Train Ride + Seattle

So let's begin at 5:30 am on the 24th.

Aaron and I arrive at the Amtrak and start taking our 5 totes and 1 box to get checked, only to find out that the train taking us from St. Louis to Chicago is not a train that carries checked luggage. After much pleading, the luggage guy said he'd send our stuffs on the next luggage train coming through the STL. After re-adjusting the bags so they all weighed under 50 lbs., re-taping the totes and getting out our carry-on bags, we hopped on the train at 6:30 am and arrived in Chi-town an hour late because we had to stop several times for freight trains to pass by us. No worries though; we had an hour to spare before climbing aboard the EMPIRE BUILDER!!! (sweet name for a train, eh?)

At 2:45 pm, we got on our double-decker train and begin our trip to Seattle. There isn't really a whole lot to say about the train ride. We did not pay the extra money for a sleeper car, but  sleeping in our coach seats wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. The first night I was extremely tired from getting up the morning before and from the excitement of a new adventure/worrying about waking up in time to make the train. But the second night was not comfortable or restful. When I wasn't sleeping, I read the book, The Time Traveler's Wife. (very good tale about timeless love...), chilled in the observation car, had a meal in the dining car or took SWEET PICTURES!!! (which as you can see, are posted).

After arriving in Seattle on the 26th, Aaron's mom picked us up from the train station and we took a little driving tour through Seattle. The Space needle was pretty cool looking, Pike's Market was nice and so was the art scattered around the city. The plethora of museums around Seattle was very exciting, but I was sad to learn that many of them require a 20 dollar bill to enter (NOTHING like St. Louis museums...). We didn't really have time to walk around the city, but there was talk of heading to the city tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have a better chance to check out the city then.

The rest of the night we spend getting settled in and today we visited Mt. Rainier and took a ton of pictures (it was gorgeous!!! but I'll post those in the next blog...)

And that's all I've got to say about that...

Picture info (no necessarily in order):

Sunrise in North Dakota. Hey!!...

Me lookin' out the window at the pretty scenery

Farmland in Montana

Sunrise in Rockies somewhere in Washington

The Space Needle

The Cat Whisperer in Pikes Market (that one is for you Maria!)