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On our way to the convention
Friday, July 14, 2006
Vacation Time! I'm off to the GNRHS convention in Kalispell, Montana
and this year I'm going by train.
I drop my wife's car off at her work in downtown Bellevue and ride
the Sound Transit bus downtown. As usual, I'm way early so I have
a sandwich at Great Harvest Bakery in the Union Station complex.
I am rolling along my HUGE "expandable" blue suitcase, muscling it
over to the King Street Station. As I sit down, I am immediately
set upon by a lady who wants to rent me a DVD movie player for
the trip. Ah, no thank you. My scanner will be entertainment
enough for those "slow" moments.
They boarded us First Class Passengers at 4:30 (not the 4:20 as announced).
We have everyone on board at 4:45 but we didn't leave the station.
It turns out we were delayed 7 minutes because one of the lead unit's
headlights had burned out on the way over from Interbay.
 
This was fortunate for Bill Sornsin who turned up riding in my 0830
car in a roomette nearby. Well, Hi there, Bill! Fancy meeting you here!
The taxi Bill called to his office never showed. He ran out into the street
and in NYC fashion, flagged down another cab and rushed to King Street right
on the stroke of our 445pm departure time. He JUST made it on board.
Our headlight delay saved the day.
Chris was our car attendant. He checked us in at the sleeper door.
Later, he came by to introduce himself and explain about the train
features. A young fellow, a bit boisterous, but with a good attitude.
After we pulled out, the train conductor came through and lifted our tickets.
Later on, yet another member of the train crew stopped by (Chief Onboard
Services?) and took our dinner reservations. I chose 530pm.
 
My roomette came with two bottles of water, a trip magazine, timetable and
small box from Amtrak. The box contained a rather confusing assortment of
items including: a shoe shine cloth, a tea bag, two mints, and a coupon for
some more tea. Very odd. I left it in the room, untouched, at Whitefish.
Our 0830 car was directly behind the diner. The Sightseer Lounge car
comes out of Portland and joins the train at Spokane that evening.
Scott Tanner boarded at Edmonds. I saw him WAY down the platform. Good
thing too, as he was boarding the wrong car. I flagged him down and then
helped him up the stairs with his suitcases. Scott said that our old
buddy Bill Lee was back working as station agent at Edmonds!
Dinner at 530pm is, according to Bill, "when they SAY it's 0530". As
Bill frequently rides #7/#8 as a "Trails & Rails" guide, he knows the drill.
http://www.nps.gov/trails&rails/
I forget the exact time we got into the diner, but think it was some time
after we left Everett before they called us.
Also boarding at Edmonds was former Great Northern "TPR" (Train Passenger
Representative) Greer Nielsen. The four of us (Bill, Scott, Greer and
me) sat together in the diner and Greer regaled us with stories of
his trips on GN's Western Star from the 1960's that will probably not ever
be published, if you get my drift.
The steak was good - nicely seasoned and cooked to order. Plastic plates,
of course, although the large main plate LOOKS like china, and metal
silverware. Scott and I each had a $12 (yikes!) half bottle of Merlot
whilst Bill and Greer split one. Dessert for me was Chocolate Bundt cake
with ice cream and whipped cream. I tipped our server lavishly -- a good
dining room crew on this trip! Bundt. Hmmm....that sounds suspiciously
German. DON'T mention the war...
http://www.fawltysite.net/episode06.htm
We arrived early at Wenatchee and left a few minutes late. We arrived Ephrata OT
and early (midnight) into Spokane. We also "waited for time" at Sandpoint and
Libby (double spot). Yes, I was awake -- didn't sleep too well on the train
for some reason. But it sure was nice to lay flat and close my eyes.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
I head to the shower downstairs at 5am and find Scott has beat me to it!
When it was my turn, I found there were plenty of towels in the "dressing
room" as well as soap. No shampoo, however. Had to bring my own.
Just like Motel 6.
The diner opened at "0630" (OK 0700 Amtrak time) and I had the French Toast
with turkey sausage on the side with juice. Sitting at our table, I had a
contact lens fold up on me and debated about running back to the bathroom
to fix it. You know how it is. NEVER leave the table until you've placed
your order. Well...it was getting painful. Finally, in desperation, I gave
Scott my order and ran back to the sleeper bathroom. Sure enough, the waiter
had stopped by the moment I left.
Scott and I were seated with an elderly couple "on their way home". Our food
was slow in coming, so I got a little antsy about arriving at our stop before
my breakfast. That just wouldn't do. As it turns out, I just had time to
finish and brush my teeth before arrival.
We arrived early at Whitefish, in fact our train sat on the platform a good
30 minutes before departing OT. I finally saw the reason after we got off.
Attached to the rear of the train was a DOT inspection/test car (a converted
Budd Amcoach). We were essentially never stabbed (delayed) all the way to
Whitefish except for a brief pause at Scenic for a Z train and slowing to meet
a coal train near Sandpoint with distributed power. Both of those were
rolling meets. I had never ridden an Amtrak train that arrived early
at every stop before. Somebody important must have been on that car.
Greer had told us a story in the diner about how when the Western
Star was running late, he said "Whenever we had an A Car (business
car) added somewhere, we always seemed to suddenly make up time and
get nothing but green signals. The dispatchers always seemed to
know about us".
So, here we are in Whitefish. We get off the train and I leave my luggage
with Scott so I can hoof up to the head end to take a picture.
I watched the crew change (they brought the new crew in by taxi) and on
my walk back to Scott saw two guys using a HUGE crowbar to try and pry
open the door on the ancient baggage car.
We saw Bill again who took the shuttle to our convention hotel. Scott and
I were planning to bum around Whitefish in the morning, so first thing I went
and
picked up my rental car -- a rather embarrassing-looking Dodge Magnum
station wagon. I felt like a gangster. Too bad it was silver and not black.
As I sat in the driver's seat, I noticed a car starting to
back into a chap
standing in the parking lot. He didn't see the car, so I started honking my
horn to warn him. He turned around and slowly ambled towards me. Now the
backing car was getting close and neither one saw the other. I started
gesturing wildly and pointing (how do ya tell someone they're about to
get run over anyway? I flunked out of mime school).
Long story short, the backing car missed the chap by inches and he slowly
came over to me. He took off his sunglasses. Gasp. It was Kris Werner
of Fergus Falls! Well how ya doing there, buddy? I had met Kris briefly
during our convention last year. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one
who hangs around train stations.
It turns out Kris was staying in a local hotel and the Mrs. and his two
kids were sleeping in. He was out for a little train action on this
beautiful morning. It was already up to about 84 degrees and mostly sunny.
A parade of westbounds started leaving WF after #8 left town -- two Z trains,
one auto train, one grain train and a stack train as the three of us
stood around and watched.
Scott and I really didn't have anything planned for the day except that it
was way too early to head for Kalispell. We hung out with Kris on the
platform until he had to leave and then we decided to visit the Stumptown
museum in the Whitefish depot.
The museum didn't open at 10am as scheduled, so we walked downtown up and down
the main drag. Had lunch at the GN Bar and Grill both of us buying T-shirts
(and one for the Mrs., natch). Had a couple more beers (Huckleberry Weizen!!!)
at the GN Blackstar brewery, walked back to the museum which was now open.
Ran into Ron Sherry, Cliff Salmon, Dave Thorsett and all as we browsed the
ancient GN artifacts. Books! More barely-GN-related-books for my collection,
woo hoo!!!
Finally, time to head down to the West Coast (Red Lion) hotel in Kalispell
for the convention. As we were walking in the parking lot of Whitefish depot,
camera in hand, someone pulled up and asked me directions to some sort of
local festival. It never fails. I must look like I know where I'm going.
Driving down to and around Kalispell...what's with all these anti-Meth drug
billboards all over town? They look disgusting (pictures of druggies in various
stages of decay). Is this their way of frightening the tourists? Ewwww....
Scott and I checked in to our separate rooms, I took a quick sponge bath,
brushed
teeth and took a nap. While snoozing, I had my camera download to my laptop.
When I woke up, I jotted down some notes for future reference.
Before dinner, I took a leisurely stroll through the hotel. I came upon
Jim Chinquist and Bev and John Tracy feverishly sorting through convention
shirts. Got a sneak peek of the shirts and here's what the graphic looks like:
No, that's not a "daisy". It's a bitterroot. Dontcha think?
http://www.50states.com/flower/montana.htm
Met Scott in lobby at 5:30 -- at 6pm we started off for "Jagz" which, according
to Google Maps was "somewhere out by the airport". So up US 2 we head
towards Columbia Falls. Hey look! There's an Omaha Orange palm tree! Gotta get
a picture of that. This is outside a store advertising "Fine Mexican Imports"
Ha!
That's a good one...
Had a reasonably nice buffet at Jagz, a steak and seafood house. The buffet had
some kick ass horseradish sauce (just the way I like it -- burns my nose hairs)
Scott and I sat with Bill S. Bob Downing, Greer and Earl Currie (Bob D's friend
from Spokane)
Did my duty and took "candid" pictures of folks "at table". Here ya go...
 
Got back to the hotel at 8:30 local time. Called the Mrs. to chat, then called it a night.
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