I know you already know I made it to Portland Saturday, so this post is really to catch up on some of the details and add some photos. Sorry it took so long to get up, but it was a busy Saturday evening and Sunday. I haven't seen Jesse in 3 months, so the blog was clearly not a priority.
Anyway, on Friday night I went out for drinks and dinner with Emily and Marc. When our food arrived at the table I realized we had 20 minutes until my train was scheduled to depart. Having checked Amtrack's website before arriving at the restaurant, I assumed it was on time, so we shoveled the food in our mouths, pounded the beers and ran out the door, only to check the schedule and see it was 35 minutes delayed. Oh well. We hung out at the Emeryville train station for a bit, it was fine. The train arrived, I said my goodbyes, got on the train, and sat. For 1.5 hours. Without moving. According to the sign in the station, we were delayed for a "passenger trespass situation". I later found out this was code for suicide by train. Yikes.
Fortunately, it was night time and I was tired. I got probably 3 hours of sleep at various points throughout the night. My neighbor smelled like chicken soup and snored pretty loudly. She did spend much of the night sleeping in the lounge car, though, which was nice.
Then the morning brought the most amazing scenery I'd seen yet. The Cascades beat out the Sierras and even the mighty Rockies in epic sweeping views. Plus there was snow! It was all quite incredible. Photos are below. I couldn't get great photos, sadly, because I was on the aisle and there were lots of trees blocking the view. What I did get does not really show the scenery, but you all probably guessed that.
After all that, we arrived in Portland just under 45 minutes late. Jesse was waiting for me at the station. It was sunny and also raining, which turned out well because we saw the most amazing double rainbow, where we saw the entire arc of both. It was a hell of a welcome to my new home.
I'll tell more about my last few days another time, the final Presidential debate starts in a few minutes. Must get ready!
Cinder cone next to Mt. Shasta (Northern CA)
Mt. Shasta's snow-covered north face
Canyon in southern Oregon
More canyon
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