Mt. Shasta
September 14th, 2018
I was up at 6 AM. Actually, I was up much earlier, I finally got out of bed at 6 AM, I am not sure how much I had slept the night before but it wasn’t a much. I was in and out of it the entire night. Yes the clackity-clack put me to sleep but the screeching of the wheels or the sounds of another train passing in the opposite direction would wake me. It was dark out and not much to look at. I was hoping to see the fires, but I never did and must have nodded off when we went through Redding
Breakfast:
I think we were the first ones to Breakfast, there was another guy who sat with us and we were pretty much the only table. I noticed a lot of people bringing booze on board with them, perhaps they slept better than I did or if they brought enough, were still sleeping it off.
The terrain had changed and had become very interesting. Out the window, I could see a large mountain/volcano. I wondered if it was Mt. Shasta, I asked the waitress and she said she wasn’t sure but I could be right. Part of me wished that they announced the sites or gave us a guide of major sites. Then again, I am not always keen when i fly and a captain begins to announce every time there is something to see outside one side of the plane when I am trying to sleep. I pulled out my phone, checked google maps and saw that we were close to Mt. Shasta.
I was amazed that we were on that train for almost 24 hours and we were still in California. I forget at just how big this state is and I always think that San Francisco and Sacramento are at the top of the state and although they are in Northern CA, they are not at the very top of the state.
Mt. Shasta was the only impressive thing at breakfast, the food was just OK. Afterwards, we headed back to our room which the attendant had made up the room and had put away the top bunk bed. We spent most the morning looking out the window. The terrain was beautiful.
Lunchtime:
We sat down to lunch as we were approaching Eugene, Oregon. The scenery has been beautiful I just wish they windows were clean so we could get good pictures. I realized that even if the window were clean, taking pictures was difficult, you didn’t have time to think about it. I would see something and by the time I grabbed the phone or camera, by the time it was ready to take a picture the train had moved on. I don’t how many times I had said, “That would have been a great picture”. Once again, the terrain had changed and we were seeing a lot of green, lakes and mountains.
We were seated with two people who were not travelling together. Ironically, one of the guys was a firefighter from San Diego. He said that it was normal for these wildfires to die down at night due to the cooler and frequently moister air. They probably jumped the gun on the announcement thinking it would get worst and then it didn’t. I told them that I was hoping to see the fires but I never did. The guy said that he had and knew that we were close because he could smell it. I guess I slept through it.
Pumpkins
As we ordered our lunch, I kept thinking, where is that music coming from? I kept hearing Motown music and I would hear it and then it would stop. Was someone playing it on their cell phone? It would get louder and then it would die back. I finally realize that it is coming from the phone in the waitress’ back pocket. A waitress playing her favorite tunes while waiting on tables? That is a new one for me. I was seated in the back of the dinning car and watched table after table go through the same thing with trying to figure out where the music was coming from.
We went back to the room and watched the scenery go by. I had almost given up on taking pictures and just watched the scenery go by. We went through a lot of farmland. I kept seeing large fields of pumpkins. We arrived in Portland right before dinner
Dinner:
Nothing new or exciting at Dinner. We met a couple from Salinas who were headed to Seattle to take an Alaskan Cruise. The restaurant was still out of the same dishes they were out the night before, the waitress explained she had just learned they weren’t out of it, they had switched suppliers and the new supplier doesn’t carry those particular items.
Over the two days, a lot of people commented on how good they thought the food was. Good is a relative term and I although I didn’t think the food was bad, I didn’t think
We finally arrived in Seattle around 8PM – 34 hours after we left. I had enjoyed the trip but I was ready to get off the train!
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