The start of our trip of a lifetime was anything but smooth. It had been snowing in Salem for a couple of days. By this morning we had ten inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down. And the forecast was for it to turn to ice in the afternoon.
We had planned to call a
cab to take us to the train station.
There we would board an Amtrak bus at 1:05
to take us to Portland in time to
catch the Empire Builder at 4:45 p.m. But in spite of calling starting at 10:00, we were unable to get a cab. So we asked Ryan, the 23-year-old son of our
neighbor across the street, if he could take us in his little four-wheel-drive
car, and he agreed. In the meantime, we
learned that all the Amtrak buses to Portland
were cancelled. Our only hope was that
the Coast Starlight would be close to on time, and that we could get on
it. So at 11:45
we jumped into Ryan's car and headed out.
The roads were terrible, but he plowed ahead, and we arrived safely at
the train station. When we got there, we
were told that the Starlight was running late, but a bus was chartered to take about
eight of us to Portland.
We left Salem at
1:25. The freeway was pretty clear, and the driver
made good time, arriving in Portland
at 2:45. So far so good. The Empire Builder was there, and we were
told we'd board at 4:20. We were a little late boarding, and once we
got on we were served a very nice cold supper.
And then we sat. It turns out
that we had to wait for the Starlight after all. It finally arrived several hours later. We left Portland
at 8:00. After 20 minutes underway, we came to a stop
and sat for two and a half hours. It was
the first of many delays, which our car attendant said were to be expected. He told us the Empire Builder was averaging ten
hours late in Chicago. Mostly it has to do with the increased rail traffic from the oil fields in North Dakota. We were supposed to meet up in Spokane
with the other half of the Empire Builder out of Seattle
at 1:00 a.m. We arrived at 9:30.
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