruce, pine, birch and another broadleaf deciduous tree I
can’t identify. There are acres of wild blackberry vines and
smatterings of other berries.
Eugene
We stop just after leaving Eugene. It seems that an inspection
crew has detected a crack in one of the rails. A repair crew is
reportedly having difficulty fixing the damage. We wait for two
hours, which gave us a little time to catch up on the sleep we lost in
our excitement on the previous night.
The Willamette Valley
We head north through the verdant Willamette Valley. Agriculture is
obviously the dominant economic engine here. The parts of
the valley that aren’t some shade of healthy green are the dark grey of
good earth that has been recently tilled.
Columbia River
What a treat! We are now three hours late and have four more
hours to go … but that means we get to see the sunset on the
water. As we cross the Willamette River, the sky is the same pink
and purple we saw at dawn It is reflected on the almost still
waters of the river. When we reach the bridge over Smith Lake
Slough, the trees on the shoreline are silhouettes, but their shadows
fall on the water leaving patterns in the reflected colors of the
sunset.
A few minutes later, we stop on the old riveted steel bridge crossing
the Columbia to wait for a boat to pass under the drawbridge. The
deepening colors glitter among the ripples along the south shoreline,
while the lights of the large facility loading the holds of cargo ships
create yellow and white striping out into the middle of the river from
the opposite shore.
Tacoma & Seattle
Unfortunately, being this late means that all of the bays are concealed
in darkness. Too bad!
Seattle overnight
We arrive at the King Street Station in Seattle a little before
midnight and are greeted at the platform by Aram who helps us get our
bags into his limo. Aram is very solicitous and professional and I am
glad I called ahead. The line for taxis is at least 50 people
long.
The Holiday Inn is clean, quiet and well appointed. After several
years of trial and error with hotel chains during my career, I settled
on the Holiday Inn chain for their uniformly clean, predictable and
comfortable places to get a good night’s rest. We are not
disappointed tonight. Clean linens, hot water and comfortable
beds are just the start of a restful night.
We sleep late and go to the hotel dining room for brunch. Our server is
an unusual and delightful young lady with tattoos, piercings and a
great sense of humor, which is good, since we are acting a little
goofy. The breakfast dishes are tasty and well presented.
Lorraine likes hers so much that she declares it the best breakfast she
ever had and insists on sending a thank you note to the cooks.
Joel
Joel is stationed at Fort Lewis, about an hour south of Seattle.
He recently remarried, and we are looking forward to meeting his new
wife Danielle. I call Joel and find that he is having a surprise
inspection today and can’t get away. It was a long shot anyway.
Empire Builder
Our driver Aram is waiting at our hotel at the appointed hour and we
have another pleasant ride to the King Street Station. The
attendants put a ramp up for Lorraine when I ask for one and she wheels
right on the train under her own steam. When the attendants
realize that I am the family mule but on another car, they got their
schedules together and move me to the car with Lorraine. Isaac,
the attendant in our car, is particularly helpful.
Skyhomish River
The short trip from Seattle north to Everett is interesting. The
homes we see have large windows and verandas for sitting and watching
the ocean. And berries – my goodness -- there are blackberry
vines in every unpaved or uncared for patch of ground. Most of
them are loaded with fruit in clumps like grapes. Alice and I
want to stop the train and pick a few bushels.
As we turn east into hilly terrain I begin to see cinder cones and
stumps of volcanic cores. Winding through these forested volcanic
remnants is the Skyhomish River. It looks like an angler’s
paradise. The water is clear and the cobbled bottom
inviting. We follow it for several miles. I wish that I
could get out and play in it for a while. I also wish that my
fishing skills were well enough developed to justify the exertion
required for hiking into the gorge that the river winds through.
The Cascades Tunnel
The sun is setting and dusk is beginning to dim my field of view when
we enter a tunnel. It is almost eight miles long. No
lighting inside, except for some yellow warning lights at long
intervals. I suppose that provision has been made for
ventilation, but I start smelling (or maybe imagining the smell of)
diesel fumes about halfway through. Isaac tells me the name and
length of the tunnel and that it was the second longest train tunnel in
the world. Only Canada has a longer one.
The Rock Island Dam
Our conductor reports that the train is packed to capacity. He
asks for volunteers to take later dinners. I sign up for an 8 PM
seating; the last one. I eat with a nice young man named Jeff who
has just graduated from Long Beach State and was also on his way to
Chicago. The Columbia River shows up in the moonlight and becomes
our companion during our leisurely meal. By the time we order our
dessert, the Rock Island Dam appears in the glow of its orange
lights. It provides an impressive backdrop to the end of a nice
meal and good conversation.
Spokane
We ease into Spokane at a snail’s pace. We arrive a few minutes
before midnight, and I wonder if they were trying to keep it as quiet
as possible. The city looks deserted. There are very few lights
on in apartment windows and even some of the bars look like they are
closed.
I know it is a city of about 250,000 so I thought there might be more
activity. I have been here several times during the day and it
was bustling. However, we are going through the older parts
of town. Maybe that is why it seems so quiet.
Two freight trains move by as we wait for a part of another train to be
grafted onto ours. One clanks, rattles and groans as a single
engine pulls empty grain cars eastward. The second pulls fully
loaded (and much quieter) grain cars westward. There were two
locomotives pulling and two pushing the loaded train.
At 1:15 AM we ease out of town as quietly as we entered. I
expected some banging noises and jarring movements as the cars from
Pasco were grafted into our train, but there was nothing. The
whole process was virtually impossible to detect.
Sandpoint
The train picks up a little speed as it reaches the outskirts of
Spokane where the warehouses, trucking firms and light manufacturing
firms are. It reaches its full stride when it hits the Rathdrum
Prairie stretching for several miles to the north and east,.
We arrive at Sandpoint at 2:25 and stop long enough for someone to
either get on or off the train. I was on the wrong side of the
train to see what was happening. The good news for me is
that the train did stop to accommodate a passenger, which means that I
can ride the train on my visits to our family paradise across Lake Pend
Orielle from Sandpoint.
Whitefish Montana
I drop off to sleep as we leave Ponderay and do not wake up for three
hours. By then we are in Whitefish, Montana. The few trees
that are dressed in their fall colors are rendered more brilliant by
the soft colors of the dawn sky. The area is nicely kept and
seems to cater to hikers and skiers. As we continue, we see
coniferous forests filled with large and imposing trees that surprised
Lorraine and left her with a desire to see California’s coastal redwood
giants.
Shelby
I read about Shelby in the Amtrak literature and find that it was the
site of a Jack Dempsey boxing match in 1923; the year Lorraine was
born. The good citizens of Shelby offered to host a fight, and
the promoter agreed – if the money was right. The promoter wanted
at least $200,000. The citizens raised the money and also built a
40,000 seat stadium. The promoter whipsawed the citizen committee
by backing out of the deal and then starting it again. Potential
spectators were unsure whether the fight would take place and stayed
away in droves. Only 7,000 people attended. The promoter
skipped town with $300,000, which included the citizens’ stake in the
fight as well as the prize money. Three or more Montana banks
reportedly went bankrupt.
Havre
We have a ten minute stop at Havre, which has all the trimmings of an
active farming and ranching community. There are hundreds of
grain cars and many of them seem brand new. I also see a string
of multimodal flatbed cars with UPS trailers on them.
Williston
When we cross from Montana into North Dakota the landscape starts to
look less like prairie and more like farm land. Hay seems to be
one of the bigger crops and there are thousands of large circular bales
scattered in the fields.
Wheat seems to be another valuable crop and there are silos
everywhere. In one place I see an abandoned wooden silo slowly
decaying. Next to it is a taller silo sided with corrugated
metal. The windows and doors were broken. It has also been
abandoned. Nearby are three squat round silos made of corrugated
metal. They have conical roofs. They must be the new
trend in silos because there were hundreds scattered along our route.
Minot
It is dark as we pull into Minot and I find myself looking at
headlights whizzing back and forth on an elevated highway. There
are several multi-story apartment buildings and/or businesses
nearby. I was talking to Nancy (my wife) on the phone at the
time, and she said she remembered Minot as a small, single level
farming community. It has certainly outgrown that status.
Minneapolis
I went to sleep shortly after Minot and didn’t wake up until we
pulled into Minneapolis. After the morning ablutions and a couple
of cups of coffee, I go to the dining room for breakfast. I
sit with a couple from Minneapolis and talk with them about their kids
and what it is like to work in the Minneapolis climate where the
temperature can vary by 60 degrees in a single day. We cruise
alongside the Mississippi river for an hour or more while we eat and
talk. The couple tells me that the dozens of trash barges on the
river take Minneapolis trash somewhere, but they don’t know where.
Winona
By the time I get back to my berth, we are on the outskirts of Winona,
Wisconsin. It looks like it might have been the subject of a
Norman Rockwell painting. The houses are all clothed in fresh
paint. The yards are neat and the lawns are all the same
color. The elm-lined streets have sparkling white gutters and
sidewalks. There are no junk vehicles sitting around.
Wisconsin Dells
As we approach Wisconsin Dells the conductor announces “Ladies and
gentlemen, boys and girls we are nearing Wisconsin Dells, the home of
water slides, ferris wheel rides and tacky times.” He quickly
follows with “Oooh! I didn’t really say that did
I?” I see the water slides, carnival rides and
miniature golf as we pass. Later, June tells me that it was on
the list of favorite recreational spots when their kids were growing up.
Pewaukee
By the time we hit Pewaukee, Alice and I are ready to stop the train
and find some fishing poles. We have been following a fairly
narrow and sluggish river as it wends its way through fields of corn
and soybeans. The water is a dark grey-green, and we can see the
signs of fish rising for food. There are also egrets and herons feeding
on smaller fish. The conductor isn’t as receptive to my proposals
for a fishing break as I had hoped. In fact, he calls my bluff
and asked if I have actually brought my pole – I haven’t.
Chicago
Chicago’s Union Station gobbles up the train like a midday snack.
We detrain deep in the bowels of the monster and walk for what seems to
be hours before finally making it up to the street. Lorraine is
exhausted. As we near the street, we see redcaps in jitneys that
we could have called for.
We make contact with Arty who pulls into a taxi zone as an Amtrak
employee said he could. But loading everything into his sedan
takes longer than the patience of one of Chicago’s finest will allow.
He threatens Arty with a $100 ticket. Thankfully, we are almost
done.
Visiting with family
We arrive in Chicago early enough to have dinner at a place that can
accommodate a large family gathering. The next day Arty and I go
to a Cubs game while Lorraine and Alice visited with June two of her
daughters and their husbands. Sunday, more family members drop by
and we go out for dinner with at a nice Mexican restaurant. We
are in the Midwest and amazingly, they serve menudo at this
restaurant. I can’t resist even though my family members
are totally grossed out.
Long after Lorraine returned to the Holiday Inn in Bolingbrook each
night, Art, June, Alice and I, along with two or more of Art &
June’s adult children would talk until well past midnight. It was
nice to catch up with each other without having to have a funereal to
get us together.
The Chicago Cubs
It has been 100 years since the Cubs have won a World Series
title. Their fans know how to cry. They also know how to be
fanatics. I find that out by attending a game.
Arty buys us tickets to a game where the Cubs have an opportunity to
clinch the title as this year’s champions of the central division of
the National Baseball League.
To add some excitement the Cubs are playing their bitter rivals, the
Saint Louis Cardinals. The stands are filled with blue and white
jerseys of the Cubs, including the nice one Art and June bought for
me. There are pockets of Cardinal red, but they are overwhelmed
by the approximately 40,000 Cubs fans.
The Cubs win by one run in a game that wasn’t decided until the 51st
out. The Cubs fans go nuts. My ears probably won’t stop
ringing for a week. I had a lot of fun, and it is one of those
baseball experiences that will always be with me.
Naperville
On Monday afternoon, we board the California Zephyr in Chicago after
making full use of the available Red Cap services. What a
difference. Lorraine is driven right up to her car when boarding
started.
The first stop is in Naperville which is a lot closer to Art’s home in
Bolingbrook than Union Station. We probably would have been
better off to board the California Zephyr in Naperville.
Naperville is also a town that figures prominently in Art’s historical
novels about the Chicago area.
Galesburg
By the time we get to Galesburg, we are beginning to wonder if they
raise more corn in Illinois than Iowa. There were thousands of
acres devoted to corn with soybeans interspersed.
I was interested to learn that Galesburg was the site of the fifth
Lincoln/Douglas debate in 1858. Alice and Lorraine are more
interested to find that it was the home of poet Carl Sandburg.
Burlington, Iowa
Before we cross the Mississippi into Burlington, we see miles and miles
of destruction caused by the Spring floods of 2008. Boats are
capsized in drowned fields. Houses and outbuildings are standing
in three feet of water, with high water marks another four feet
above. There are piles of cars and trees with heavy coats
of mud. Our hearts go out to those who suffered through this
tragedy.
Burlington is where Henry Ames Brotts, one of our family civil war
heroes, lived out his last years. I need to come back here and do some
research on him.
Denver
Visiting with family is a welcome opportunity, and as June said, we can
always catch up on sleep, but we can’t catch up with our visiting with
family from out-of-town. We are all exhausted and are fast asleep
before we reach Omaha.
I don’t wake up until we reach Denver. It is much larger than I
expected. We travel slowly through what seems to be miles of
refineries, factories and warehouses before we arrive at the
station.
I am among the last into the dining room for breakfast and have a table
to myself. I have a nice breakfast while we move slowly out of
Denver and into the Rockies. The weather is fine, and the views
of the valley that holds Denver are panoramic.
The Rockies
This trip through the Rockies is certainly the most scenic I have ever
taken. There are sheer cliffs exposing dozens of layers of
twisted and folded rock. There are towers of red sandstone that
put those in Sedona, Arizona to shame. There are huge areas of
volcanic ash and massive outcroppings of basalt and granite.
Sometimes the cobbled bottoms of the rivers we follow show clearly and
sometimes rapids obscure them. Sometimes the rivers are wide and
deep. At other times, they have been narrowed by landslides.
There are several delays along our route through the Rockies, so I get
time to study rather than just glimpse.
Grand Junction
We are now almost three hours behind schedule. We have been
beside the Colorado River for most of the afternoon. The dramatic
mountain scenes are being replaced by rolling foothills. Without
the background of the huge buttes, this would look like the desert
southwest I have spent most of my life in.
Low ranch style buildings are laid out haphazardly. Fresh paint
has been replaced with dingy stucco. Dusty shrubbery has replaced
the neat and orderly Midwest lawns. But looking beyond the
exterior comparisons, I start to wonder if conformity hasn’t also been
replaced with individual freedoms in the private lives of the residents.
One of my tablemates for dinner tonight was a woman from Michigan who
spent several years taking care of her mother in Heber Springs,
Arkansas, about 30 miles from where our family lived in Floral.
She is on her way to live with one of her daughters in Portland, Oregon.
The other two tablemates are a couple from Iowa who live just across
the river from Omaha. They are familiar with North High School in
Omaha where Lorraine graduated from high school. They are going
to Salt Lake City to use the genealogy library. I get to prattle
on about family history with people who are actually interested.
Winnemuca
My car attendant comes by early to make up my bunk. In my
recumbent viewing position I am starting to doze off by the time we
reach Helper, Utah. I wake just in time to see business signs
indicating we are in Winnemuca, Nevada. I have breakfast with two
visitors from Germany. They are brothers and engineers on a five
week vacation and have been getting on and off the train since they
left New York. They seem to have hit many of the popular tourist
spots and say they have thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
Their impression of our country is that it is “vast” and “very
beautiful.” We spend most of the meal talking about yesterday’s
trip through the Rockies, with them trying to find something from their
experiences in Germany to compare it to. They share descriptive
words in German with each other so one of them can describe the scenic
wonders they have experienced in English.
Truckee, California
I have looked at the wooden snow sheds sheltering the tracks in the
Sierras dozens of times as I traveled back and forth on Interstate
80. I have often wondered what it would be like to be inside
them. When we enter the snow sheds however, I see that they are
made of concrete and not the wooden ones I have been looking at for 30
years. The conductor announces that the wooden sheds are
sheltering tracks that haven’t been used for many years.
The Sierras are familiar territory for me and as we pull into Truckee,
I recognize several of the shops I have patronized and one restaurant I
have eaten at several times. It is a quaint and attractive town –
with or without snow.
Roseville
Alice has second thoughts about going clear into Sacramento to
detrain. Our homes are closer to the Roseville station and she
can get her ex and one of her daughters to pick us up. She
makes the arrangements and the train stops at the tiny little passenger
terminal at one end of the largest railway switching yard west of the
Mississippi.
It takes both cars, but we are home in a trice. In less than an
hour we are reviewing our trip from behind closed eyelids and in the
comfort of our own beds.
Post script
I usually try to include photos in my travelogues, but my camera was
not up to the task this time. Alice took lots of photos. I
might try to incorporate them later.
