Completing the Circle

Wednesday morning in Everett, I got up at 4:45. Coffee was already brewing, and I had packed most everything the night before. I was operating on six hour sleep, but I would have plenty of opportunity to snooze once I was on the train.

Small towns pass on the way to Seattle

Chance had to be dropped off at school and Jim had to get to work, so there was no way he could drive me into downtown Seattle to catch my train. Instead, he dropped me off at Mukilteo to take the Sounder (a commuter train) into King Street Station, where I would board the Coast Starlight for my return to Los Angeles.

The Sounder arrived as 6:56 on the dot, and I boarded with a few dozen other riders for the trip into Seattle. We arrived around 8:20, so I sat in the marble-clad waiting room, nodding off once or twice, until the train was called. There were two lines formed, one for coach passengers and one for sleeping car passengers. The second line was perhaps 20 people, while the coach line stretched along into the waiting room and doubled back on itself.

View from the King Street Station platform

The sleeping cars were boarded first, and I found my car with little trouble. The attendant was genial enough, but made no offer to help lug my bags up to my compartment. I was to find this was his M.O. for most of the trip. I managed my bags up the stairs and into my roomette, got myself situated and tried to get comfortable. (Three weeks of plane seats, unfamiliar beds and train rides had left my back sore and kinking.)

One of the features of the Coast Starlight is a Parlour Car, which is for the exclusive use of the sleeping car passengers. The Parlour Cars are actual cars from the old Super Chief, which used to ply its way from Los Angeles to Chicago before Amtrak was formed. Five of these cars were found in a Southern Pacific Railroad boneyard, and Amtrak rescued and refurbished them for use on this line.

In the Parlour Car, there are swiveling lounge chairs, banquettes with small tables for cocktails, a full bar and a half-dozen booths for dinner service. And although the passengers in the sleeper cars could opt to head one car down to the dining room for meals, slightly tastier fare was available in the Parlour Car. WiFi and two movies a day in the downstairs theater were also supposed to be available, but a last-minute swap in equipment meant these amenities were not available on our train.

Just as the train was pulling out of the station, at 9:35, Bob came by and offered me a split of champagne, which I graciously accepted. I noticed with some chagrin that my window was facing east, not west, so I would not be getting the spectacular ocean views once we got into California.

Debbie, the Parlour Car attendant stopped by a bit later, taking my order for lunch and letting me know about the Parlour Car services. Once the train was well on its way, I pulled out my laptop and started working on writing a story that's been in my head for the last couple years.

The 12:15 lunch seating rolled around and I was still writing. Debbie got on the train intercom and announced, "Mark, time to wake up and have lunch." By the time I finished my turkey panini, I was a celebrity of sorts in the sleeper cars.

I went back to my room and wrote a bit longer, then decided to pop in a DVD and watch "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean."

That afternoon, Bob stopped by to say he liked to make up the beds between 8 and 8:30. I told him I would probably not want mine done until 10 or 10:30. He didn't seem too happy about it, almost like I was there for his convenience and not the other way around.

Mist and forest in the Oregon mountains

Dinnertime rolled around: pot roast with wild rice pilaf. The Oregon mountains were moving past the window, covered with mist moving in and out of the coniferous forest. Out of dozens of shots, I have one good image suggesting how stunning the view was, even as the light was beginning to fade into night.

I returned to my room after dinner, watched the first part of the "LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring" DVD, and around 9 o'clock, I pushed the call button. Bob showed up 10 or 15 minutes later and made up the bed. After my evening ablutions (fairly quick on a moving train), I watched the rest of the movie and retired to bed.

I slept soundly and woke up early the next morning. In the night we had passed through Northern California and came into Emeryville around 8 a.m. I went to the Parlour Car for breakfast, but all Debbie had was an egg, bacon and croissant sandwich. It was a little on the stale side and obviously microwaved before being served up. While I was there, Debbie took my orders for lunch and dinner.

I knew that the rest of the ride (another 12 hours) was going to provide little in the way of scenery on my side of the train (and it was landscape I had traversed numerous times), so I went back to writing, breaking only for a lunch of vegetarian lasagna. After lunch, my back started to sing a song of strain and pain from the constant bumping and gyrating of the train, so I lowered the seats and stretched out for a nap, which lasted straight through the dinner service.

Around 7:30 I went to the Parlour Car, which was now closed for service, and gave Debbie a tip for all her attention and excellent work. I was hoping to talk her out of a soda, but she said everything was stowed.

According to my calculations (and those of the Amtrak app on my iPhone), the train would be getting in about a half an hour early, so I texted Jessie (who had insisted upon picking me up at the station) and let her know. As it turned out, she pulled into the station at the exact moment the train pulled in. And now the truth about Bob.

As we were pulling in, Bob stopped by the room of two pretty young women and asked if they needed help getting their luggage downstairs. They said no. There was also myself (no spring chicken at 60) and an elderly couple, at least in their 70s, who also might need some assistance, but he didn't even offer it. I got to watch as this dottering old man lugged his roll-around case down the twisting stairs, nearly losing his balance on several occasions. The old guy stopped in front of Bob, standing inside the train, and tipped him. Bob thanked him and watched the old guy wrestle his bags off the train and onto the platform. When it came my turn to leave, I gave Bob the nastiest, most steely gaze I could, hoisted my bags off the train myself and left him without so much as a fare-thee-well, much less a tip. (I had planned to toss him a quarter, but didn't have change with me.)

I took the stairwell down to the pedestrian corridor and made the short trek to the waiting area where Jessie greeted me with a big hug. We got to her car, put the luggage in the back, and I showed her the shortest route to the 110 (Pasadena) Freeway.

We talked about the trip on our drive to my house. She helped me in with the bags, and I told her she didn't have to stay. I'm assuming she had things to do at home, as she seemed ready to get back to what she was doing.

The house was in amazing shape. Aria had obviously been there earlier in the day, because the cats' litter box was clean and there was canned food out for the cats.

Marcel was the first to greet me, and he seemed annoyed and a little put out. Patty was furtive to begin with, but soon was coaxed to sit on the couch next to me. Once she got some petting, there was no stopping her, and she's been a pig for attention ever since. It was not long before I was unpacked, in my bunny suit and ready for bed. I stayed up long enough to watch the 11 o'clock news, see what the weather was going to be like for Friday, then I headed up to my very own bed and slept for a long, long time.

Friday was a day off, snoozing, posting the Everett entry to my blog and watching TV mindlessly. Saturday I organized my three weeks of back mail and caught up on "Upstairs, Downstairs," which I had started watching back in Wisconsin. Today I plan to organize myself for the next week and all the pickup chores and business meetings which will bring me up to speed after such a long absence.

I would not forgo the trip I've just taken for anything. It was a wonderful way to re-establish contact with family I hadn't seen in a long time, and a way to get out of myself and my life and routine in Pasadena. I feel fairly confident that I will be all right moving forward this year.