Four States Before Breakfast

I got myself settled in my roomette on the Empire Builder, in good time before our 4:45 departure. Tarek, my sleeping car attendant, cheerfully hauled my bag upstairs for me, and got me settled with a Piccolo of California Methode Champagnois (incidentally, in California, Extra Dry seems to mean somewhere well on the ‘Sec’ side of ‘Brut’ – Gill, you would drink it by the caseload I’m sure).

California Dreamin'

Off we went, straight over the Columbia River and into Washington State. We hung a right, and continued up the north bank of the Columbia River for 55 odd miles. That is one majorly impressive waterway! Wildlife spotted en route included salmon, deer, seals, and Washingtonians with Guns.

Crossing into Washington State

I met up with Shane & Nancy, a nice couple from the wilds of NW Alaska, who were traveling up to Spokane. Shane was of Cherokee stock, but had lived up in Alaska for some years working as a commercial crab fisherman. It sounds like a bloody hard life to me, hauling 7 foot square crab pots up from ridiculous depths, 200 miles out into the Bering Sea. This is on a 185 footer, with a hold capacity of a couple of hundred thousand pounds! Like a lot of things round here, you come across stuff that is on a scale which is hard to comprehend in terms I’m used to.

Looking south across the Columbia River, at Mt. Hood back in Oregon

After dusk fell, and we started to head more northward, leaving the Columbia River, and heading for Spokane, and a rendezvous with the Seattle section of the Empire Builder.

We got to Spokane about half past midnight, and spend half an hour or so consolidating the two trains into one for the remainder of the trip east, and the headed off into Idaho. I totally missed Idaho, and when I woke up about 7:00am, we had already been in Montana for a couple of hours.

My next stop was at Essex, a couple of hours further east. To be honest, I was having a few reservations about this next section, as we had been climbing all night and the lowe air pressure was making things a bit uncomfortable. Still, no way was I not stopping as Essex....