One Year Away

Penny

We are once again a little behind our posts!  We will catch up today!

Once we we left Vancouver, we took a bus ride to Seattle.  The ride was long and uneventful… It was a great opportunity to catch up on sleep.  Once in Seattle, we had to figure out where we were going to stay.  The hostels in Seattle were booked solid and so we started calling hotels to find a reasonable price for a room.  Unfortunately, all of them were over our daily budget.  Joe remembered that he had some Hilton points available and so we booked a room at the airport Hilton which was only a bus ride away from downown.  What luxury!  It was a very good feeling to be in a
hotel with a television, a huge clean comfortable bed and complimentary little bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion!  The little time that we did have in Seattle we spent it walking around the city and going for dinner at a great Thai restaurant… Also, being in the home of Starbucks, we were able to visit the first ever Starbucks!

The next morning we were off to the AMTRAK station to catch a 21 hour train ride to Sacramento.  Joe and I were excited as we had reserved a sleeper compartment for the overnight long ride….  Other than the fact that the train was about 3 hours late (making the ride a full 24 hours), the experience was real fun and we had a great time and met some great people.  We were the youngest people on the sleeper car but we made lots of friends with our older co-passengers.  It felt like we were on a cruise or something!  To our surprise, all of our meals were included and we even had a California wine tasting!

We spent most of our waking hours in the dining and parlor cars eating and making conversation with the other passengers.  One person who really made an impression on us was John who was Mennonite.  He was traveling with his wife and parents and was particularly interested in our trip!  He had so many questions for us and we gladly answered them.  He also shared his experience traveling in the USA.  He had traveled to a total of 46 states!

When it was time for bed, Joe and I headed back to our tiny litle sleeper room.  The room which only
consisted of 2 seats that faced each other, was converted into 2 single beds (like bunk beds).  The sleeper was not for anyone with a fear of small places… 

After a decent night sleep, we woke up and headed to the shower!  We got all cleaned up and had a great breakfast before the train pulled into the Sacramento station…